The third of Giorgio Mangiamele's films about migrant experiences, the narrative tells of an Italian paperboy who is bullied and taunted by three bodgies because of his race/background. In a chase, the boy is hit by a drunk driver and dies on the kerbside. His papers scatter and blow away. His mother sees paper flying in the air outside her window and has a premonition of tragedy.
Two versions of the The Spag were made, with the first one unreleased. It centres on an Italian motor mechanic who tries to make a life for himself in Australia but is discriminated against because he can't speak English. He subsequently suffers racial discrimination at work and at his boarding house. Similar scenes are used and many of the characters play similar roles to the released version, but the discrimination depicted in this film is much stronger.
In 'Liminality, Temporality and Marginalization in Giorgio Mangiamele's Migrant Movies,' Gaetano Rando writes:
.It can be argued that the most dramatic and striking of Mangiamele's migrant films are the two versions of The Spag. They provide a powerful visualisation of migrant alienation and marginalisation in Australia's inner-city areas. Spag 1, in particular, universalizes Australian attitudes towards CALD [Culturally and Linguistically Diverse] migrants in a highly critical manner. Both versions explore the potential for the development of brotherhood between Australians and CALD migrants which is however impeded by the presence of 'bad' elements that exclude the migrant, blocking any possibility of integration to the extent that both versions conclude with the death of the protagonist, signifying total exclusion.
Lampugnani claims that Spag 2:
[...] can be read on two levels: on the one hand the mimetic appraisal of the migrant's encounters with persecution, xenophobia or at best an apparent and superficial attitude of tolerance and, on the nosographical plane, the dream-like phantasy sequence of acceptance (and remorse) following the protagonist's death which may be identified with a conscious obsessive yearning for fulfillment on the biographical plane (Lampugnani 2005: 59)
... It is impossible, however, to achieve universal brotherhood in the temporality of Australia in the late 1950s/early 1960s. So whereas only five years after The Spag the antithetic and highly successful They're a Weird Mob broadcast its unrealistic message of easily and instantaneously achieved assimilation, for Mangiamele assimilation is a much more difficult and complex matter (pp.215-216).
