If this pisses me off, does that mean I can't make fun of the Scatologists when a play pisses them off?
The Glen Ellyn Sun: The show goes on
A federal judge on Wednesday, Nov. 15 rejected an effort to stop a Batavia middle school from putting on a play that has been criticized for stereotyping Italian-Americans.
At a hearing in Federal District Court in Chicago Wednesday morning, Judge James Grady ruled that freedom of expression outweighed concerns about potential damages to students at Rotolo Middle School.
Grady said that while he had not read the play, efforts to stop the production before the scheduled performances on Friday and Saturday went against the First Amendment.
"It's called pre-censorship," said Anthony Scariano, a defense attorney who represented the Batavia School District. "That's the highest burden to overcome."
The controversy about Fuggedaboudit: A Little Mobster Comedy began when Marina Amoroso-Levato heard about the performance from her son, a student at Rotolo Middle School in Batavia. Amoroso-Levato said she was offended by the Italian-American stereotypes she saw in the script and worried her son might be ridiculed in class.
She contacted the Order of the Sons of Italy in America, a group that has protested other portrayals of Italians. Geneva attorney Joseph Rago then sought the restraining order and injunction to prevent the school from putting on the show.
Rago said he is now weighing whether they would -- or could -- appeal the case before the curtain goes up Friday.
"We're obviously disappointed in the judge's ruling," Rago said. "Particularly because he had not read the play."
Rago said Amoroso-Levato and her son, who both attended the hearing, also were disappointed.
The 99-page script was written by Rotolo teacher Matt Myers. The district has supported his two-act play and refused to cancel the performances.
Remember the good old days when a couple of the boys would simply go over to the house of a guy like Myers and show him how wrong ethnic stereotyping is by breaking the little #**$!!!$#*!!'s knees with a baseball bat?
Principal Donald McKinney invited parents to read the play, which he says is a light-hearted attempt to show how stereotypes are wrong.
"This play isn't about Italian-Americans as crooks; it just isn't," Scariano said. "It's against stereotyping."
So saith the paid mouthpiece and race-traitor. I wonder how he'd react if he was publicly portrayed as some mobster's consiglieri just because his father's family came from you-know-where?
I'll bet you $20 he'd file a lawsuit so fast, it would make your vermicelli spin.
The play will go on as scheduled Friday, and Dona DeSanctis, the national deputy executive director of the Sons of Italy, said there are no plans to protest the performance. DeSanctis said her group is content to fight the issue among the adults in court, and it would be inappropriate to subject the child performers to a protest.
Both sides of the argument were able to agree on one thing: the kids at Rotolo undoubtedly learned a lot after their school play turned into national theater.
"It really is a learning experience for everybody involved, especially the middle school students," Rago said. "If anything good can come out of this, maybe the students would understand that there are competing rights in society, and the Constitution is a balancing-out of the competing rights."
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