Spaghetti Sissies Queering Italian American Media

Julia Heim is a Lecturer of Italian at the University of Pennsylvania. She has published or is co-author of the recent articles "Queer Italian Studies: Critical Reflections from the Field," "Why LGBTQIA+ Inclusivity Matters for Italian Studies," "Italian LGBTQ representation in Transnational TV," and Queering Italian Media. In addition to her research, Dr. Heim is the co-founder of Asterisk, an LGBTQIA+ Inclusivity taskforce.

This contributed volume brings together personal accounts and scholarly research in an examination of the LGBTQIA+ Italian American experience and representation in North American media. This is a population that has long been ignored both as an object of study and as a media-maker and consumer. Through consistent filmic representation, the image of the Italian American has become archetypal, leaving us with a set of immediately recognizable characters: the hyper macho blue-collar greaser, the anti-intellectual GTL Guido, the child-obsessed mamma, and the heteronormative mafia family. The rhetorical and literal loudness of these characters drowns out other possible embodiments of Italian American identity so that few examples survive of Italian Americans that do not conform to these classed, heterosexual modes of being. This volume fills that void, foregrounding the importance of representation and of rethinking the historical narratives and cultural stereotypes surrounding Italian American identity. This book is especially designed for those with an interest in queer theory, gender and sexuality studies, Italian American studies, and media and cultural studies.

Preface, "Split Tomato Sauce" by Tommi Avicolli Mecca, writer, singer/songwriter, activist, and editor of Smash the Church, Smash the State: The Early Years of Gay Liberation.- Introduction by Sole Anatrone and Julia Heim.- "Coming Out and Leaving Home: Cultural Friction in the Italian American Kitchen" by Eilis Kierans, PhD candidate in Italian Studies at Rutgers University, USA.- "Passion and Pulp: Impossible Families" by Clarissa Clò, PhD, Professor and Chair, and Director of the Italian Studies Program, in the Department of European Studies at San Diego State University, USA.- "Queer Categorical Miscegenation: Sexuality, Race, Gender, Class, and Ethnicity in Victor Bumbalo's Niagara Falls and Questa" by John Champagne, PhD, Professor of English at Penn State Erie, the Behrend College, USA.- "I would like to be a spoiled rich white girl" by Nick Boston,PhD, associate professor of media sociology at Lehman College, USA.- "Lifestyles of the Gay and Mobster" by Julia Heim, PhD, Lecturer in Italian at University of Pennsylvania, USA.- "Queering the Guido or Guidoing the Queer? Performing Gender and Identity on Comedy Television" by Carmelo Galati, PhD, Associate Professor of Instruction and Co-Director of the Italian Studies Program at Temple University, USA.- "Time to come out, girl!": Queering Italian American Sexuality on TV Land's Younger by Aria Cabot, PhD, Director of the World Languages and Literatures Teaching and Technology Center at Southern Methodist University, USA.- Spotlights: These "spotlights" are short, autobiographical pieces that appear throughout the book, interspersed between the chapters, serving as both a break from the more scholarly work, and a look at what it means to live as a queer Italian American media-maker. The authors-whoare all involved in media in a variety of ways-reflect on how their identities as Italian Americans, and as LGBTQIA+ identified peoples influence each other and their work. Contributors:.- Rita Houston & Laura Fedele (radio personality and producer).- Annie Lanzilotto (author, playwright).- Dana Piccoli (entertainment writer and pop culture critic).- Katelynn Cusanelli (reality TV star).- Norman Korpi (reality TV star).- Mitch del Monico (director).- Julio Gambuto (director and author).