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SHARK
TALE: Sinking to New Depths
The
Movie
 DreamWorks, the company owned by Steven Spielberg,
Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, has produced an
animated children's Mafia movie, Shark Tale, about Oscar,
a little fish (voiced by Will Smith) who tells a lie
that gets him mixed up with the Five Families of sharks
and killer whales.
The gangster fish have Italian names
and are voiced by Robert DeNiro, Martin Scorsese and
Sopranos actors Michael Imperioli and Vincent
Pastore. Their dialogue is peppered with "capeesh," "fuhgettaboutit," "acida," and
other examples of "Hollywood gangster" Italian. The
background music on the soundtrack in several scenes
plays Italian opera. (See www.sharktale.com.)
The
Marketing
To promote it, DreamWorks has formed partnerships
with Coca-Cola, Burger King, General Mills, Hasbro Toys
and other corporations that are spreading Shark Tale and its characters around the globe on cereal boxes,
fast-food meals, soft drinks, snacks, action figures,
games, posters, etc.
The studio is pitching Shark Tale as
a children's morality play in which Oscar learns the
importance of telling the truth. DreamWorks has developed
a free Shark Tale "learning
project" for teachers of grades 3-6 to use in their classrooms.
It has activities, literacy drills, conflict resolution,
etc. and a contest with free tickets to the movie as
the prize.
The studio scheduled the film to premiere
nationally on October 1, the first day of Italian American
Heritage Month. Shark Tale is on DVD and plans
for a
Shark Tale II are already in the works.
The CARRES
Alliance
When word about Shark Tale leaked in late 2003,
OSIA and the CSJ, together with the Columbus Citizens
Foundation, the NIAF and UNICO National, formed the Coalition
Against Racial, Religious and Ethnic Stereotyping (CARRES).
This
alliance of more than 25 ethnic organizations includes
Arab Americans, Polish Americans and the National Conference
of Community and Justice, a multi-ethnic activist group.
The ADL, La Raza, the NAACP and the National Urban League
declined to join CARRES. [See below for list of CARRES
members.]
CARRES wrote to Spielberg, asking
him to change the names of the characters and remove
all Italian expressions from the dialogue. DreamWorks
rejected this request. CARRES then launched a multi-pronged
approach, using grass roots networks, its political connections
and its media contacts to alert the public to this movie.
It
also called for a national boycott of all products that
promote Shark Tale and its characters. These include
Coca-Cola, Burger King, Krispy Kreme Donuts and General
Mills Foods.
See below for what you can do about this
movie that will pass the stereotype of Italian Americans
as gangsters to children all over the world.
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