We are officially over hearing about what Stanley Tucci puts in his mouth
There is good food in Italy. Wow.
Some publicist approached us about promoting a new celebrity cookbook about Greek cooking.
We said oxi.
In the media world there’s a special place in hell for former lawyers who with a bit of misbegotten lucre (yours) and a lot of career boredom behind them became — presto! — TV commentators, would-be serious novelists, etc.
But the original sin of lawyering was their choice to make and as Americans, despite your adopted new skill set, we still pretty much despise you.
Then there are the actors who get so bored with acting — maybe it’s the years of middling roles? — that they try to rise, phoenix-like, as something else. Blowhard Mark Ruffalo as political activist. Reese Witherspoon as an everyday Mom who posts on LinkedIn. Or any number of Hollywood phonies who wake up one day and decide it’s their god-given duty to tell people what to eat and where.
Enter Stanley Tucci. Capable actor. Italian heritage, judging by his last name (ed. note: are we still allowed to judge? We are? Great!). Suddenly decides he’s the first person in history to discover that there is good eating in Italy and goddammit, he’s gonna shove that observation down everybody’s throats via another (sigh) foodie show on Disney+ and Hulu or whatever.
Why? Because this is still 1952, and we didn’t know Italian food is good! Because we need an aging character actor to tell us that bolognese sauce “doesn't have any tomato. It's made with a little pancetta, carrot, onion, celery.”
Mamma mia!
Or maybe because it’s an easier paycheck than finding a movie to make that could actually hold your interest more than The Devil Wears Prada 2.
The problem with cultural detritus like this is that it creates a false narrative — namely, that everything edible is better “over there.”
Well, it isn’t.
I’ve traveled enough around Italy, Sicily and such included, to say with some authority that most Italians don’t know how to make a decent pizza.
There’s a reason why America is the successful country that it is — old stuff comes in, and comes out improved.
Is it prettier to eat a pizza or pasta dish on some Italian cliffside than in Brooklyn? Well duh.
Italy as a whole, though, is overrated. Overtouristed. Some pretty spots, to be sure, but most of the cities outside the center are ugly. Humid, humorless places infiltrated by tour buses and spiders (we’ve spent summers in Tuscany, so we know) and dank airports filled with mosquitos, because the country can make Ferraris but apparently can’t spring for decent air conditioning.
Don’t get us wrong, we still love Italy because, well, one sort of has to. Loving Germany was never an option.
But we don’t need Stanley Tucci & Co. to tell us that blood oranges taste good with olive oil and fennel, do we?
These types of shows are not only cloying but also the province of white privilege — which, of course, is a longtime Disney tradition.
Chew on that one for a bit.
