http://www.thesmokinggun.com/blowingupgotti/?sect=15
As the daughter of a serial killer, Victoria Gotti has done okay for herself: hack novelist, supermarket tabloid scribbler, and, now, star of the A&E reality TV show "Growing Up Gotti." Personally, we don't think much of the program or Gotti and her three mook sons (we're waiting for "Meet the McVeighs" or "At Home with the Attas").
When it comes to watching the Gottis squabble, we prefer to pop in surveillance videotapes made during a two-day family visit to the Illinois penitentiary John Gotti called home (prison officials recorded all visits to the Gambino family boss). During the January 1998 sitdown, an irritable Gotti meets with his brother Peter, Victoria, and her son John, who was 10 at the time and not yet addicted to hair gel.
The prison videotapes are so entertaining that we're divvying them up into a limited-run summer series, with new episodes appearing every Monday morning. "Blowing Up Gotti" is brought to you in conjunction with Ganglandnews.com, your one-stop shop for Mafia news (wiseguy expert Jerry Capeci, the site's proprietor, obtained the Gotti tapes). Look for more riveting visiting room vignettes in "Mob Star," a marvelous Gotti bio by Capeci and co-author Gene Mustain.
Episode 2: Parenting, Gotti Style
John Gotti criticizes daughter Victoria's handling of a problem her son encountered at school. Seems that after a classmate slurred Little John--accusing the kid (imagine!) of being a tyro wiseguy--Victoria had a polite conversation with the kid's mother to express her displeasure.
Which was the wrong way to handle things, according to the imprisoned killer, who equates such civility to acting like a "rat" or a Jew. Instead, Gotti tells his daughter she should have instilled fear into the young troublemaker's mother by invoking her notorious daddy and threatening to--at least--cut the boy's tongue out. Along the way we are reminded, "Being a nigger is embarrassment, being John Gotti's grandson is an honor."