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Feb 4, 2008, 10:51 pm (3 comments)
The New York state lottery has apologized to Italian-Americans after it aired a series of TV ads that featured Sopranos-esque mob characters.
The ads, for a $3 million scratch off game called "Ba Da Bling," featured the characters singing about the game in Brooklyn accents to the tune of Duke Ellington's "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)," the New York Post reported Monday.
Italian-American groups expressed distaste toward the ad, and one group, the Sons of Italy in America's New York chapter, issued a complaint to the lottery commission that decried the stereotypical portrayal of their ethnicity.
"Here we go again, the traditional stereotype of the Italian-Americans, they belong to the mob," said Stella Grillo, a representative of the group.
"I know a lot of people are saying you are overly sensitive," she said. "But Americans have become more sensitive to most racial groups, and it should apply to Italian Americans."
The lottery apologized in a letter to Grillo, saying the commission did not mean to offend anyone with the ads, which were scheduled to stop running Monday.
UPI
wow.....thet should have known better. Many of the Italian-Americans I know don't even like The Sopranos, so for the lottery to run those ads was mos def in poor taste....
I agree. The ads were in poor taste.
Every now and then NY puts out a crappy ad about the lottery or scratch off's. The Mega/Lotto ones are good. I like the one where the dog buys a ticket with a dollar he finds. Or the one where the money is falling from the sky and a guy tells his girlfriend not to go outside and pick up any daying 'lets wait till there is more!' then 100 other people run out and grab up all the money. Which hits home with me as I play the lotto even when it is only $3mil.