The reference is to a business dispute between Amazon and the publishing house Hachette that rejected Amazon's conditions for selling ebooks (low price etc.) Amazon, the 800-pound gorilla of everything on sale on the web was trying to strong-arm the publishers with threats and other unseemly tactics.
The men look like they are from the Mafia. It does not directly say that they are Italian. I do not understand why they decided to use the Mafia men. I imagine it is because Amazon was called a gorilla and I thing really muscular and bulky Italian men are called gorillas, but I am not sure if this is the reason.
ReplyDeleteThis cartoon depicts the men from Amazon to be within a Italian mafia. Mafia stereotypes show Italians to wear nice suits along with using brute force to get what they want. The threats and unseemly tricks refers to the same extortion practices the Italian mafia had used from the 1850s-1920s. Amazon is determined to get what they want like the Italian mafia was.
ReplyDeleteThis statement is so true!
DeleteAgree!
DeleteWhenever I see an image of a well dressed man standing in front of taller, more muscular men I think of the Mafia, this image is pretty much saying that Amazon is willing to do what ever it takes to get the job done. "Some people from Amazon are here to see you" This line gives away the whole story.
ReplyDeleteThe way tv and movie depict the mob we know from the picture that the three men from Amazon are suppose to be from the mob coming to this little company to bully them into getting what they want. The mafia is looked at as the big dog "Amazon" and they are usually known to extort the little guy which is hatchette in this example
ReplyDeleteWell, the men that are portrayed in the cartoon are obviously Italians that are in the mafia. They talk about them being the gorillas trying to get their way by threatening the publishing house. The Italian men are strong-arming the publishing house into doing things their way.
ReplyDeletePretty much what we have here is the mafia (gorillas) going into a small publishing house and pushing them around and getting whatever it is they want out of them. Their bullying this small publishing house to do things the way they (mafia gorillas) want it to be done.
ReplyDeleteThis cartoon in my opinion could have chosen a better approach to showing amazon as a corporate giant. I understand why the cartoonist chose to represent it in this fashion. Immeditaely after looking at the picture what does it say about amazon? It shows they are acting like the mob. In a sense this is true. On the other side of the coin some people may take offense to it.
ReplyDeleteThis image sparked a debate between me and my husband. I showed it to him and asked why this artist chose Italian mafia to represent Amazon company instead of the Russian? It's discrimination! Then he tried to convince me that Italian mafia is more famous in America than Russian mafia. Once again - discrimination! We ended the debate very quickly, since we love Amazon, the company gave us a quality queen size memory foam mattress for free! (after some negotiations, of course) And then it hit me - what is the difference between my mother-in-law and mafia boss? I can always negotiate with a mafia boss.
ReplyDeleteSo true! Everyone uses the "Italian" mafia which in fact their are other cultures . Big discrimination in society!
DeleteI would think they same why when looking at this picture " mafia" two big guys with a man in a suit gives a stereotype for the Italian mob.
ReplyDeleteThe people from Amazon are presented as Italian mafia because of the way they are dressed.
ReplyDeleteWearing a suit and having two guards can easily be stereotyped as the mafia. In this cartoon, it shows how when something needs to be done, the “mafia” can take care of the business.
ReplyDeletethey are referred to as gorillas because they are in the mob, since they are big they scare people
ReplyDelete