The Sexy Sicilian: Another Simple Favor Did It Again
On Sicilian Dreams, Mob Tropes, and the Cost of Being Exoticized.
I’ve only been to Capri once, but I see it often in my dreams.
During one of my MDMA sessions in the clinical trial for PTSD, the anchoring dream throughout the session was one of return, coming home after a hero’s journey. I was exhausted. My previous session had been all rainbows and sunshine, recovered childhood memories that were pleasant but had been bagged in the black hole of trauma. You were resourcing, my therapist said.
This session was a journey — the full spectrum of life experiences. And at the end, the dream (psychedelic sessions are best referred to as dreams, or dreaming while waking): I was a man rowing an old Venetian boat into the caves of Capri. He was soothed, relieved to be almost home, rocking along in the water. I could see the chalky crevices of the cliffs in great detail, and this vision often comes back to me in daydreams or dream dreams.
I felt the saltburn on my face, and I felt weathered and warm. I could zoom out and see how this was a journey that had transcended generations in my family — and how, also in my life, it's been such a journey to come home to myself.
As I watched Another Simple Favor, starring Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively, I couldn’t help but feel that the sexy Sicilian trope would be more compelling if there were any signs the overculture understood it below the surface.
Blake’s character references going to Italy in college and having a hot affair— much like the soldiers had during World War 2. Seared by the fantasy of the exotic. The hope of drinking in another culture to make you feel more alive.
You know, there aren’t many Sicilians. We’ve been run all over the world by the Nazis. As we speak, this Sicilian is considering leaving the US because of Nazis.
Are they making me sick? she whispers.
Sicilians are known for organized crime. In Another Simple Favor, there’s a cute, throwaway nod when Blake Lively’s character introduces her Sicilian fiancé. Yeah, duh, he’s in the mob — every Sicilian is. But like… duh. We’re resilient, intelligent people who have been discriminated against and literally burned at the stake for the power we did have, cast aside as peasants, and put on the back of the bus in the country where we immigrated.
I ask you: would you not fucking organize?
Okay, thank you.
Secondly, the mob wife aesthetic deserves mention. My grandma is beautiful, and boy oh boy, has it been a catalyst in her life. She arrived after World War 2, a young, terrified, ‘othered’ immigrant with Nazi terror in her bones — alongside all the soldiers and their romanticized ideas of Europe.
My grandma was shunned to the back of the bus in New Orleans, but ascended working at Saks 5th Avenue in Manhattan, as Sophia Loren was rising to fame. Italians were seen as peasants and criminals, but Hollywood rebranded us as passionate and exotic. Colonizers love their collections of exotic animals, and this country has been colonizing the women in my family, keeping us in their curio cabinets, since we got here.
I’ve seen the relationships that didn’t work because the men saw her as a trophy, but couldn’t respect her humanity. I’ve seen the fear of starvation — hiding bread rolls in a napkin, constantly scanning for security. The anxiety. The insomnia. But how eyes go to her when she walks into a room. How she lights up. The rhythm of her accent, her posture cataloged in Roman statues.
The issue of appropriation is: Do you see my pain?
Do you love all of me?
Or do you just love how I make you feel?
How I make you look?
How my pleasure transforms your world?
How my flavors texturize your memories?
We aren’t here for your entertainment.
We will organize to fight against oppression.
You can enjoy the pleasure and the passion, but also spare some of that energy to protect it.
In the dream, I felt pleased to be returning home.
It was simple.
I was known.
It was familiar.
It was peaceful.
It was eye contact.
And it was delicious.
The inside felt as good as the outside, and…
...and that’s all we’ve ever wanted. To feel good on the inside
In a world that’s always feeding off our outside.