We live in a world of chronic whiners. Yes, that sounds terribly negative and of no conscience, but the fact of the matter is that our world has become filled with people who want something for little or no effort and have the audacity to complain when they do not have their wishes immediately fulfilled. But, before I launch into a soapbox speech about whining, allow me to inform you of an interesting conflict that has arisen in New York City regarding the Columbus Day parade.
The issue stems from two members of the cast of the popular HBO show, “The Sopranos,” being invited to march in the Columbus Day parade in downtown New York. The two were invited by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to march with him in the parade.
Bloomberg’s invitation caused a few problems. The Columbus Citizens Foundation, which has orchestrated the parade for 58 years, is a group consisting of mostly Italian-Americans. “The Sopranos” it is a show about the inner workings of the mob. Most of the characters are the typical movie Italian-Americans: brash and crude with a happy trigger finger.
The Columbus Citizens Foundation took offense to these actors being invited to participate in the parade. They say that they are “…deeply offended by this program’s [“The Sopranos”] extremely negative and ugly stereotyping of our people.”
Of course this is an inaccurate and stereotypical representation of a group of people. Of course this is a negative and ugly stereotyping of a people by a television show.
However, what is new about that? Television has and likely always will completely misrepresent certain groups of people. That is because the television industry is about entertainment-not being politically correct. The entire world has a good idea that the stereotypes we see on television are not a correct portrait of a culture.
I am from Alabama. The Oscar-winning movie Forrest Gump portrayed Alabama to be a backward and redneck state, and Auburn fans notwithstanding, that representation of Alabama is incorrect. However, I did not get thrown into a fit of whining and outrage; I just laughed along at the jokes on my state.
The Columbus Citizens Foundation would be well-served to get over it, move on and just let the people march in the parade.
With all that goes into planning a parade, perhaps they can find something relevant and important to do instead of whining.
Josh Johnson is a junior broadcast meteorology major.