UNICO – the USA’s largest Italian American organization – is demanding that Take-Two holds back on releasing Mafia II, which is due to hit shelves next week Tuesday.
UNICO president Andre DiMino believes that the game, which is based around the Italian mafia that was prevalent in US cities for much of the last century, portrays negative stereotypes, and leads to young people associating Italian culture with brutality and crime.
“Why would [Take Two] foist a game on their targeted audience of young people wherein they will indoctrinate a new generation into directly associating Italians and Italian-Americans with violent, murderous organized crime, to the exclusion of all of the other ‘mafias’ run by other ethnic and racial groups?” said DiMino.
“Take Two is directly, blatantly and unfairly discriminating and demeaning one group to the exclusion of all others. We are demanding they halt release of the game and cleanse it of all references to Italians and Italian-Americans,” he continued.
DiMino has written a letter to Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick, requesting a meeting, and suggesting that the developer removes all references to Italians and Italian Americans. I have played a substantial portion of the game, and can safely say that doing so would remove about 90% of the content.
UNICO also complained about the award winning TV show, The Sopranos.
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