In Italy TV screens haunt us. Any trattoria, snack bar, cafe’, hairdresser, railway platform, airport lounge or takeaway pizzeria have a blaring giant screen. It’s an invasion of bodies, bodies, rosy faces speaking nonsense, commercials.
It’s the World Cup. Yes and no. The World Cup was visible on tv also abroad, yet only in Italy we have the constant impression of living in Orwell’s 1984, being watched by giant screens.
Basically we have nothing against TV. When we travel for business or are in Berlin we do enjoy watching some on a rainy evening. In the news department we love the BBC accent and the ZDF orange zest. In the talk show department we like Maybrit Illner on ZDF. And no one else – neither French nor Italians. Documentary films, anywhere, but here we go in super-geek territory, we once had a crush on a docufilm illustrating the genesys of the Frutiger typefont, we have no problem in admitting it. For stand-up comedians UK television is the best – once we get the meaning of the jokes hey it means we’ve made some extra progress in English! We love addictive and beautifully stitched HBO and AMC series, from SATC to Mad Men. And when it comes to literature or artes France2 and ARTE are the best.
It’s a matter of cherry-picking, as the gems are hidden in between Schlagmusik on German TVs and those ubiquitous and familiar “formats”, reality or quiz shows, cookie-cutter afternoon programs with people cooking, guessing, surviving etc. So you have to rummage a bit but there’s always something ok for a quiet rainy Sunday night in.
Trash TV exists anywhere, no need to stock up on that one. But the vulgarity of Italian TV is well beyond your imagination, dear non-Italian reader. The vulgarity is absolute, not relative. Sure there is porn late at night on any European network. But it’s called for what it is. On the Italian TV any programme has a pornographic twist to it, but in line with the best hypocrisy, it’s called talk show, news, reality show, you name it. And advertising.
And am not talking just about scanty clothing around the clock. The pornography is more widespread. It is a state of mind. Even journalists reading news are pornographic. They are on sale. Or go to parliament, which amounts to the same.
And the unbearable part of it, the worst consequence is the image of the woman reflected in society. It started 30 years ago so no wonder. But have a look to this short video (click on WOMEN BODIES) if you want to see what has become our TV and then ask yourself: what is the impact on people’s mind, values and aesthetics?
‘WOMEN BODIES. This project took off as a matter of urgency. It all started with the observation that women–real women–are an endangered species on television, one that is being replaced by a grotesque, vulgar and humiliating representation.
We sensed the enormity of this loss: the erasure of women’s identity is happening right before our eyes, but without a proper reaction, not even from women themselves.
This led us to select television images that share a common manipulative exploitation of the woman’s body, to let people know what is happening–not only people who never watch television, but especially those who watch it but “don’t see.”
Our aim is to ask ourselves questions, and to pose questions about the reason behind this erasure, a real “pogrom” of which all of us are silent spectators.Our project grants special attention to the erasure of adult faces on television, to the use of plastic surgery to erase any sign of the passage of time, and to the social consequences of this erasure”.
source: http://www.ilcorpodelledonne.net
After having watched this video, are you still convinced that Italy is a country with a “such great quality of life”?
Enough for a week in Amalfi or a weekend on the Dolomiti, maybe. But the quality of life is also the intrinsic quality of a society, and I have doubts that here we are setting new highs on the scoring board of civilization.
We we stopped watching Italian TV when it was switched to digital a year ago. We had already reduced to the minimum the weekly intake in the recent years. Until then I had kept on watching a minimum of our “news” programmes, homeopatic doses of political debates because I wanted to be vigilant and see under my eyes the forces that are forging the sort of values, the sort of aesthetics, which are dominant.
MeinMann had had a more radical stance and after the migration to digital we simply didn’t follow, and our tv is now a disconnected device useful only for playing DVD. We live only once right? Let’s avoid this stuff getting under our skin even more. Blackout.
We may be out of synch with the most recent neologisms, but eventually they trickle down the printed media. Dossieraggio, tronista, killeraggio, the works. After all, the rationale of our newspapers is to comment TV.
Lorella Zanardo with her excellent work helps in reaching a new awareness on our media. Because yes, we can decide not to look at these images. But they are around us and shape society. It’s not a matter of being elitarian, but a matter of choice. If there is no choice on the Italian TV, let the choice be “none”. At the same time everyone has the duty to be aware. Wonde about organic food? and what about tv?
Zanardo’s “Nuovi occhi per la TV” invents the idea of “television training”. She decodes the language being spoken on our screens. Because we all need to have more tools, more awareness to control what is being put in front of our eyes. Like with cigarettes, there’s active TV and passive TV, the one that will eventually catch you on the Metro platform and when you have your espresso.
Special thanks to MrFlower who told me about the book, and to RobertaZ who recommends viewing this clip as an example of Zanardo’s case study+ decoding especially useful in schools. There are people in the private and state television whose work everyday is to package the stuff and serve it - have a look. This is not neutral on society.
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