The president's wife recently told a group of schoolchildren to
"read, read and read again" rather than watch "that idiotic
television," "the most asinine of mass media." Last year she
revealed that she and her husband often switch off the set to avoid
"vulgar and degenerate" programs.
What's even more remarkable, no one in the TV industry seriously
contested her remarks.
Although she didn't specify, the first lady of Italy was
probably thinking of prime-time shows like one on which a comedian
sniffed a dancer's g-string, or another on which a "reporter"
surprised a woman model he was interviewing by stripping naked in
front of her.
As in the United States, the most explicit fare here is reserved
for the pay channels, yet Italian network TV abounds in sex. Almost
every show with a studio audience boasts a dozen gorgeous young
women in two-piece outfits of black leather or sequined fabric,
standing in the background, doing nothing but smile and stare
invitingly into the camera.
The other day I flipped to a science show on a state-supported
channel, with a report on an Amazonian tribe that supports itself
entirely from products of the rain forest. The segment ended and we
cut to the studio, where the attractive hostess was joined by some
schoolchildren -- and a row of lovely young women modeling textiles
made from precious metals, which was the topic of the next
segment.
Even hard news is not off-limits to the most blatant displays of
sex appeal. One evening during the early phase of U.S. military
operations in Afghanistan, while the anchor and his expert guest
speculated on troop movements, a short-skirted assistant repeatedly
bent over to shift markers across a map of Central Asia.
To American eyes, the cheesecake on Italian TV is less
objectionable than the cheesiness. Five or six domestically
produced drama series with relatively high budgets are outnumbered
by badly dubbed "telenovelas" from Mexico or Brazil. Most of the
schedule consists of game, talk and "reality" shows -- many based
on foreign prototypes, such as "Big Brother" and "Wheel of Fortune"
-- which make maximum use of fixed sets and unpaid amateur
talent.
Flourishing on Italian airwaves is one genre that has
practically vanished from the U.S.: the variety show, with a
seemingly endless succession of singers, dancers, acrobats,
magicians, comedians -- and, of course, half-naked women.
Sometimes the variety concept is fused with one or more others,
a particularly disjointed example being a Sunday-night extravaganza
whose title translates roughly as "Those For Whom Black Tie is a
Must." This is a kind of pre-game show without the game, since
televised soccer is, like explicit porn, available only by
subscription. Instead fans get to see a shapely blonde hostess (the
wife of a star payer) chat, joke, and sing with celebrity guests,
all in formal evening wear.
Occasionally the camera cuts away to the press box of a stadium,
for some brief commentary on the match in progress. Serious soccer
enthusiasts loathe the show for trivializing the sport, and I can
see why. Adding to the merriment the other night was a middle-age
comic in a toupee and Harry Potter costume, running around the set,
whacking everyone with his magic wand.
With such material to work with, it should come as no surprise
that Italian TV these days is increasingly making fun of itself.
Every night at ten past eight is "Blob," a twenty-minute,
unnarrated montage of clips from the previous day's telecasts. On
"Protected Zone," an enormous transvestite in a beehive hairdo
trades wisecracks with his pretty co-hostess at the expense of
other programming.
The hottest satirical show at the moment is one that bills
itself as the "Voice of Insolence." A cross between "Sixty Minutes"
and "Saturday Night Live," it made the front pages recently by
exposing one of the big names in home shopping as a con woman, who
allegedly bilked viewers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by
promising to ward off evil spirits or turn salt into gold.
There are some pretty gullible Italians out there, obviously,
yet that hardly explains why a nation with the world's
eighth-largest economy and an unsurpassed artistic heritage should
put up with such crummy mass entertainment.
One answer is lack of competition. About fifteen years back, all
national television was state-controlled, with three networks
divided among the three major political parties: Christian
Democrat, Socialist and Communist. Content was predictably dull and
ideologically biased.
Then Silvio Berlusconi came along and, using his connections at
the highest level of government, managed to establish an
alternative semi-monopoly of three private channels, with racier
programs and much longer commercial breaks. The public television
bureaucracy, free from strict partisan ties since the old party
system collapsed in the early nineties, has dumbed down its
offerings to keep up its ratings.
Two taste-makers are evidently too few to stimulate televised
creativity. Moreover, since Berlusconi is now prime minister, he
effectively controls both major forces in Italian TV.
Though all this ought to make Americans feel grateful for their
four networks, not to mention the scores of other options on the
typical U.S. cable service, there's one respect in which Italian
broadcasting unquestionably enjoys the edge in glamour. How often
do Americans get to see the likes of Kevin Costner, Robert De Niro,
Harrison Ford, Marlon Brando, and Uma Thurman in original,
made-for-TV productions? All these international stars have
recently appeared on Italian TV -- pitching comfort shoes, cars,
long distance service and perfume.
Francis X. Rocca is a writer in Vicenza,
Italy.
topics:
Trade, Television, Military
