ROME  It seemed a spirited defense of his nation’s reputation: calling organized crime groups “a terrible pathology,” Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Thursday criticized movies and television shows that fictionalized the Mafia for giving Italy “a negative image abroad.”

Such shows, he said, were “an ugly trend” that he hoped would end soon.

Yet if anyone can help stop the trend, perhaps it is Mr. Berlusconi himself. His Mediaset company, Italy’s largest private broadcaster, showed “The Sopranos” to great success on one of its pay channels, while its Canale 5, a free channel, has shown “The Boss of Bosses,” a 2007 miniseries about the Sicilian Mafia boss Salvatore (Totò) Riina, and “The Last Godfather,” a 2008 program about the Sicilian boss Bernardo Provenzano.

In baroque Italy, where image and reality are so intertwined that the term hypocrisy seems inadequate, many did not even blink. “Those are the typical things you say when you go in an area with high Mafia density,” said Gianluca Nicoletti, a radio commentator. Besides, he added, “I don’t think he said it with great conviction.”

In his 2006 best seller “Gomorrah,” on the Camorra, or the Neapolitan Mafia, Roberto Saviano recounts how some real members of the Mafia model their style on that of fictional mobsters.