
The word “mafia” is never heard in The Godfather - networked
https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/movies/the-one-word-you-never-hear-in-the-godfather/news-story/4301fd8014305c005f13eeaccdca51a2
======
throwaway_tech
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 f __k outta town. Don’t shoot no movie about the family here. Got
it?”

~~~
tomelders
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
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
So, they were anarchists?

~~~
danans
I've heard the opposite - that the Mafia formed to take advantage of a period
when there was a vacuum of central authority in Italy and therefore little
security for common folks.

The mafia served as the protectors - and if not paid, harassers - of the
people in this situation.

~~~
beerandt
Pretty much any government does the same- try not paying your taxes.
Harassment will follow.

~~~
mwfunk
If you think that's crazy, try stealing a car or assaulting someone! Those
darned government oppressors, always keeping us down with their taxes and laws
and stuff. Who do they think they are anyway, the government?!?

~~~
beerandt
It's payment for justice. We just call it taxes and police. They call it
tribute and protection, or something else. The same basic functions are being
fulfilled in different ways.

~~~
danans
I agree that they share many characteristics and objectives, derived
ultimately from certain realities of the ways humans operate.

But I do contend that the better forms of government that are less mafia-like.
Obviously absolute monarchies and dictatorships aren't among them.

------
notacoward
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
yeah but than again in the 1970s we had creep...for a disgraced president's
reelection campaign

~~~
gowld
Nope! It was CRP, named CREEP by opponents as part of the disgracing.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_for_the_Re-
Electio...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_for_the_Re-
Election_of_the_President)

------
dmos62
The words "power fantasy" never came up in any of the Marvel movies. Show,
don't tell.

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

~~~
GrumpyNl
So debunked and bad article.

~~~
TomBombadildoze
^The word “mafia” is never heard in The Godfather$

------
eecc
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.)

~~~
davidw
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
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
It's not an easy problem to solve. If you're the only one to speak up - or
even a visible person - you or your family might get hurt or killed. These are
very nasty, brutal people that run these organizations.

I was just trying to make the point that a lot of Sicilians _do_ talk openly
about it, but might react poorly if that's like the first thing you blurt out
when you speak to them.

------
trumbitta2
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
"Ruddy also agreed that the script wouldn’t include “Cosa Nostra,” another
name for the mafia"

~~~
tomnj
Also mentioned in godfather part 2:
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&t=4m26s&v=L6DkV...](https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&t=4m26s&v=L6DkVsssnmQ)

~~~
aguyfromnb
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_.”

------
MrGilbert
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_cur...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Families#Original_and_current_Five_Families_bosses)

~~~
paganel
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-
maf...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/26/ndrangheta-mafia-
mcdonalds-deutsche-bank-study)

[2] [https://linx.crji.org/2019/08/30/bio-mafia-care-producea-
in-...](https://linx.crji.org/2019/08/30/bio-mafia-care-producea-in-romania-
asociata-cu-ndrangheta/)

~~~
saiya-jin
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.

------
misiti3780
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.

------
austincheney
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
Ewok and Jawa are never mentioned in the original Star Wars trilogy. Maybe
never at all?

~~~
kd0amg
Luke, in Episode 4: "Why would Imperial troops want to slaughter Jawas?"

~~~
1-more
Well I'll be. OK just ewok then.

------
zxcvbn4038
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. ;)

~~~
owl57
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
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
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.

~~~
andrewzah
"Hey siri, play <search term>"

"I didn't get that."

"Hey siri, play <search term>"

"Got it, playing <similar-sounding search term>"

"Hey siri, stop"

"Hey siri, play <search term (enunciating slowly)>"

"Got it, playing <similar-sounding search term>"

"Hey siri, stop"

<opens app on phone and manually types in the correct search term>

\---

"Hey siri, <a search term more complicated than one short sentence with a
clear answer>"

"Sorry, I'm not able to show that. <opens web browser with term>"

\---

We do not have AI, unless you mean in the loosest possible meaning. Everything
is still dumb as rocks, we just have made voice recognition a convenience.
Parsing sound into a search term and dumb-ly searching is still dumb. It's not
AI just because I'm not manually typing it in.

Every system I've asked questions has failed on anything that's not fairly
simple. Taking sounds and mapping that to a google search or a particular app
is not AI. It's some engineer who decided that questions with a similarity to
X or Y can be answered with Z app. (i.e. questions about the weather) Siri and
others are still dumb as rocks.

~~~
Jagat
Having used all three of Alexa, 'Ok Google', and Siri, I'd have to say Siri is
the worst of the three. It's extremely far behind the the other two.

Try your voice searches with Google and it's very likely you'll get what you
want.

~~~
andrewzah
Regardless of the brand, it's still not intelligent in any meaningful way. The
capability of alexa/siri/whatever directly corresponds to whether or not some
programmer implemented a match statement on that particular kind of question.
Alex/siri are still just dumb tools, with voice recognition as a facade.
That's not AI.

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

~~~
kthartic
Living up to your username I see :P

~~~
bamboozled
Do you run around all day talking about yourself in the third person ?

Why would these people ?

------
ranDOMscripts
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-
chutzp...](http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/39-chutzpah-vs-chutzpah)

------
RickJWagner
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.

~~~
dudul
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
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-
anni...](https://ew.com/books/2019/03/05/the-godfather-book-50th-anniversary-
foreword/)

[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.

------
fjp
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
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)

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

~~~
jccalhoun
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
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".

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

------
deepakhj
La cosa Nostra made the filmmakers not mention mafia in the movie.

[https://www.nytimes.com/1971/03/20/archives/-godfather-
film-...](https://www.nytimes.com/1971/03/20/archives/-godfather-film-wont-
mention-mafia-protest-gets-mafia-reference-out.html)

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

------
anpe
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-
chutzp...](http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/39-chutzpah-vs-chutzpah)

------
yboris
Malcolm Gladwell talks about this in his Revisionist History podcast: Episode
39 ([http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/39-chutzpah-vs-
chutzp...](http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/39-chutzpah-vs-chutzpah))

See transcript: [https://podscribe.app/feeds/https-feedsmegaphonefm-
revisioni...](https://podscribe.app/feeds/https-feedsmegaphonefm-
revisionisthistory/episodes/83002bb4-86cb-11e9-afd9-ff62826378b2)

> 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

------
grabbalacious
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.)

~~~
wwright
Deplatforming and disemploying is fundamentally different in that it works by
social consensus rather than an individual “fiat,” at the very least. I can’t
deplatform you without getting the agreement of all relevant platforms.

That’s one big difference in the things you are comparing, without diving too
deep into a different topic.

~~~
grabbalacious
Good point. Although I think it tends to be a consensus among an influential
minority of the populace rather than society as a whole.

~~~
philwelch
Mob rule is never actually mob rule, there's a complicated relationship
between the mob and the demagogues who alternately control the mob while also
being controlled by it.

~~~
lowdose
Controlled opposition while shuffling the real dirty jobs on them and
maintaining plausible deniability.

------
Pxtl
And The Walking Dead never calls them Zombies.

~~~
DonHopkins
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...](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)

~~~
Pxtl
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
Terrible SEO by the makers.

------
Lendal
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.

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

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

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

------
mdszy
How is this on topic in the slightest?

~~~
giancarlostoro
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.

------
Youpinadi
They never say "Star Wars" in Star Wars

