the godfather movie came out in the 70's. in America, by the 70's, Italians were totally integrated into our society, and not many racists with whiter skin still resented them being darker, with more ethnically darker features, and easier to identify and stereotype. so, of course, any references to any character in that movie that is an attempt to stereotype or insult Italians, either for their looks, their accents, their garlic and wine and spaghetti tendencies or any other stereotypical characteristic that could be used as a slur is not all that powerful, compared to previous Italian slurs like wop or dago or greaser when Italians really were discriminated against in this country. read some of the stories by dean martin and sinatra about how many times they faced bias and discrimination when they first started out.
these biased bigots with their lame ass insults are lying when they say they were not referring to Fredo being a typical Italian connected to the mob and being crooked and immoral, like a bigot would think, they were referring to him being the unsuccessful loser brother with no consideration of the fact both Fredo, the character, and Chris, are obviously italian. but these same bigots and morons dislike his brother andrew as much as they do chris!! and both are successful in their chosen professions...it is apparent these attempts to deny the intent to slur Cuomo because of his Italian heritage by calling him Fredo, such a classic old style Italian name, by claiming it was because he was a loser compared to his brother is weak and feeble and dishonest. the same ass holes who would call chris "fredo" as an attempt to insult his heritage are just as likely to call his brother Andrew "fredo" in that same lame ass bigoted dumb-fu*k trumpian attempt.