Abstract
Although representing aliens in varying ways, Inisero Cremaschi and Gilda Musa’s Le grotte di Marte [The Caves of Mars] (1974), Daniela Piegai’s Parola di alieno [Alien Word] (1978), Anna Rinonapoli’s “Metamorfosi cosmica” [Cosmic Metamorphosis] (1986), and Luce D’Eramo’s Partiranno [They Will Leave] (1986) all attempt to reimagine the dualism of human or non-human, which mirrors that between Self and Other. Drawing on Donna Haraway’s critical reflections, the chapter demonstrates how science fiction—which was disregarded in Italy by dominant Marxist and feminist scholars—allowed women writers to explore new possibilities and limits in the narration of the alterity, reflecting on the interconnection of race and gender discrimination. This section challenges the idea that Italian science fiction is merely an entertaining B-genre, showing how it reflects on the legacy of colonialism, transnational migration, and processes of racialization and sexualization. This chapter also compares and contrasts the representations of aliens with those in popular Italian movies made at the beginning of a visible immigration to Italy, such as Luigi Cozzi’s Contamination (1980) and Pier Francesco Pingitore’s Ciao marziano (1980). The chapter argues that these movies give fictional shape to the repressed collective fears that might have in turn inspired contemporary racist propaganda against immigrants.
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Notes
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Haraway’s “A Manifesto for Cyborgs” and other critical works have inspired this essay, although she employs the cyborg, the fusion of a human with high-tech culture (1991: 172), as a metaphor to criticize Marxism and identitarian feminism. Although the cyborg and the alien are two different mythological figures in sf, I believe they share the common feature of representing new sensitivities and identities coming into being in our globalized world after the technological revolution.
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Although they are both conceived as children books, it should be noted that the second edition of Le grotte di Marte (1996) is very different from the first edition published in 1974 as the latter is structured in a more explicitly didactic nature, presenting questions and activities to assess reading comprehension of the students. Moreover, Ugo Fontana’s powerful and evocative color images are substituted by Rino Zanchetta’s comic, which have a more didactic function.
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Pingitore directed 20 movies between 1976 and 2007, and several popular theater plays and TV shows.
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D’Eramo clearly states that the experience of concentration camps spurred her interest in sf literature: “Credo che basterebbe soltanto questa condizione da me attraversata per alcuni mesi—ero in un corpo alieno—a spiegare per che via la dimensione fantascientifica mi s’è connaturata. Ognuno entra in fantascienza per vie diverse. La più scomoda delle porte per le quali mi ci sono inoltrata è stato questo trauma fisico. Da mia esigenza più o meno afferrabile, l’alienità è diventata una mia seconda natura” [I believe that only the condition that I experienced for some months—I was in an alien body—can explain how a science fiction dimension suits me. Everyone enters in sf through a different way. The uncomfortable way through which I entered into it was physical trauma. From this more or less understandable need, the alien condition has become my second nature] (d’Eramo 1986: 109). On the fantastic imaginary in Holocaust literature see Browning and Kerman (2014).
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Filmography
Alien 2 sulla Terra. Dir. Ciro Ippolito (Sam Cromwell), perf. Belinda Mayne, Mark Bodin. GPS: Italy, 1980.
Alien Killer. Dir. Alberto De Martino (Martin Herbert), perf. Laura Trotter, David Warbeck. Luciano Martino: Italy and USA, 1985.
Contamination. Dir. Luigi Cozzi (Lewis Coates), perf. Ian McCulloch, Louise Marleau. Lisa Film: Italy, 1980.
I marziani hanno dodici mani. Dir. Franco Castellano and Pipolo (Giuseppe Moccia), perf. Paolo Panelli, Caludio Croccolo. D.S.: Italy-Spain, 1964.
Il disco volante. Dir. Tinto Brass, perf. Silvana Mangano, Monica Vitti, Alberto Sordi. Dino de Laurentis: Italy, 1964.
La rosa di Bagdad. Dir. Anton Gino Domenichini. IMA: Italy, 1949.
Night of the Living Dead. Dir. George Romero, perf. Duane Jones, Judith O’Dea. Hardman: USA, 1968.
Un marziano a Roma. Dir. Bruno Rasia and Antonio Salines, perf. Antonio Salines, Elio Bertolotti. Rai: Italy, 1983.
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Brioni, S., Comberiati, D. (2019). Aliens in a Country of Immigration: Intersectional Perspectives. In: Italian Science Fiction. Studies in Global Science Fiction. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19326-3_6
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