Et tu, Italy?

"Shark Tale," an animated DreamWorks film that glorifies gangsters, celebrates violence and promotes anti-Italian bigotry to children, could well sever the mystic chords that bond Italo-Americans to their ancestral homeland.

According to published reports, the Italian government plans to grant "Shark Tale" star Robert De Niro honorary citizenship when he attends the movie's premiere at the Venice Film Festival this week.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi had better wake up and smell the cappuccino.

DreamWorks has truly hit bottom with this cinematic exploitation of children. Think "The Sopranos Whack Nemo Under the Sea." Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese and "Sopranos" alumni Michael Imperioli and Vincent (Big Pussy) Pastore provide lurid Mafia goombah voiceovers.

The dialogue, such as it is, would make Marcello Mastroianni spin in his grave: "Capeesh," "Bada-Bing, Bada-Boom," and the ubiquitous "Fuhgeddaboudit."

De Niro's shark capo, Don Lino, is heard urging his offspring, Frankie and Johnny, to kill "as a [crime] family" while the trio is serenaded by Puccini's La Boheme in an Italian restaurant.

Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, DreamWorks' chief mavens, have lined up Coca-Cola, Krispy Kreme, Burger King, General Mills, Sabra, Hewlett-Packard and Activision to market Don Lino, Frankie, Johnny and Luca the Enforcer merchandise to kids.

The Italian government should not condone such profiteering at the expense of children. Italy's Minister of Culture Giuliano Urbani should be excoriating De Niro. After all, alma mater Italia has long been the seat of civilization.

The actor's film history of demeaning Italians is defamatory enough. However, employing his anti-Italian persona to peddle bigotry to kids - and cashing in on it - is morally perfidious.

The government should not grant De Niro's honorary citizenship.

There are true Italian-American heroes deserving of such an honor: Dr. Carolyn Porco, the Space Science Institute's chief imaging scientist on the joint NASA/Italian Space Agency/European Space Agency Cassini mission to Saturn; Tomie de Paola, the author of witty and whimsical Calabrian children's fables, or retired Gen. Anthony Zinni, former Centcom chief and a modern-day Cincinnatus.

Forza, Italia!

Rosario A. Iaconis is president of the Italic Institute of America.