My Italian TV Hell

In January 2003, the Financial Times published an article by Tobias Jones about the state of Italian television. Jones, a British writer married to an Italian woman and living in Parma, documented his reactions to Italian TV shows in a way that was refreshing and throurougly enjoyable. Enjoyable for anyone who is NOT Italian. Because the picture he painted was clearly depressing:

The following evening, about 7pm, I flick to Channel 5 again. This is the prime-time quiz show, Passaparola. To understand this kind of show, there are more key words to learn. Letterine “the little letters”, Veline “quick news flash”, schedine “the little statistics”: all are diminutive “me” descriptions of the bikini-clad women who start dancing erotically at random intervals. Passaparola is a quiz show based on the alphabet, hence the “little letters”. As I’m watching, Gerry Scotti – the anodyne host – is flirting with one of them and winking at the 8m viewers. Italy, don’t be in any doubt, is the land that feminism forgot.

A clip from Striscia la Notizia – one of the most watched TV programs in Italy (satirical news on primetime TV, on weekdays). These are the “Veline” Tobias Jones talks about:

Passaparola & the Letterine:

From Buona Domenica – Italy’s most watched Sunday afternoon program:

(The male tv presenter jokingly says the two women should keep doing this “until one of them dies”)

The article made a big impression on me back then. As an Italian, who has studied mass communication and film in the United States, who has lived abroad for many years, an activist and a feminist, this subject was very close to me. While in college, every time I went to Italy to visit my parents, I was positively shocked by the representation of women in mass media. Especially when making a comparison with the U.S. or the U.K. I would protest, and tell friends and relatives that I found this overt objectification of women offensive. My blood would literally boil at the sight of young women, about the same age as me, dancing around in bikinis and smiling to creepy 60-something anchormen. Yet all my Italian friends and relatives were relatively non-plussed by this. They found it normal. And it is still the same now, years later. If anything, the number of women scantly clad, offering their bodies for visual consumption has multiplied. Now they are everywhere.

The Financial Times doesn’t carry the article anymore, but I found a blog that reproduced it in its entirety. You can read it at this link.

What fascinated me the most, re-reading it just yesterday, was media consolidation. Because we have all heard the arguments that sex sells and men love looking at pretty women. But very few people go below the surface, to discuss the system that permits this.

It often seems that, in Italy, there aren’t advertisement breaks; there are short programme breaks. Fifty seven per cent of all Italian advertising budgets is spent on television (compared with 23 per cent in Germany, and 33.5 per cent in the UK). Even RAI, the state-owned television network – to whom I pay an annual licence fee of euro 97 – runs adverts. All of which means that audience chasing is crucial, and programmes are designed for quantity not quality. “It’s become a kind of psychological dictatorship”, says Gad Lerner, the most intelligent anchorman on Italian TV.  “The figures from Auditel (which measures audience share) scare people into only producing these vulgar, crowd pulling programmes.” Berlusconi, of course, owns Publitalia, the company responsible for selling 60 per cent of advertising space on Italian television. Within a few days of starting my TV induction I can feel my brain turning to custard.

I had forgotten about this fact. Berlusconi, Italy’s prime minister, in addition to owning a media empire made up of 50% of the main TV channels, Mondadori – the largest Italian publishing house, countless magazines, newspapers, home video distribution firms, film production houses, a soccer club and insurance companies, also owns the “company responsible for selling 60 percent of advertising space on Italian television.”

When writing “Citizen Kane” Orson Welles would have thought this was too much for his character. And yet it is possible in Italy (watch Sabina Guzzanti’s awesome documentary ‘Viva Zapatero’ if you are insterested in the subject)

When having discussions with friends, I often compare Italy to Russia – it definitely feels like a media dictatorship. And, when asked where I’m originally from, I would jokingly reply “the Banana Republic” – because it feels so surreal. Women have a really hard time being taken seriously. My “golden ticket” is my international background: the fact I have lived for so long abroad and speak English and French fluently. So, my competence is not questioned when I am in Italy. But scores and scores of Italian women, who live and work there, have a difficult time in the corporate world. A few stats, culled from another article (“Naked Ambition”)

“In the largest Italian companies, women represent about two per cent of board directors.”

“In 1976, she says, 11 per cent of members of parliament were women, the same as today.”

Italian women need to break into the boys’ club – in academia, politics, the corporate world, and in mass media. But first they need to be aware of Italy’s pervasive mysoginy. And most of them aren’t.

Read “My Italian TV Hell” here.

Read “Naked Ambition” here.

Amazing Orgs. Because we need action more than words.

In Media Control Noam Chomsky writes about the ultimate goal of the public relations industry: to help industries and the government control the public mind. What is big industry is most afraid of? Activism.

Chomsky writes,

People have to be atomized and segregated and alone. They’re not supposed to organize, because then they might be something beyond spectators of action. They might actually be participants if many people with limited resources could get together to enter the political arena. That’s really threatening.

When I first read this, I had a clear picture in my mind: scores of people, nowadays, sitting in front of their computers – reading Facebook, or political blogs – and feeling a synthetic sense of connectedness and activism. Myself included. Writing – or commenting – on a blog post about body image issues or creating a Facebook group to raise awareness on domestic violence does one thing: it raises awareness. But things stop there. You may have hundreds of members joining your FB group, thousands of visitors on your political blog, but the feeling of doing something, I will say this again, is synthetic. You’re sitting alone in a room in front of your computer, typing away. You are “segregated and alone.” And the real world, with all its rules, is often unaffected by that. That is why we need to reclaim the activism of the 20s, 60s and 70s. We need to regroup, to organize, to meet face to face and join groups of people who are actively working on improving issues dear to us.

So, here is a list of some of my favorite organizations, who are doing just that. Because a clever blog post on blog X will only get you this far. Think about joining their causes.

The Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood (U.S.). My heros. Thanks to their activism, Hasbro halted the production of Pussycat Dolls toys for little girls.

Girls Inc. (U.S.) “Picture the world through the eyes of a Girls Inc. girl. She belongs to a community that empowers her to pursue the biggest dreams she can dream. She is uplifted by the strength of a national organization that is committed to inspiring the leaders of tomorrow.”

Pink Stinks (U.K.) The campaign for real role models. “PinkStinks is a campaign and social enterprise that challenges the ‘culture of pink’ which invades every aspect of girls’ lives.” Their ultimate goal is to “influence marketeers and the media about the importance of promoting positive gender roles to girls.”

About-Face (U.S.) Their mission is to “equip women and girls with tools to understand and resist harmful media messages that affect self-esteem and body image.”

Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation (U.K.) “At WSFF, we believe in a society which encourages, enables and celebrates active women and girls.”

Women’s Forum Australia. A wonderful organization helping women on many issues – from health to body image and work. Their think tank created Faking It, a glossy magazine-style report that “explores issues around the objectification of women and girls in the media and popular culture, with a focus on women’s magazines.”

And the list could go on and on. Will certainly write about other organizations in the future.

Remember the old saying: actions speak louder than words.

Celebrating International Women’s Day: Naomi Klein on Becoming an Activist

Celebrating IWD: This is What a Feminist Looks Like

Beyond the Beauty Myth

Naomi Wolf writes in the final pages of her book The Beauty Myth:

The terrible truth is that though the marketplace promotes the myth, it would be powerless if women didn’t enforce it against one another. For any one woman to outgrow the myth, she needs the support of many women. The toughest but most necessary change will come not from men or from the media, but from women, in the way we see and behave toward other women.

Sarah Haskins – Target Women: Skin Care

Sarah Haskins is my hero: check out this hilarious Target Women segment:

Off Topic – But Incredibly Inspiring: Isabel Allende Talks about Passion and Feminism

Source: TED

From the Archives: Is Feminism Dead?

While filing old articles into their appropriate folders on my computer, I stumbled upon a 1998 TIME magazine essay by Ginia Bellafante, about the “death of feminism.”

So many things rang true, some 10 years later. Indeed, publishing date and Ally McBeal references aside, the article could have been written today. Which is quite sad.

Most poignant quotes:

If feminism of the ’60s and ’70s was steeped in research and obsessed with social change, feminism today is wed to the culture of celebrity and self-obsession.

And:

You’ll have better luck becoming a darling of feminist circles if you chronicle your adventures in cybersex than if you churn out a tome on the glass ceiling.

Sigh.

Full article here.