Code was written in 1930 by two Irish Americans, Martin Quigley and Jesuit Fr. Daniel Lord. When the Catholic Church organized the Legion of Decency to protest against violent and sexually licentious Hollywood films, Irish American priests led the way. And when the Production Code Administration responded in 1934 by instituting the Seal of Approval provision that enforced the Code, Irish American Joseph Breen helmed the organization (and did so for the next 20 years). Picturing Irish Americans as moral guardians possibly reached its apex with the short‐lived popularity of Senator Joseph McCarthy, a politician who exploited the Red Scare by pursuing potential communist agents in the United States.
When McCarthy’s popularity diminished in the mid‐1950s, the Production Code Administration’s power was also beginning to wane. While one might suppose this to signal a loss of Irish American influence on Hollywood film, the 1950s also seemed to signal the end of Irish American struggles for inclusion. By the end of World War II, the Irish American population had largely been assimilated. Evidence of this was plain on American movie screens: actors of Irish heritage regularly played a variety of roles instead of being typecast as only Irish characters. For example, in the 1940s, Gene Kelly had often played overtly Irish American characters, but by the 1950s, his characters were considered simply American. He was, after all, An American in Paris (1951), not an Irish American in Paris. A few years later, Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly, both of Irish descent, starred as the epitome of upper‐class white culture in High Society (1956). Even in a film about Ireland and Irish immigration, one can find successful assimilation dramatized. For example, in John Ford’s Oscar‐winning The Quiet Man (1952), John Wayne plays an Irish American so thoroughly assimilated to American whiteness that he has difficulty coping with the culture and people of Ireland itself. The election of President John F. Kennedy in 1960 might be said to symbolize the pinnacle of Irish American assimilation, although there were still many Americans who were outspokenly prejudiced against his Irish heritage, as well as his Catholicism.
Going My Way (1944) told the story of two generations of Irish American priests – the older (Barry Fitzgerald) portrayed in broad fashion, and the younger (Bing Crosby) as almost thoroughly assimilated.
Going My Way, copyright © 1944, Paramount.
Many Irish Americans today still strongly hold onto their ethnic heritage and identity, as can be seen across the country every St Patrick’s Day. Being white and being Irish are no longer incompatible, though, as the common phrase “everyone’s Irish on St Patrick’s Day” attests. Irish Americans today can choose to proclaim their ethnicity or to blend into an undifferentiated whiteness. This status is evident in the way Irish Americans have been shown in Hollywood films since the 1960s. Explicitly ethnic Irish Americans surface only sporadically – often in nostalgic period films like The Sting (1973), Miller’s Crossing (1991), or The Road to Perdition (2002). A few other films examine Irish‐American immigration: they include Far and Away (1992), In America (2012), and Brooklyn (2015). Gangs of New York (2002) is one of the few films that acknowledges what Irish Americans endured in the struggle for acceptance into whiteness during the 1800s. The social and political problems faced by Ireland itself have been the subject of several Irish, British, and American films, including The Crying Game (1992), In the Name of the Father (1993), Michael Collins (1996), and Angela’s Ashes (1999). However, many more Irish American characters appear in Hollywood films in ways that are indistinguishable from any other white characters. When audiences watched Saving Private Ryan (1998), most probably did not even consciously think about the title character being Irish American. He was simply a white American soldier.
John Ford’s The Quiet Man (1952) showed John Wayne’s Irish American attempting to assimilate when he moves to Ireland (and win the heart of Maureen O’Hara’s local lass).
The Quiet Man, copyright © 1952, Republic.
Looking for Respect: Italians in American Cinema
During the early 1800s, Italian people emigrated to America in relatively small numbers. However, many Italians (along with Poles, Slavs, Russians, Greeks, and other people from Southern and Eastern Europe) were part of a great surge in immigration that occurred in America during the final years of the nineteenth century. According to some sources, by 1900, 75% of the population of major urban areas (including New York City, Chicago, and Boston) were made up of immigrants. This influx of people produced a new round of xenophobia, the irrational fear and/or hatred of foreigners, among many Americans. Much as Irish immigrants had been compared to and equated with African Americans a few decades earlier, so too were Italian immigrants thought by some to be “black.” Conventional representations of Italian Americans in newspapers and early films depicted them as having darker skin tones, thick curly hair, and little to no education. Consequently, while Irish Americans were slowly coming to be regarded as white during the silent film era, Italian Americans were just beginning their own struggle for assimilation. Furthermore, Italian Americans themselves were sometimes prejudiced against other Italian Americans. Until the late 1800s, Italy was not a unified nation but a collection of separate principalities – thus many Italian immigrants had a stronger regional than national identity. Not all people from mainland Italy liked being compared to those from Sicily (and vice versa), although the popular media of the day often used the same stereotypes to represent people from both regions.
One of the earliest of those stereotypical representations (in newspapers, theater, and film) was that of an assimilationist small businessman. Sometimes named Luigi, or Carmine, or Guido, this Italian American stereotype was a simple‐minded, working‐class man who spoke in broken English and who often wore a bushy moustache. He was always smiling and gracious, and he worked as a street vendor, cranked a street organ, or ran a small café in order to support his large family. This stereotype continued to be a recognizable stock character throughout decades of Hollywood film. He appears as a friendly restaurateur, small business owner, or fruit‐stand manager in small roles in countless Hollywood films. The type was so prevalent that one of the Marx Brothers (who were of Russian and Jewish heritage) became famous for his Italian American persona “Chico.” The type was also popular on radio (and later television) programs such as Life with Luigi (CBS‐TV, 1952 –3). To this day, the name “Guido” is sometimes used to describe a young, none‐too‐bright Italian American working‐class man, as in the films Kiss Me Guido (1997) and Don Jon (2013), or in the MTV TV show Jersey Shore (2009–2012) and its various spin‐offs. The stereotype is also invoked by the video‐game (and film) characters, the Super Mario Brothers (1993).
While the Luigi or Guido figure was somewhat simple‐minded, he was at least non‐threatening, and seemed to indicate that Italian Americans could eventually be assimilated into American whiteness via their hard work and capitalist ethics. However, there was another more ominous Italian American stereotype present in the public consciousness during the first decades of the twentieth century: that of the socialist radical or anarchist. An anarchist is someone who believes in toppling all forms of social control and/or government, often through violent means. The Italian American anarchist type (sometimes he was also depicted as coming from neighboring Southern or Eastern European countries) actively battled against white America rather than trying to assimilate into it. In films of the era, this dark‐skinned antagonist was defeated by heroic white men.
By the 1920s, yet another image of Italian American men could be found on the nation’s movie screens: the Latin
