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The word “mafia” is never heard in The Godfather

154 points by networked 7y ago

fjp 7y ago
I highly recommend the book The Good Mothers. Even if you think you know about the mafia, the scale that they are operating on will blow your mind. The Calabrian-based mob control a medium-to-large country's worth of the world's money.
- matthewaveryusa 7y ago
  Gomorrah [1], the book, by Roberto Saviano is pretty good too. [1] quick fun read on the origins of Sodom and Gomorrah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodom_and_Gomorrah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodom_and_Gomorrah
austincheney 7y ago
Vietnam is never mentioned in any episode of Gomer Pyle either directly or indirectly. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gomer_Pyle,_U.S.M.C https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gomer_Pyle,_U.S.M.C.
- 1-more 7y ago
  Ewok and Jawa are never mentioned in the original Star Wars trilogy. Maybe never at all?
  - kd0amg 7y ago
    Luke, in Episode 4: "Why would Imperial troops want to slaughter Jawas?"
    - 1-more 7y ago
      Well I'll be. OK just ewok then.
  - scbrg 7y ago
    LUKE: These are the same Jawas that sold us Artoo and Threepio. BEN: And these blast points, too accurate for Sandpeople. Only Imperial stormtroopers are so precise. LUKE: Why would Imperial troops want to slaughter Jawas? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTKHZN8c2L8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTKHZN8c2L8
  - mrec 7y ago
    I'm pretty sure the terms "X-Wing", "Y-Wing" and "TIE Fighter" are never mentioned in A New Hope, yet when when the movie came out everyone knew them.
    - 1-more 7y ago
      Thaaaaaat's the one I was thinking of instead of Jawa. Dang.
- yitchelle 7y ago
  In the meantime, the Korean war has been mentioned countless number of times in MASH.
  - ubermonkey 7y ago
    ...which everyone read as "Vietnam".
    - dylan604 7y ago
      ?? I've never met anyone that confused the conflict setting of MASH as Vietnam. Where do you base that on? Because of the time it was aired/produced?
      - singlow 7y ago
        The show was set in Korea but wad made during the Vietnam war. The Korean setting was a facade for a show that was making commentary on the contemporary situation.
      - edgyquant 7y ago
        I always thought MASH was about Vietnam tbh
      - ubermonkey 7y ago
        It was set in Korea, but the subtext was entirely the Vietnamese conflict, which was happening or recent (ish) for the film (Altman, 1970) and early years of the TV show (1972-1983).
- cabaalis 7y ago
  Another thing I never thought I'd see on HN, Gomer Pyle, USMC. I didn't exist in the original airings, but Nick @ Nite and TV Land gave me all those awesome shows when I was a kid. Dick Van Dyke, I Love Lucy, Bob Newhart, Rhoda, Mary Tyler Moore, Taxi, The Munsters, Happy Days. The list goes on and on.
  - dylan604 7y ago
    Before Nick @ Nite, those same syndicated shows were the primary content for channels in the UHF band. The major networks were in the VHF band. Back then, a show didn't qualify for syndication until it hit 100 episodes. That's why they made such a big deal about it. That's also why they would have 20+ episodes per season to get to 100 in as few years as possible. Once you got to 100, you didn't worry about getting canceled as much because you now could earn mail box money from syndication fees.
mapleboi 7y ago
really interesting article. this is one of my favorite movies and i've never even thought about that word
- deleted 7y ago
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james-imitative 7y ago
> Colombo was paralysed after the attack and died seven years later in 1978. This is a tragedy. Think what other movies this man could have made. "Tant pis".
tomnj 7y ago
It’s heard in Godfather part 2, though: https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&t=1m&v=L6DkVsssnmQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&t=1m&v=L6DkVsss...
- GrumpyNl 7y ago
  So debunked and bad article.
  - TomBombadildoze 7y ago
    ^The word “mafia” is never heard in The Godfather$
  - ShinTakuya 7y ago
    Not surprised, news.com.au is a famously bad news source in Australia. It constantly puts out tabloid level nonsense. Like many such outlets, it's owned by Murdoch's news corp.
  - jjulius 7y ago
    Not really. The article is only about "The Godfather", not "The Godfather 2" or "The Godfather Trilogy". It only talks about the first film and never claims it's not mentioned in any of the sequels.
trumbitta2 7y ago
That's because mafia refers to itself as "Cosa Nostra", "'Ndrangheta", "Camorra", and "Sacra Corona Unita" depending on where in Italy is originated from.
- WilliamEdward 7y ago
  "Ruddy also agreed that the script wouldn’t include “Cosa Nostra,” another name for the mafia"
  - james-imitative 7y ago
    Really? How bizarre.
  - tomnj 7y ago
    Also mentioned in godfather part 2: https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&t=4m26s&v=L6DkVsssnmQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&t=4m26s&v=L6DkV...
    - aguyfromnb 7y ago
      From the article: "So Paramount agreed and [the League] thought it’d won this great victory despite the fact there was only one use of ‘mafia’ in the script.”
  - wool_gather 7y ago
    Although Corleone does greet Barzini right at the beginning, at Connie/Carlo's wedding, by saying "Benvenuto a casa nostra" -- "Welcome to our house" -- which I always figured was a mild pun of sorts on the writers' parts.
- rumanator 7y ago
  > because mafia refers to itself as "Cosa Nostra" Doesn't "Cosa Mostra" translate to "this thing of ours"?
  - 7y ago
MrGilbert 7y ago
I wonder what the state of the mafia is these days. Referring to the Wikipedia article[1], the five families are still a thing in New York. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Families#Original_and_current_Five_Families_bosses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Families#Original_and_cur...
- paganel 7y ago
  Not sure about the US but unfortunately it is still a thing in Italy, especially the 'Ndrangheta. This is an article from 2014 [1] but even so, back then they said that 'Ndrangheta had a turnover of €53bn, and I can imagine it did only go up in the meantime. The bad thing is that it has "captured" most of Northern Italy, too, or at least according to what I have read online and in the papers (I'm not from Italy myself), and it also has a strong European presence: Germany, Eastern Europe [2] etc. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/26/ndrangheta-mafia-mcdonalds-deutsche-bank-study https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/26/ndrangheta-maf... [2] https://linx.crji.org/2019/08/30/bio-mafia-care-producea-in-romania-asociata-cu-ndrangheta/ https://linx.crji.org/2019/08/30/bio-mafia-care-producea-in-...
  - saiya-jin 7y ago
    I can't find the article now, but basically Ndrangheta ended up so effective and successful in black money laundering, all other bad actors (drug cartels, other mafias, any bad guys) are using them for a fee. They are definitely in eastern/central Europe, in Slovakia government was toppled recently because its close ties to it, and because investigative journalist writing about it was executed with his fiancee. Mostly milking off EU subsidies, but whatever else gets the money, they want in, or they are already there. I can't imagine easy way out of that situation, government capture was pretty effective. Election change few faces but underlying flows mostly remain the same.
  - woodpanel 7y ago
    Re: Germany Stuttgart seems to be one of the mafia's strongholds in Germany. Just last year one famous local Stuttgart "restaurateur" got convicted, as the Italian Carabinieri uncovered that he was the southern German bridgehead for the 'Ndrangheta. He was dubbed the "celebrity chef" as the rich and famous frequented the one restaurant he actually owned quite often, including soccer players and elected officials. Even after mafia allegations existed for decades. [1] Germany is often considered to be their backyard. Relatively wealthy. Even small villages will have enough italian food demand to sustain one of your restaurant/money-laundering-fronts. And a generally unsuspecting public and administration. The last one being a pain in the neck for Italian law enforcement. Many grandees of Italian mobs thus seem to live under fake identities more or less unbothered in northern Germany. After reunification they bought vast strips of coastal property in the former communist part of Germany for cheap. [1] https://www.stuttgarter-nachrichten.de/inhalt.mafia-und-die-justiz-mafia-urteil-gegen-stuttgarter-promi-wirt.af300a2d-a511-4bc1-b305-6a25394a735a.html https://www.stuttgarter-nachrichten.de/inhalt.mafia-und-die-...
grabbalacious 7y ago
I started near the end and thought that Columbo had been shot by the mafia. As in Lieutenant Columbo. The horror! More seriously, though, they're great movies and I enjoyed them. Can't help feeling though that some people come away with the wrong message: they think that mafia morality is how the world really works and so they must now embrace it. Instead of noticing that Michael Corleone was trying to escape from it all and create a different life for his children. A life without the threats and violence. (And then I think, hmm, perhaps mafia morality is still alive and well. It's merely that instead of being assassinated people are being deplatformed, disemployed, etc.)
- rusk 7y ago
  I thought the point was that this was the way the world worked and that you couldn't get out of it. That, and the fact that good men are forced to do bad things by circumstances.
  - grabbalacious 7y ago
    Yeah he tried to get out and he couldn't. Perhaps the secret is not to get sucked in in the first place.
    - barry-cotter 7y ago
      Never seen the movies but in the book Michael absolutely could have gotten out. He chose not to because his honor would not suffer the insult to his family that occurred. He might have done differently if he hadn’t been in New York when the attack happened and the discussion over retaliation was going on. He was assumed to be on the outside. Sonny was in the family business. I don’t recall if Fredo was but Michael was thinking of becoming a professor and moving far from New York and the family.
      - rusk 7y ago
        Loyalty to family outweighed his personal ambitions. A common existential struggle.
zxcvbn4038 7y ago
This is news? New generation discovering The Godfather for the first time? Wait until they find out 2001 isn’t about history - that will really blow their mind. ;)
- foobar1962 7y ago
  Image the Hollywood re-make of 2001: My God, it's full of stars!
  - zxcvbn4038 7y ago
    Like another Expendables movie? Hopefully not a remake of The Love Boat (if you never saw the show almost every episode had guest stars that were well known celebrities, but usually retired or semi-retired from acting)
- owl57 7y ago
  Well, AI in 2001, surveillance state in 1984… It almost seems like these are chapter numbers in something like the 1984's inner book about how the modern world works.
  - zxcvbn4038 7y ago
    I’ve yet to see AI. For that matter, where is my floating car and ray gun? Future is turning out to be more of the same.
    - Al-Khwarizmi 7y ago
      Come on. For $50 I can buy a smart speaker that recognizes my voice and I can ask about the weather, news, events for a given day, factual questions, set reminders, play music of X genre, etc. I know the limitations (I work in the field), it's way less powerful than Hal 9000, but by 20th century standards we definitely have AI.
      - deleted 7y ago
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bamboozled 7y ago
Why is this surprising ? Actually curious why people think this is weird ?
- kthartic 7y ago
  Living up to your username I see :P
  - bamboozled 7y ago
    Do you run around all day talking about yourself in the third person ? Why would these people ?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- owlninja 7y ago
  I think it is just more interesting WHY they didn't use the word, because threats from the actual mafia.
- cambalache 7y ago
  Because we are in the age of overstating and zero subtleness. So it is surprising for younger folks to see the opposite. Watch any current show based on the past. In the first few minutes, you will have a scene showing over-the-top discrimination with the bad guys (white, male) saying out loud how the minority group will never amount to anything forever and ever.
eecc 7y ago
Well if you ask about or mention organized crime, many Sicilians will just ignore the subject as if it was never spoken of, gaslighting. Eventually they might lose patience and rebut that “the Mafia doesn’t exist”, “it’s just a fantasy of the Continentals”. And act offended, bloody idiots... (before you downvote, it’s family, i can see how this denial has devastated and is still hurting a whole country so rich of potential. I claim my prerogative to be bitter and angry at them.)
- ianai 7y ago
  I’m sorry it appears you lost someone(s)
  - jfengel 7y ago
    I don't want to speak on the OP's behalf, but it sounds as if they're complaining about something more systemic. Corruption throws sand in the gears of an economy. Italy is mentioned in the same breath with Greece as being on the verge of economic collapse. I don't know how much of that can really be pinned on organized crime, but it certainly wouldn't help.
- davidw 7y ago
  Lived in Padova with Sicilian roomates for a year, and they certainly talked about it. I mean, they kind of roll their eyes if it's the first thing someone mentions, because Sicily is an incredible, beautiful place with great food, beaches and Mt Etna - it's much more than the stereotype from the movies. But it's an undeniable fact of life just the same.
  - thefounder 7y ago
    I bet Medellin is such a great place too but who is to blame for its reputation? It's just that the locals got used with the families/cartels so they may not be bothered by the crime syndicates that much.
    - davidw 7y ago
dmos62 7y ago
The words "power fantasy" never came up in any of the Marvel movies. Show, don't tell.
notacoward 7y ago
It would be unrealistic for anyone in The Godfather to mention the mafia. People involved in a criminal conspiracy typically do not refer to it as such, for fairly obvious reasons. You'll never see a memo with the words "Witness Tampering Plan" or "Quid Pro Quo" left out on a desk at such organizations either, for the same reasons. Such things are discussed via euphemism or outright code, even that as little and as privately as possible.
- fredgrott 7y ago
  yeah but than again in the 1970s we had creep...for a disgraced president's reelection campaign
  - gowld 7y ago
    Nope! It was CRP, named CREEP by opponents as part of the disgracing. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_for_the_Re-Election_of_the_President https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_for_the_Re-Electio...
- FireBeyond 7y ago
  There's a funny little nod to things like this in The Wire. Stringer Bell, high level drug dealer, is trying to organize a coalition of all the differing gangs. He's studying at business school to help this. Learns about Robert's Rules of Order, runs meetings that way. Until he looks over and sees one of his underlings with a yellow legal pad. "Yo, what is that?" "Robert's Rules say we gotta have minutes of the meeting, right? These are the minutes." "... Are you taking ... notes ... on a criminal fucking conspiracy?!? The fuck are you thinking, man?"
RickJWagner 7y ago
For anyone who hasn't seen the movies-- run, don't walk, to go get "Godfather I" and "Godfather II". Don't bother with "Godfather III". The book is great, too.
- hylaride 7y ago
  When I first started dating my wife she had never seen it and we watched them together. "Whoa, they really don't make them like that anymore" were the words out of her mouth. While part 3 is a huge letdown, if you treat it like an epilogue (which I think Mario Puzo has referred it as) then it's easier to watch.
- dudul 7y ago
  The book is not great. It goes on and on with stupid subplots (for some reason johnny fontane is an important character, go figure). Coppola hated the book and hesitated a long time before accepting to work on the movie. The 3rd party is not on par with the other 2, but it gets more hate than it deserves. It is the closing of the Corleone saga and I found the 3rd act of the movie very powerful.
  - CalChris 7y ago
    Coppola didn't like it on first reading, bu hated is too strong a word. He really liked it on the second close reading. https://ew.com/books/2019/03/05/the-godfather-book-50th-anniversary-foreword/ https://ew.com/books/2019/03/05/the-godfather-book-50th-anni... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs5KdzlWYNI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs5KdzlWYNI As for the book, it is a GAM, Great American Novel. It's intended to tell a broad story of immigration and assimilation. The movie, being a movie with limited budget and time, has to chop much of that away. Needless to say, I liked the book.
- m1gu3l 7y ago
  the third, while the weakest, is still worth watching at some point just to see how Michael's crazy story ends. sofia's miss or miss performance really drags it down though.
yitchelle 7y ago
On a sidenote, is HN morphing into a Reddit style site with these topics and the amount of comments it is generating?
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  “ Please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.“ https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - dang 7y ago
    HN has been turning into Reddit since before it was HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=66057 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=66057 More about that at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21755721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21755721.
  - yitchelle 7y ago
    That is intense if there is a specific entry in guidelines about this.
Pxtl 7y ago
And The Walking Dead never calls them Zombies.
- DonHopkins 7y ago
  The Walking Dead season 7: This is why the word 'zombie' is never used It turns out horror maestro George A Romero doesn't exist in this show's universe https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/the-walking-dead-season-7-theres-a-reason-why-the-word-zombie-is-a-big-no-no-a7461246.html https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/the...
  - philwelch 7y ago
    This has a lot of interesting implications. Is there still the rum cocktail called a zombie? That was invented in the 1930's, back when the term was still associated with Haitian folklore about necromancy. And what happened to Rob Zombie in this timeline?
  - Pxtl 7y ago
    Neat, but I think that's an in-universe explanation for a stylistic decision. Like "Quiet does commando ops wearing a bikini because she breathes through her skin". No, the game designers wanted her to wear a bikini, so they wrote in that she breathes through her skin. Same here.
LeicaLatte 7y ago
Terrible SEO by the makers.
anpe 7y ago
If you're curious about the story in more detail, Revisionist History has a good episode on it: http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/39-chutzpah-vs-chutzpah http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/39-chutzpah-vs-chutzp...
ubermonkey 7y ago
Fun fact: this was a question in the original Trivial Pursuit.
throwaway_tech 7y ago
Its because its not a police movie, and these group didn't refer to themselves as Mafia...they referred to themselves as family (in Sicilian "Cosa Nostra" meaning "our thing" or "thing of ours"). You will hear "Family" plenty in the movie ("never tell anyone outside the family what you're thinking") even in the article, the mystery caller who threatens not to make the movie says: >“Get the fk outta town. Don’t shoot no movie about the family here. Got it?”
- tomelders 7y ago
  To add to this; Cosa Nostra is Sicillian. Over the water, in Naples, it's "Camorra". In Puglia it's "Sacra Corona Unita". In Calabria, it's the awkward to pronounce"'Ndrangheta", who I believe are consindered to be the most dangerous, and closely aligned with the Albanian Mafia IIRC. There are more, but those are the main active ones. Collectivley, they are Mafia type organisations. The word Mafia itself is Sicillian in origin, and means "Swagger".
  - misiti3780 7y ago
    I believe Mafia is actually a combination of Arabic and Siciliano “A less romantic and more likely derivation of the name Mafia is a combined Sicilian-Arabic slang expression that means acting as a protector against the arrogance of the powerful. Until the nineteenth century, the appellation mafioso, a Mafia member, had wide currency in Sicily as a noncriminal, resolute man with congenital distrust of centralized authority.” Excerpt From: Selwyn Raab. “Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America’s Mast Powerful Mafia Empires.” Apple Books.
    - Mirioron 7y ago
      So, they were anarchists?
      - mdrzn 7y ago
        Were and mostly still are, except now they're the one making the rules. They became the very same thing they were getting away from.
misiti3780 7y ago
Random fact: In Sicily they call the Mafia "Cosa Nostra" but here, in the US (and other places i believe), the detectives incorrectly added the article "la" in front of it (which is incorrect italian) calling it La Cosa Nostra, or LCN. So anytime you hear LCN, remember it is acronym for bad italian grammar.
paolalopez118 7y ago
I agree with the classmates, they in the movie don't tell themselves mafia because they aren't cops. They are called family, I had the doubt to respond but I visualized the movie before by https://www.cinecalidad.plus https://www.cinecalidad.plus to make sure
lawlessquestion 7y ago
Russel Buffalino from the Irishman (Joe Pescis character ) had final script approval for the godfather. Russell Buffalino also acted very much like Vito Corleone When he allowed Al Martino (played johhny Fontaine in the godfather) to return to America under his protection after he had fled the USA after an attempted shake down by murder inc chieftain and Gambino boss Albert Anastasia.
epicgiga 7y ago
Who cares. The romanticizing of the professional thuggery that is the mafia is sick. They can call themselves whatever they want, we should just call them criminals. There was nothing clever or cool about Vito or Michael, or their calling crime "business", any more than Mussolini was cool. Not surprising to see this come from a dot au, though. Romanticism of types Ned Kelley starts in school at an early age in AU. Challenge question: name a single impactful cultural contribution that this place has made to the world stage. Shut up, straya, you have nothing to say.
Lendal 7y ago
The most interesting part of this article is that the aim of the Italian-American Civil Rights League was to combat derogatory stereotypes about Italian-Americans. The IACRL promptly reinforced all those stereotypes by launching an intimidation campaign against the production of The Godfather.
CalChris 7y ago
The book uses the word mafia quite a bit, 57 times according to my PDF reader.
The_mboga_real 7y ago
Asked nobody,at any time
deepakhj 7y ago
La cosa Nostra made the filmmakers not mention mafia in the movie. https://www.nytimes.com/1971/03/20/archives/-godfather-film-wont-mention-mafia-protest-gets-mafia-reference-out.html https://www.nytimes.com/1971/03/20/archives/-godfather-film-...
yboris 7y ago
Malcolm Gladwell talks about this in his Revisionist History podcast: Episode 39 (http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/39-chutzpah-vs-chutzpah http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/39-chutzpah-vs-chutzp...) See transcript: https://podscribe.app/feeds/https-feedsmegaphonefm-revisionisthistory/episodes/83002bb4-86cb-11e9-afd9-ff62826378b2 https://podscribe.app/feeds/https-feedsmegaphonefm-revisioni... > word mafia is barely in the script it only appears once so I cross the word mafia I said Joe I'ma do this I'm going to take this out of the movie
Youpinadi 7y ago
They never say "Star Wars" in Star Wars
mdszy 7y ago
How is this on topic in the slightest?
- giancarlostoro 7y ago
  It is about culture. Just because it's about the Mafia and those types of people are criminals doesn't mean they don't have their own culture. It being culture, it is interesting to people here on HN.
inputError 7y ago
'Star Wars' is also not mentioned in Star Wars—which seems like a HUGE oversight in retrospect.
- jccalhoun 7y ago
  Ha! I always love it when characters in movies go out of the way to say the name of the movie. It is a good sign of a bad movie (not always of course but a lot of times.) I still remember giggling when I saw the Angelina Jolie Tomb Raider and one of the characters said, "Well, you're the tomb raider!"
  - philwelch 7y ago
    In Star Trek: First Contact, they time-travel to post-apocalyptic Montana to help the inventor of the warp drive, who calls them "astronauts on some kind of star trek".
somacert 7y ago
The mafia is just government by other means, and "The government" hates the competition.
ranDOMscripts 7y ago
Al Ruddy (the producer) describes how this came about in his interview with Malcolm Gladwell[0]. It's quite a story. [0]http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/39-chutzpah-vs-chutzpah http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/39-chutzpah-vs-chutzp...
oriettaxx 7y ago
Btw, ask any Italian if they have seen Godfather III: they know it exists, probably, but they hardly know its content: which is explosive

154 points by networked 7y ago

fjp 7y ago

I highly recommend the book The Good Mothers. Even if you think you know about the mafia, the scale that they are operating on will blow your mind. The Calabrian-based mob control a medium-to-large country's worth of the world's money.

matthewaveryusa 7y ago
Gomorrah [1], the book, by Roberto Saviano is pretty good too. [1] quick fun read on the origins of Sodom and Gomorrah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodom_and_Gomorrah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodom_and_Gomorrah

austincheney 7y ago

Vietnam is never mentioned in any episode of Gomer Pyle either directly or indirectly. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gomer_Pyle,_U.S.M.C https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gomer_Pyle,_U.S.M.C.

1-more 7y ago
Ewok and Jawa are never mentioned in the original Star Wars trilogy. Maybe never at all?
- kd0amg 7y ago
  Luke, in Episode 4: "Why would Imperial troops want to slaughter Jawas?"
  - 1-more 7y ago
    Well I'll be. OK just ewok then.
- scbrg 7y ago
  LUKE: These are the same Jawas that sold us Artoo and Threepio. BEN: And these blast points, too accurate for Sandpeople. Only Imperial stormtroopers are so precise. LUKE: Why would Imperial troops want to slaughter Jawas? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTKHZN8c2L8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTKHZN8c2L8
- mrec 7y ago
  I'm pretty sure the terms "X-Wing", "Y-Wing" and "TIE Fighter" are never mentioned in A New Hope, yet when when the movie came out everyone knew them.
  - 1-more 7y ago
    Thaaaaaat's the one I was thinking of instead of Jawa. Dang.
yitchelle 7y ago
In the meantime, the Korean war has been mentioned countless number of times in MASH.
- ubermonkey 7y ago
  ...which everyone read as "Vietnam".
  - dylan604 7y ago
    ?? I've never met anyone that confused the conflict setting of MASH as Vietnam. Where do you base that on? Because of the time it was aired/produced?
    - singlow 7y ago
      The show was set in Korea but wad made during the Vietnam war. The Korean setting was a facade for a show that was making commentary on the contemporary situation.
    - edgyquant 7y ago
      I always thought MASH was about Vietnam tbh
    - ubermonkey 7y ago
      It was set in Korea, but the subtext was entirely the Vietnamese conflict, which was happening or recent (ish) for the film (Altman, 1970) and early years of the TV show (1972-1983).
cabaalis 7y ago
Another thing I never thought I'd see on HN, Gomer Pyle, USMC. I didn't exist in the original airings, but Nick @ Nite and TV Land gave me all those awesome shows when I was a kid. Dick Van Dyke, I Love Lucy, Bob Newhart, Rhoda, Mary Tyler Moore, Taxi, The Munsters, Happy Days. The list goes on and on.
- dylan604 7y ago
  Before Nick @ Nite, those same syndicated shows were the primary content for channels in the UHF band. The major networks were in the VHF band. Back then, a show didn't qualify for syndication until it hit 100 episodes. That's why they made such a big deal about it. That's also why they would have 20+ episodes per season to get to 100 in as few years as possible. Once you got to 100, you didn't worry about getting canceled as much because you now could earn mail box money from syndication fees.

mapleboi 7y ago

really interesting article. this is one of my favorite movies and i've never even thought about that word

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james-imitative 7y ago

> Colombo was paralysed after the attack and died seven years later in 1978. This is a tragedy. Think what other movies this man could have made. "Tant pis".

tomnj 7y ago

It’s heard in Godfather part 2, though: https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&t=1m&v=L6DkVsssnmQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&t=1m&v=L6DkVsss...

GrumpyNl 7y ago
So debunked and bad article.
- TomBombadildoze 7y ago
  ^The word “mafia” is never heard in The Godfather$
- ShinTakuya 7y ago
  Not surprised, news.com.au is a famously bad news source in Australia. It constantly puts out tabloid level nonsense. Like many such outlets, it's owned by Murdoch's news corp.
- jjulius 7y ago
  Not really. The article is only about "The Godfather", not "The Godfather 2" or "The Godfather Trilogy". It only talks about the first film and never claims it's not mentioned in any of the sequels.

trumbitta2 7y ago

That's because mafia refers to itself as "Cosa Nostra", "'Ndrangheta", "Camorra", and "Sacra Corona Unita" depending on where in Italy is originated from.

WilliamEdward 7y ago
"Ruddy also agreed that the script wouldn’t include “Cosa Nostra,” another name for the mafia"
- james-imitative 7y ago
  Really? How bizarre.
- tomnj 7y ago
  Also mentioned in godfather part 2: https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&t=4m26s&v=L6DkVsssnmQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&t=4m26s&v=L6DkV...
  - aguyfromnb 7y ago
    From the article: "So Paramount agreed and [the League] thought it’d won this great victory despite the fact there was only one use of ‘mafia’ in the script.”
- wool_gather 7y ago
  Although Corleone does greet Barzini right at the beginning, at Connie/Carlo's wedding, by saying "Benvenuto a casa nostra" -- "Welcome to our house" -- which I always figured was a mild pun of sorts on the writers' parts.
rumanator 7y ago
> because mafia refers to itself as "Cosa Nostra" Doesn't "Cosa Mostra" translate to "this thing of ours"?
- 7y ago

MrGilbert 7y ago

I wonder what the state of the mafia is these days. Referring to the Wikipedia article[1], the five families are still a thing in New York. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Families#Original_and_current_Five_Families_bosses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Families#Original_and_cur...

paganel 7y ago
Not sure about the US but unfortunately it is still a thing in Italy, especially the 'Ndrangheta. This is an article from 2014 [1] but even so, back then they said that 'Ndrangheta had a turnover of €53bn, and I can imagine it did only go up in the meantime. The bad thing is that it has "captured" most of Northern Italy, too, or at least according to what I have read online and in the papers (I'm not from Italy myself), and it also has a strong European presence: Germany, Eastern Europe [2] etc. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/26/ndrangheta-mafia-mcdonalds-deutsche-bank-study https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/26/ndrangheta-maf... [2] https://linx.crji.org/2019/08/30/bio-mafia-care-producea-in-romania-asociata-cu-ndrangheta/ https://linx.crji.org/2019/08/30/bio-mafia-care-producea-in-...
- saiya-jin 7y ago
  I can't find the article now, but basically Ndrangheta ended up so effective and successful in black money laundering, all other bad actors (drug cartels, other mafias, any bad guys) are using them for a fee. They are definitely in eastern/central Europe, in Slovakia government was toppled recently because its close ties to it, and because investigative journalist writing about it was executed with his fiancee. Mostly milking off EU subsidies, but whatever else gets the money, they want in, or they are already there. I can't imagine easy way out of that situation, government capture was pretty effective. Election change few faces but underlying flows mostly remain the same.
- woodpanel 7y ago
  Re: Germany Stuttgart seems to be one of the mafia's strongholds in Germany. Just last year one famous local Stuttgart "restaurateur" got convicted, as the Italian Carabinieri uncovered that he was the southern German bridgehead for the 'Ndrangheta. He was dubbed the "celebrity chef" as the rich and famous frequented the one restaurant he actually owned quite often, including soccer players and elected officials. Even after mafia allegations existed for decades. [1] Germany is often considered to be their backyard. Relatively wealthy. Even small villages will have enough italian food demand to sustain one of your restaurant/money-laundering-fronts. And a generally unsuspecting public and administration. The last one being a pain in the neck for Italian law enforcement. Many grandees of Italian mobs thus seem to live under fake identities more or less unbothered in northern Germany. After reunification they bought vast strips of coastal property in the former communist part of Germany for cheap. [1] https://www.stuttgarter-nachrichten.de/inhalt.mafia-und-die-justiz-mafia-urteil-gegen-stuttgarter-promi-wirt.af300a2d-a511-4bc1-b305-6a25394a735a.html https://www.stuttgarter-nachrichten.de/inhalt.mafia-und-die-...

grabbalacious 7y ago

I started near the end and thought that Columbo had been shot by the mafia. As in Lieutenant Columbo. The horror! More seriously, though, they're great movies and I enjoyed them. Can't help feeling though that some people come away with the wrong message: they think that mafia morality is how the world really works and so they must now embrace it. Instead of noticing that Michael Corleone was trying to escape from it all and create a different life for his children. A life without the threats and violence. (And then I think, hmm, perhaps mafia morality is still alive and well. It's merely that instead of being assassinated people are being deplatformed, disemployed, etc.)

rusk 7y ago
I thought the point was that this was the way the world worked and that you couldn't get out of it. That, and the fact that good men are forced to do bad things by circumstances.
- grabbalacious 7y ago
  Yeah he tried to get out and he couldn't. Perhaps the secret is not to get sucked in in the first place.
  - barry-cotter 7y ago
    Never seen the movies but in the book Michael absolutely could have gotten out. He chose not to because his honor would not suffer the insult to his family that occurred. He might have done differently if he hadn’t been in New York when the attack happened and the discussion over retaliation was going on. He was assumed to be on the outside. Sonny was in the family business. I don’t recall if Fredo was but Michael was thinking of becoming a professor and moving far from New York and the family.
    - rusk 7y ago
      Loyalty to family outweighed his personal ambitions. A common existential struggle.

zxcvbn4038 7y ago

This is news? New generation discovering The Godfather for the first time? Wait until they find out 2001 isn’t about history - that will really blow their mind. ;)

foobar1962 7y ago
Image the Hollywood re-make of 2001: My God, it's full of stars!
- zxcvbn4038 7y ago
  Like another Expendables movie? Hopefully not a remake of The Love Boat (if you never saw the show almost every episode had guest stars that were well known celebrities, but usually retired or semi-retired from acting)
owl57 7y ago
Well, AI in 2001, surveillance state in 1984… It almost seems like these are chapter numbers in something like the 1984's inner book about how the modern world works.
- zxcvbn4038 7y ago
  I’ve yet to see AI. For that matter, where is my floating car and ray gun? Future is turning out to be more of the same.
  - Al-Khwarizmi 7y ago
    Come on. For $50 I can buy a smart speaker that recognizes my voice and I can ask about the weather, news, events for a given day, factual questions, set reminders, play music of X genre, etc. I know the limitations (I work in the field), it's way less powerful than Hal 9000, but by 20th century standards we definitely have AI.
    - deleted 7y ago
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bamboozled 7y ago

Why is this surprising ? Actually curious why people think this is weird ?

kthartic 7y ago
Living up to your username I see :P
- bamboozled 7y ago
  Do you run around all day talking about yourself in the third person ? Why would these people ?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
owlninja 7y ago
I think it is just more interesting WHY they didn't use the word, because threats from the actual mafia.
cambalache 7y ago
Because we are in the age of overstating and zero subtleness. So it is surprising for younger folks to see the opposite. Watch any current show based on the past. In the first few minutes, you will have a scene showing over-the-top discrimination with the bad guys (white, male) saying out loud how the minority group will never amount to anything forever and ever.

eecc 7y ago

Well if you ask about or mention organized crime, many Sicilians will just ignore the subject as if it was never spoken of, gaslighting. Eventually they might lose patience and rebut that “the Mafia doesn’t exist”, “it’s just a fantasy of the Continentals”. And act offended, bloody idiots... (before you downvote, it’s family, i can see how this denial has devastated and is still hurting a whole country so rich of potential. I claim my prerogative to be bitter and angry at them.)

ianai 7y ago
I’m sorry it appears you lost someone(s)
- jfengel 7y ago
  I don't want to speak on the OP's behalf, but it sounds as if they're complaining about something more systemic. Corruption throws sand in the gears of an economy. Italy is mentioned in the same breath with Greece as being on the verge of economic collapse. I don't know how much of that can really be pinned on organized crime, but it certainly wouldn't help.
davidw 7y ago
Lived in Padova with Sicilian roomates for a year, and they certainly talked about it. I mean, they kind of roll their eyes if it's the first thing someone mentions, because Sicily is an incredible, beautiful place with great food, beaches and Mt Etna - it's much more than the stereotype from the movies. But it's an undeniable fact of life just the same.
- thefounder 7y ago
  I bet Medellin is such a great place too but who is to blame for its reputation? It's just that the locals got used with the families/cartels so they may not be bothered by the crime syndicates that much.
  - davidw 7y ago

dmos62 7y ago

The words "power fantasy" never came up in any of the Marvel movies. Show, don't tell.

notacoward 7y ago

It would be unrealistic for anyone in The Godfather to mention the mafia. People involved in a criminal conspiracy typically do not refer to it as such, for fairly obvious reasons. You'll never see a memo with the words "Witness Tampering Plan" or "Quid Pro Quo" left out on a desk at such organizations either, for the same reasons. Such things are discussed via euphemism or outright code, even that as little and as privately as possible.

fredgrott 7y ago
yeah but than again in the 1970s we had creep...for a disgraced president's reelection campaign
- gowld 7y ago
  Nope! It was CRP, named CREEP by opponents as part of the disgracing. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_for_the_Re-Election_of_the_President https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_for_the_Re-Electio...
FireBeyond 7y ago
There's a funny little nod to things like this in The Wire. Stringer Bell, high level drug dealer, is trying to organize a coalition of all the differing gangs. He's studying at business school to help this. Learns about Robert's Rules of Order, runs meetings that way. Until he looks over and sees one of his underlings with a yellow legal pad. "Yo, what is that?" "Robert's Rules say we gotta have minutes of the meeting, right? These are the minutes." "... Are you taking ... notes ... on a criminal fucking conspiracy?!? The fuck are you thinking, man?"

RickJWagner 7y ago

For anyone who hasn't seen the movies-- run, don't walk, to go get "Godfather I" and "Godfather II". Don't bother with "Godfather III". The book is great, too.

hylaride 7y ago
When I first started dating my wife she had never seen it and we watched them together. "Whoa, they really don't make them like that anymore" were the words out of her mouth. While part 3 is a huge letdown, if you treat it like an epilogue (which I think Mario Puzo has referred it as) then it's easier to watch.
dudul 7y ago
The book is not great. It goes on and on with stupid subplots (for some reason johnny fontane is an important character, go figure). Coppola hated the book and hesitated a long time before accepting to work on the movie. The 3rd party is not on par with the other 2, but it gets more hate than it deserves. It is the closing of the Corleone saga and I found the 3rd act of the movie very powerful.
- CalChris 7y ago
  Coppola didn't like it on first reading, bu hated is too strong a word. He really liked it on the second close reading. https://ew.com/books/2019/03/05/the-godfather-book-50th-anniversary-foreword/ https://ew.com/books/2019/03/05/the-godfather-book-50th-anni... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs5KdzlWYNI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs5KdzlWYNI As for the book, it is a GAM, Great American Novel. It's intended to tell a broad story of immigration and assimilation. The movie, being a movie with limited budget and time, has to chop much of that away. Needless to say, I liked the book.
m1gu3l 7y ago
the third, while the weakest, is still worth watching at some point just to see how Michael's crazy story ends. sofia's miss or miss performance really drags it down though.

yitchelle 7y ago

On a sidenote, is HN morphing into a Reddit style site with these topics and the amount of comments it is generating?

ceejayoz 7y ago
“ Please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.“ https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dang 7y ago
  HN has been turning into Reddit since before it was HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=66057 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=66057 More about that at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21755721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21755721.
- yitchelle 7y ago
  That is intense if there is a specific entry in guidelines about this.

Pxtl 7y ago

And The Walking Dead never calls them Zombies.

DonHopkins 7y ago
The Walking Dead season 7: This is why the word 'zombie' is never used It turns out horror maestro George A Romero doesn't exist in this show's universe https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/the-walking-dead-season-7-theres-a-reason-why-the-word-zombie-is-a-big-no-no-a7461246.html https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/the...
- philwelch 7y ago
  This has a lot of interesting implications. Is there still the rum cocktail called a zombie? That was invented in the 1930's, back when the term was still associated with Haitian folklore about necromancy. And what happened to Rob Zombie in this timeline?
- Pxtl 7y ago
  Neat, but I think that's an in-universe explanation for a stylistic decision. Like "Quiet does commando ops wearing a bikini because she breathes through her skin". No, the game designers wanted her to wear a bikini, so they wrote in that she breathes through her skin. Same here.

LeicaLatte 7y ago

Terrible SEO by the makers.

anpe 7y ago

If you're curious about the story in more detail, Revisionist History has a good episode on it: http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/39-chutzpah-vs-chutzpah http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/39-chutzpah-vs-chutzp...

ubermonkey 7y ago

Fun fact: this was a question in the original Trivial Pursuit.

throwaway_tech 7y ago

Its because its not a police movie, and these group didn't refer to themselves as Mafia...they referred to themselves as family (in Sicilian "Cosa Nostra" meaning "our thing" or "thing of ours"). You will hear "Family" plenty in the movie ("never tell anyone outside the family what you're thinking") even in the article, the mystery caller who threatens not to make the movie says: >“Get the fk outta town. Don’t shoot no movie about the family here. Got it?”

tomelders 7y ago
To add to this; Cosa Nostra is Sicillian. Over the water, in Naples, it's "Camorra". In Puglia it's "Sacra Corona Unita". In Calabria, it's the awkward to pronounce"'Ndrangheta", who I believe are consindered to be the most dangerous, and closely aligned with the Albanian Mafia IIRC. There are more, but those are the main active ones. Collectivley, they are Mafia type organisations. The word Mafia itself is Sicillian in origin, and means "Swagger".
- misiti3780 7y ago
  I believe Mafia is actually a combination of Arabic and Siciliano “A less romantic and more likely derivation of the name Mafia is a combined Sicilian-Arabic slang expression that means acting as a protector against the arrogance of the powerful. Until the nineteenth century, the appellation mafioso, a Mafia member, had wide currency in Sicily as a noncriminal, resolute man with congenital distrust of centralized authority.” Excerpt From: Selwyn Raab. “Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America’s Mast Powerful Mafia Empires.” Apple Books.
  - Mirioron 7y ago
    So, they were anarchists?
    - mdrzn 7y ago
      Were and mostly still are, except now they're the one making the rules. They became the very same thing they were getting away from.

misiti3780 7y ago

Random fact: In Sicily they call the Mafia "Cosa Nostra" but here, in the US (and other places i believe), the detectives incorrectly added the article "la" in front of it (which is incorrect italian) calling it La Cosa Nostra, or LCN. So anytime you hear LCN, remember it is acronym for bad italian grammar.

paolalopez118 7y ago

I agree with the classmates, they in the movie don't tell themselves mafia because they aren't cops. They are called family, I had the doubt to respond but I visualized the movie before by https://www.cinecalidad.plus https://www.cinecalidad.plus to make sure

lawlessquestion 7y ago

Russel Buffalino from the Irishman (Joe Pescis character ) had final script approval for the godfather. Russell Buffalino also acted very much like Vito Corleone When he allowed Al Martino (played johhny Fontaine in the godfather) to return to America under his protection after he had fled the USA after an attempted shake down by murder inc chieftain and Gambino boss Albert Anastasia.

epicgiga 7y ago

Who cares. The romanticizing of the professional thuggery that is the mafia is sick. They can call themselves whatever they want, we should just call them criminals. There was nothing clever or cool about Vito or Michael, or their calling crime "business", any more than Mussolini was cool. Not surprising to see this come from a dot au, though. Romanticism of types Ned Kelley starts in school at an early age in AU. Challenge question: name a single impactful cultural contribution that this place has made to the world stage. Shut up, straya, you have nothing to say.

Lendal 7y ago

The most interesting part of this article is that the aim of the Italian-American Civil Rights League was to combat derogatory stereotypes about Italian-Americans. The IACRL promptly reinforced all those stereotypes by launching an intimidation campaign against the production of The Godfather.

CalChris 7y ago

The book uses the word mafia quite a bit, 57 times according to my PDF reader.

The_mboga_real 7y ago

Asked nobody,at any time

deepakhj 7y ago

La cosa Nostra made the filmmakers not mention mafia in the movie. https://www.nytimes.com/1971/03/20/archives/-godfather-film-wont-mention-mafia-protest-gets-mafia-reference-out.html https://www.nytimes.com/1971/03/20/archives/-godfather-film-...

yboris 7y ago

Malcolm Gladwell talks about this in his Revisionist History podcast: Episode 39 (http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/39-chutzpah-vs-chutzpah http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/39-chutzpah-vs-chutzp...) See transcript: https://podscribe.app/feeds/https-feedsmegaphonefm-revisionisthistory/episodes/83002bb4-86cb-11e9-afd9-ff62826378b2 https://podscribe.app/feeds/https-feedsmegaphonefm-revisioni... > word mafia is barely in the script it only appears once so I cross the word mafia I said Joe I'ma do this I'm going to take this out of the movie

Youpinadi 7y ago

They never say "Star Wars" in Star Wars

mdszy 7y ago

How is this on topic in the slightest?

giancarlostoro 7y ago
It is about culture. Just because it's about the Mafia and those types of people are criminals doesn't mean they don't have their own culture. It being culture, it is interesting to people here on HN.

inputError 7y ago

'Star Wars' is also not mentioned in Star Wars—which seems like a HUGE oversight in retrospect.

jccalhoun 7y ago
Ha! I always love it when characters in movies go out of the way to say the name of the movie. It is a good sign of a bad movie (not always of course but a lot of times.) I still remember giggling when I saw the Angelina Jolie Tomb Raider and one of the characters said, "Well, you're the tomb raider!"
- philwelch 7y ago
  In Star Trek: First Contact, they time-travel to post-apocalyptic Montana to help the inventor of the warp drive, who calls them "astronauts on some kind of star trek".

somacert 7y ago

The mafia is just government by other means, and "The government" hates the competition.

ranDOMscripts 7y ago

Al Ruddy (the producer) describes how this came about in his interview with Malcolm Gladwell[0]. It's quite a story. [0]http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/39-chutzpah-vs-chutzpah http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/39-chutzpah-vs-chutzp...

oriettaxx 7y ago

Btw, ask any Italian if they have seen Godfather III: they know it exists, probably, but they hardly know its content: which is explosive