Speaker A
Do they have chores in Sicily?
A humorous and nostalgic recounting of Sicily's history and culture through fictional family stories by the Golden Girls.
Key Takeaways
- Sicilian culture is rich with unique traditions and humor, often exaggerated for comedic effect.
- Family stories and heritage play a central role in understanding personal and cultural identity.
- Historical events can be reinterpreted through personal and humorous narratives.
- The contrast between old-world Sicily and modern life highlights changes in social customs.
- Humor is used effectively to explore themes of love, family, and cultural pride.
Summary
- The video features a series of humorous, fictional stories set in Sicily, narrated by characters from the Golden Girls.
- Stories include imaginative encounters with historical figures like Winston Churchill and Pablo Picasso.
- The narrative blends Sicily's cultural elements, such as food, traditions, and social customs, with comedic exaggeration.
- Themes include family dynamics, immigration, and the contrast between old Sicilian life and modern America.
- The video uses the recurring phrase 'Picture it, Sicily' to frame each story segment.
- It touches on historical events like the Crimean War and the Yalta Conference with a comedic twist.
- The characters reflect on their Sicilian heritage, including anecdotes about chores, medicine, and social life.
- There is a playful critique of Sicilian customs, such as cooking outdoors and sleeping arrangements.
- The video emphasizes the importance of family, history, and cultural identity through humor.
- It ends with reflections on love, marriage, and curses within the context of Sicilian traditions.
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker B
Are you kidding, they invented chores in Sicily. Crossing the street without getting pregnant was a chore in Sicily.
Speaker C
Rose never mentioned Sicily.
Speaker B
Picture it. Sicily, 1922.
Speaker B
A young military officer stationed far from home, he wanders the streets seeking a friendly face and a glass of Chianti. Finally, he happens into a dusty little cafe where he finds both.
Speaker B
The man laughs for the first time in months and finds inspiration in a beautiful peasant girl, wise beyond her years. Well, the cafe is closed, she takes him home with her.
Speaker B
Three glorious days they make love and drink wine. He returns to his command, prepared to lead his people for whatever battles needed to be fought.
Speaker B
Dorothy, that young peasant girl was me.
Speaker B
And that young man was Winston Churchill.
Speaker C
Ma, you made that whole thing up. Now what is your point?
Speaker B
That I made it up.
Speaker B
Picture it. Sicily, 1912.
Speaker B
A beautiful young peasant girl with clear olive skin meets an exciting but penniless Spanish artist. There's an instant attraction. They laugh, they sing, they slam down a few boiler makers.
Speaker B
Shortly afterwards, he's arrested for showing her how he can hold his palette without using his hands.
Speaker B
But I digress. He paints her portrait and they make passionate love. She spends much of the next day in the shower with a loofah sponge, scrubbing his fingerprints off her body.
Speaker B
She sees the portrait and is insulted. It looks nothing like her, and she storms out of his life forever.
Speaker B
That peasant girl was me, and that painter was Pablo Picasso.
Speaker C
Ma, I have a feeling you're lying.
Speaker D
Be positive.
Speaker C
Okay, I'm positive you're lying.
Speaker B
Let me tell you a story.
Speaker B
Sicily, 1912. Picture this.
Speaker B
Two young girls, best friends, who shared three things: a pizza recipe, some dough, and a dream. Everything is going great until one day, a fast-talking pepperoni salesman gallops into town.
Speaker B
Of course, both girls are impressed. He dates one one night, the other the next night. Pretty soon, he drives a wedge between them. Before you know it, the pizza suffers, the business suffers, the friendship suffers. The girls part company and head for America, never to see one another again.
Speaker B
Rose, one of those girls was me. The other one you probably know as Mama Celeste.
Speaker C
Sophia, what's the point?
Speaker B
The point is, I lost a fortune.
Speaker B
Picture it. Sicily, 1922.
Speaker B
An attractive peasant girl who has saved her lira embarks on a glorious vacation to a Crimean resort on the Black Sea. For weeks, she frolics at this seaside resort and enjoys the company of many young men, all of whom adore her.
Speaker C
All of them?
Speaker B
Shut up and I work alone.
Speaker B
All of them. When it's time to return to Sicily, three different suitors beg her to stay, but she can't decide who to choose, so she chooses none of them. But she agrees to meet with them at the same resort many years later.
Speaker B
To her trio of suitors, that eventful gathering was referred to as Rendezvous with Sophia, but to the rest of the world, it was better known as the Yalta Conference.
Speaker B
Picture it. Sicily, 1852.
Speaker C
Ma, I am in no mood and besides, you weren't alive in 1852.
Speaker B
What, we can't learn from history? It was mid-century and a disillusioned Italy looked to the House of Savoy for leadership.
Speaker B
Giuseppe Garibaldi, our courageous leader, and not a bad dresser, thought, let's regain some national pride and jump into this Crimean War thing. Of course, there was a big kickoff party at Giuseppe's beach house and everyone came.
Speaker B
Coincidentally, this was also the night his wife Rosa hit her sexual peak.
Speaker C
Ma, I am in here because of guilt. This is not a story about guilt.
Speaker B
This is a story about being a bad hostess. While Rosa had Giuseppe in the bedroom with a saber around his ankles, 200 hungry guests were strip-searching mice for a piece of cheese.
Speaker C
Ma, so what's your point? That Rose and I throw bad parties?
Speaker B
That's my minor point. My major point is that like Rosa, you're screwing around in the bedroom when there are important things to do outside.
Speaker C
Yeah, I can't believe it. That makes sense. I mean, you went the long way around, but that actually makes sense.
Speaker E
Maybe you can tell me a little bit about your mother's history.
Speaker B
Picture it. Sicily, 1900. An olive-skinned woman sets sail for the New World.
Speaker E
I was talking about her medical history.
Speaker B
So was I. You think that was a pleasure cruise?
Speaker B
There were smallpox, scurvy, typhoid, and that was business class.
Speaker B
In Sicily, we never went to the doctor. We went to the Widow Caravelli.
Speaker B
Whatever you had, she had a cure. She was best known for this green salve she used to make to treat ear infections.
Speaker B
One day she gave a batch to Salvador, the village idiot. He misunderstood the directions and put it on his linguini instead of in his ear.
Speaker C
I guess if you're an idiot with a hearing problem, you do things like that.
Speaker B
As it turns out, it wasn't such a bad thing to do. The stuff tasted great, and Salvador decided to market it. At first it didn't move so well. Linguini with ear salve on a menu doesn't look too appetizing.
Speaker B
But once he changed the name to pesto sauce, it moved like hotcakes.
Speaker C
Ma, you're making this up.
Speaker B
So what, I'm old, I'm supposed to be colorful.
Speaker C
It's really a shame you and Ma don't live closer to each other.
Speaker B
Dorothy is right. How many years do we have left? 20, 30. We should live in the same town.
Speaker A
You want to come back to that little village in Sicily?
Speaker B
Please, do I look like a woman who beats her laundry on a rock?
Speaker C
Why are we cooking outdoors? We're having a barbecue.
Speaker B
Do you know what they call cooking meat over an open fire in Sicily? Poverty!
Speaker B
What's going on here? I walk into the bathroom and instead of a toilet, there's a hole in the ground. For a minute I thought I was back in Sicily.
Speaker C
Look at these pop-ups. Isn't that wonderful? Remember when we had to use cotton and fish ointment?
Speaker B
That's nothing. In Sicily, we used a leaf in the river.
Speaker C
Ma, you never had a baby in Sicily.
Speaker B
I was a baby in Sicily.
Speaker C
Ma, you don't know anything about football.
Speaker B
Please, what's to know? You hit a guy, you grab the pigskin, you run like crazy. It's like shopping in Sicily.
Speaker B
We had comic books in Sicily. My favorite was Benito the Hood. He lived in the forest with his band of merry thugs. Benito was very popular.
Speaker C
You mean because he stole from the rich and gave to the poor?
Speaker B
I said Benito the Hood, not Benito the Idiot. He stole from everyone and kept it for himself. Didn't even share it with his band of merry thugs. He was the idol of many a Sicilian youngster.
Speaker B
Hey, in Italy for $5 you got a woman, a manicure, a cappuccino, and a box of Milano cookies to take home to your wife.
Speaker B
A fact, use it as you wish.
Speaker B
Here it is, my old address from Sicily.
Speaker B
Two miles west of Palermo underneath the old bridge.
Speaker C
You used to live under a bridge?
Speaker B
Yeah, we were wealthy. Most people didn't have a bridge to live under.
Speaker C
Good night, Ma. Good night, Moe. Good night, Larry.
Speaker C
I'm not going to be able to sleep. I'm on the wrong side of the bed. Well, I used to sleep on the right side, and I want to be on the right side.
Speaker B
What the hell is everyone so particular about? In Sicily, four in a bed is a treat. It means half your family is on vacation. I slept with my two brothers until I was 17. I was engaged to one for a very short period of time. But that's a separate story.
Speaker C
I hope everything works okay for Gina.
Speaker B
Why shouldn't it? She's got a man waiting for her back home who owns a goat. In Sicily, that makes you a yuppie.
Speaker B
When I was 14 in Sicily, my father arranged a marriage with a neighbor's son. My dowry was two chickens, a ladle and a goat to be named later.
Speaker C
We came from a wealthy family.
Speaker B
But the day of my wedding, as I stood at the altar, the boy I was to marry was on a cattle boat headed for America. That night, on a tear-stained pillow, I put a curse on him.
Speaker C
Curse?
Speaker B
Nothing fancy, I remember I said, Giuseppe Manja Cavallo, from this day forward may you and all your future generations never know true love. May you be sterile and may all your offspring be sterile.
Speaker B
May your hair never lie flat, and may your socks always slip down inside your shoes.
Speaker C
Ma, don't you think this feud between you and Angela has gone on long enough?
Speaker B
It's 26 years. In Sicily, that's not a feud. In Sicily, people scream at each other for centuries, and they throw pasta at each other. Pasta and sauce, rich sauce with delicious seafood.
Speaker B
Wait a minute. I think I switched from feud to food.
Speaker B
In Sicily, it wouldn't be Christmas without a plate of eels. Eels and larks.
Speaker D
Larks? Well, larks aren't eaten birds, they're singing birds.
Speaker B
They don't sing long in Sicily. Well, Mrs. Claxton isn't going to have a funeral. She had no friends and no relatives. Then we'll pop for her funeral.
Speaker C
Why?
Speaker B
To show the man upstairs that we have some regard for human life.
Speaker B
No, no, no, it's an old Sicilian custom. It's good luck to bury somebody you hate.
Speaker C
You know, I always wanted mink. I thought it would make me look elegant and impressive.
Speaker B
We didn't have mink in Sicily. You want them to impress someone, you shot their brother.
Speaker B
There's no such thing as being trapped in a marriage. In this country, you can get divorced. In Sicily, there was no divorce. If you wanted to end a marriage, you had to resort to the lupara.
Speaker C
Is that some kind of legal loophole?
Speaker B
It's some kind of sawed-off shotgun.
Speaker C
Stapling a $20 bill to the petition is illegal. It's bribery, and don't tell us that's how you got things done in Sicily.
Speaker B
That's not how we got things done in Sicily. Bribing people with money is how we got things done in New York.
Speaker B
In Sicily, a car full of horses head and put it in somebody's bed.
Speaker D
Sophia, you're making that up. Like hell. Our garbage commissioner, Fredo Lombardi, went on strike once. He woke up the next morning sharing a pillow with National Velvet. At 7:00 a.m. he was out cleaning the street with his tongue.
Speaker C
I'm a little nervous about tomorrow. I've never cooked for 300 people.
Speaker B
Please, in Sicily, we did it all the time, and we didn't have the modern conveniences you have today. We had to slaughter our own meat, prepare our own seasonings, and if the food wasn't perfect after cappuccino, they shot the cook.
Speaker B
Sicilians take these things very seriously.
Speaker B
You know what might happen to me if I didn't do my duty? Free swimming lessons with a cement kickboard.
Speaker B
Sicilians have a hard time with apologies.
Speaker C
They also have a hard time passing wet cement without putting someone in it.
Speaker D
There are worse things in this world than hurt feelings, Dorothy.
Speaker B
That's true, pussycat. As we say back in Sicily, sticks and stones can break your bones, but cement pays homage to tradition.
Speaker B
Hello, big shot, did you get the tickets?
Speaker C
Look, Ma, don't start with me. I've had a very rough day. The only scalper I could find had funny things moving in his hair, and he wanted to bargain in a dark alley.
Speaker B
So what seats did you get?
Speaker C
I didn't get any tickets. I didn't think it was exactly safe.
Speaker B
I can't believe you were such a baby. In Sicily, we did all our bargaining in dark alleys. How do you think I ended up with your father?
Speaker B
It was Augustine Bagatelli.
Speaker B
Nobody, just a boy I knew from my village in Sicily that I was engaged to once.
Speaker C
Well, what do you know, Sophia has a past.
Speaker C
Ma, you never told me you were engaged. What happened?
Speaker B
The war happened. Augustine went off to fight and I never heard from him again until today.
Speaker C
I wonder why he looked you up after all this time.
Speaker B
Are you kidding? He was crazy about me. I was the only girl in the village who didn't want to be a nun.
Speaker B
Sometimes these things aren't meant to be, like me and Fabrizio Rubino.
Speaker B
We were on the verge of a passionate love affair when destiny intervened.
Speaker C
Don't tell me, his wife, Destiny Rubino. Why, boy, did she have a temper. She dragged him away by the hair on his back.
Speaker B
That's a Sicily you don't see on postcards.
Speaker C
Sophia, I forgot to give you this letter.
Speaker B
Oh, from Sicily. A gift from Cousin Vito. A feather.
Speaker C
A feather. That's a message of some kind, isn't it?
Speaker B
What are you babbling about?
Speaker C
Don't play dumb with me, Ma. Everything from Sicily means something. A black rose means a family member is dying. A white carnation means a newborn is on the way. A dead rabbit means my husband knows, get out of town.
Speaker B
Just because a man's in a wheelchair doesn't mean he can't satisfy a woman.
Speaker C
What do you know about this, Ma?
Speaker B
Picture it. Sicily, 1914.
Speaker B
A man in a wheelchair satisfies a woman.
Speaker B
It's a short story, but I think it makes my point.
Speaker C
What was all that stuff with Harry? You know, the man has not dated since his wife died.
Speaker D
Well, you can't spend your whole life in mourning, especially when you're the most eligible bachelor in town.
Speaker B
In Sicily, we have a simple rule: if your husband dies, you wait 20 years or until you grow a mustache.
Speaker B
Jab, left.
Speaker C
Ma, what are you doing? You don't know the first thing about boxing.
Speaker B
Please, I used to be known as the Don King of Sicily.
Speaker B
Of course, I used to wear my hair differently then.
Speaker E
Rosa, impedisci il lavoro con i tuoi problemi, capisci?
Speaker B
Vincenzo says he thinks he has a solution to your problem.
Speaker C
Really? Well, translate for me, Sophia.
Speaker B
Well, I'm a little bit rusty, but I think he said, picture it. Sicily, 1939. The war is on. A promising young architect is offered a job to spearhead construction of a new wing at the Vatican.
Speaker C
Wait a minute, Ma. You say your Italian is rusty, but you know the word for spearhead?
Speaker B
It was my brother's nickname for a while as a child.
Speaker B
Anyway, the young man is torn. Taking the train to Rome means running the risk of enemy bombs, but staying home means passing up a chance to make history.
Speaker C
Boy, he certainly packs a lot of meaning into a few words.
Speaker B
Ah, shut up.
Speaker B
In the end, he chooses safety. It's a decision he still regrets half a century later.
Speaker B
His conclusion, life without risk is no life at all.
Speaker C
Sophia, tell Vincenzo that's a wonderful story. Tell him he helped me make the most important decision of my life.
Speaker C
I'm going to call Alan and tell him I'll sail around the world with him.
Speaker D
Sophia, did Vincenzo really say all that?
Speaker B
Of course not. He's a carpenter, I'm a philosopher.
Speaker B
Picture it. Sardinia, 1932.
Speaker C
I thought these stories of yours always took place in Sicily.
Speaker B
Can a person go away for the weekend?
Speaker B
Picture it. Sicily, 1922. Sophia, I have a problem. I just saw the guy I've been dating out with another woman. Now what do you think I ought to do?
Speaker B
I think you should sit down and picture Sicily, 1922.
Speaker B
It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times.
Speaker B
It was Sicily, 1922.
Speaker C
Oh, Ma.
Speaker C
I have a problem.
Speaker B
Just sit down and listen. First of all, is everyone who lives in this house here at this very moment?
Speaker C
Yes.
Speaker B
Then for the last time, picture it. Sicily, 1922.
Speaker B
A beautiful young woman with breasts not unlike Brigitte Nielsen, except hers moved when she skipped.
Speaker B
She comes walking down a picturesque country road when suddenly, a yellow Rolls Royce pulls up and blocks her path.
Speaker D
Oh, who was in the Rolls?
Speaker B
Robert Goulet for all I know. It's not important to the story.
Speaker B
Anyway, the Rolls Royce moves on and the girl finds her pepperoni is missing.
Speaker C
What happened to it, Sophia?
Speaker B
Bambi ate it. How should I know? You keep missing the point. The important thing is she has no pepperoni to bring to her family's table.
Speaker B
She gets hysterical. She starts to run. She runs through the field, the meadow, over the hill until she comes to a raging river filled with pepperoni swimming upstream.
Speaker C
Pepperoni swimming upstream?
Speaker B
Yeah, I know it's odd. Pepperoni is a land meat, but there it was.
Speaker B
She wades into the river, grabs an armful, and races home to feed her family. When she tells them the story, they think it's an act of God, but as it turned out, a disgruntled pepperoni stuffer had blown up the factory in a neighboring town, causing pepperoni to rain down over 100 square miles.
Speaker B
Which is where the old Sicilian saying, it's raining cats and pepperoni, comes from.
Speaker B
Is this helping anyone yet? Because this sure feels like an ending to me.
Topics:SicilyGolden GirlsTV Landcomedyfamily storieshistorical fictioncultural heritageimmigrationItalian traditionshumor
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