Abstract
Giuliani explores the circulation of figures of race in 1980s TV commercials such as Morositas liquorice gummies, Caffé Kimbo coffee and Tartufone desserts, and Oliviero Toscani’s iconic ad for the Italian apparel maker Benetton depicting a white, blonde little angel and a black, curly haired little devil. She then focuses on three television shows: Quelli della notte, Indietro tutta! and Drive In. Finally, she explores how the regime of visuality/visibility and concealment typical of the 1980s dealt with and was transformed by the visual impact and television iconography of the first wave of migrant landings (1991).
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Notes
- 1.
Daniele Pittèri, La pubblicità in Italia. Dal dopoguerra ad oggi (Bari and Roma: Laterza, 2006), 117.
- 2.
The term “neotelevision” was coined by Umberto Eco in the early 1980s, following Raymond Williams’ analysis of the evolution of television in the late 1970s. The term referred to the end of “pedagogical television” (1950s–70s) and the emergence of commercial television.
- 3.
Daniele Pittèri, La pubblicità in Italia, 123–4. See also Francesco Casetti, Tra me e te. Strategie di coinvolgimento dello spettatore nei programmi della neo-televisione (Torino: Nuova ERI, 1988) and Maria Pia Pozzato, Dal “gentile pubblico” all’Auditel. Quarant’anni di rappresentazione televisiva dello spettatore (Torino: Nuova ERI, 1992).
- 4.
For an insightful analysis of constructions of race and gender in television and billboard advertising in Italy, see Perilli , “‘Sesso’ e ‘razza’ al muro,” 98. See also Hall , The Spectacle of the Other, 223–90.
- 5.
Pittèri, La pubblicità in Italia, 143; Griselda Pollock, “Cosa c’è di sbagliato nelle ‘Immagini delle donne’,” in “Visioni del femminile,” ed. Roberta Sassatelli and Cristina Demaria, special issue, Studi Culturali 10, no. 3 (2013): 463–74. See also Cristina Demaria and Roberta Sassatelli, “Visioni di genere e forme della femminilità. Soggetti, codici, significati,” in Metodi di ricerca visuale, ed. Annalisa Frisina (Bologna: il Mulino, 2016), 29–52. For an insightful feminist critique of the relation between female bodies, femininity, women’s subjectivity, and television, see Alessandra Gribaldo and Giovanna Zapperi, Lo schermo del potere. Femminismo e regime della visibilità (Verona: ombre corte, 2012).
- 6.
Serena Dandini et al., La tv delle ragazze, RAI 3, Italy, 1988–1989.
- 7.
Perilli , “‘Sesso’ e ‘razza’ al muro,” 111.
- 8.
https://youtu.be/pANneGd-x-Q; see also Frisina and Giuliani, “De-razzializzare l’italianità,” 53–82.
- 9.
- 10.
- 11.
- 12.
- 13.
- 14.
Livio Sansone, Blackness Without Ethnicity: Constructing Race in Brazil (London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); Valeria Ribeiro Corossacz, Razzismo, meticciato, democrazia razziale. Le politiche della razza in Brasile (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2005).
- 15.
Enzo Trapani, Te lo do io il Brasile, RAI 1, 6 episodes, 1984.
- 16.
Gilberto Braga, La schiava Isaura (Escrava Isaura, Brazil, 1976–1977), broadcast in Italy on Rete 4 from 1982 onwards.
- 17.
Gilbert Moses, David Greene, John Erman, Marvin J. Chomsky, Roots (USA, 1977) broadcast in Italy on RAI 2 in 1978.
- 18.
- 19.
Lee’s comedies and dramas Lola Darling (She’s Gotta Have It, 1986), Do the Right Thing (1989), Mo’ better Blues (1990), Jungle Fever (1991) and Malcolm X (1992), as well as dramas like The Color Purple (1985) and Ghost (1990) by Jerry Zucker; the comedies Jumpin’ Jack Flash (1986) by Penny Marshall, and Sister Act (1991) by Emile Ardolino, both starring Whoopy Goldberg ; the comedies Una poltrona per due (Trading Places, 1983) and Il principe cerca moglie (Coming to America, 1988) both by John Landis, starring Eddie Murphy, had great success in cinema theatres and on television; the sit-coms The Jeffersons (1975–1985), first broadcast in Italy by Canale 5 from 1984 to 1987, The Robinsons (The Cosby Show, 1984–1992) first broadcast by Canale 5 from 1986 to 1993, Il mio amico Arnold (Diff’rent Strokes, 1978–1986) first broadcast by local channels (1980–1982) and then by Canale 5 (1982–) reached a vast audience and were shown as reruns until the mid-1990s. For an interesting analysis on their reception in Italy, see Leonardo Buonuomo, “Indovina chi viene a cena? La rappresentazione degli afroamericani nel doppiaggio italiano di The Jeffersons,” in Petrovich Njegosh and Scacchi, Parlare di razza, 220–40; and Anna Belladelli, “Voci (non) bianche nel doppiaggio televisivo italiano degli anni Ottanta,” in Petrovich Njegosh and Scacchi, Parlare di razza, 241–53.
- 20.
- 21.
- 22.
The commercial was originally produced in the UK and released in 1984: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL0nOhpGHhM.
- 23.
- 24.
- 25.
Oliviero Toscani, Facce/Faces (Roma: Castelvecchi, 1997).
- 26.
- 27.
See “Ava” (1988): https://youtu.be/9kt5jWvxsz4; the Coccolino series: “Coccolino concentrato” (1984): www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0_7H8gRgn8; “Coccolino Natale” (1987): www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtlrywrZGfw and “Coccolino” (1988): www.youtube.com/watch?v=fem8UYCXVmk.
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Cristina Lombardi-Diop, “Spotless Italy: Hygiene, Domesticity, and the Ubiquity of Whiteness in Fascist and Postwar Consumer Culture,” California Italian Studies 2, no. 1 (2011): 2. Lombardi-Diop quotes Kristin Ross , Fast Cars, Clean Bodies: Decolonization and the Reordering of French Culture (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1995), 75 and Stephen Gundle, “L’americanizzazione del quotidiano: Televisione e consumismo nell’Italia degli anni cinquanta,” Quaderni storici 62 (1986): 561–94.
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Perilli , “‘Sesso’ e ‘razza’ al muro,” 112; see also Lombardi-Diop , “L’Italia cambia pelle. La bianchezza degli italiani dal Fascismo al boom economico,” in Bianco e nero, 114–6.
- 30.
Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks; Tobing Rony , The Third Eye; William E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903; repr., New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2003).
- 31.
Gayatri C. Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” in Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader, ed. Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester, 1993), 66–111; Hobson, Venus in the Dark.
- 32.
Franco Cassano, Southern Thought and Other Essays on the Mediterranean (New York: Fordham University Press, 2012), xxxvi.
- 33.
Cassano , Southern Thought, 137.
- 34.
Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Epistemologies of the South: Justice against Epistemicide (New York: Routledge, 2014).
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Cassano , Southern Thought, 142.
- 36.
Francesco Festa, “La potenza plebea della musica,” Alfabeta2, 15 gennaio 2015, https://www.alfabeta2.it/2015/01/25/la-potenza-plebea-della-musica/, ultima consultazione 7 agosto 2015.
- 37.
Iain Chambers, Mediterraneo blues. Musiche, malinconia postcoloniale, pensieri marittimi (Torino: Bollati e Boringhieri, 2012), 29.
- 38.
Stoler , Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power.
- 39.
McClintock , Imperial Leather.
- 40.
On this aspect in the United States and Europe, see Michael Moon, A Small Boy and Others: Imitation and Initiation in American Culture from Henry James to Andy Warhol (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998).
- 41.
Luca Martera, Drive In–30 anni–L’origine del male 2013, Italia, 2013. For more on this topic and a general introduction to the evolution of Italian television and society in the 1980s, see Paolo Capuzzo, “Consumo e paesaggio mediatico degli anni Ottanta,” Cinema e storia, no. 1 (2012): 69–93; and Capuzzo, ed., “Gli anni Ottanta in Europa,” Contemporanea, no. 4 (2010): 697–718.
- 42.
Pittèri, La pubblicità in Italia, 122.
- 43.
Olivia Guaraldo, “(In)significante padrone. Media, sesso e potere nell’Italia contemporanea, in Filosofia di Berlusconi,” in L’essere e il nulla nell’Italia del Cavaliere, ed. Carlo Chiurco (Verona: ombre corte, 2011), 97–128.
- 44.
Aria di mezzanotte—Enzo Tortora e il sesso (seasons 1976–1977 and 1977–1980); Odeon. Tutto quanto fa spettacolo, broadcast from 1976 to 1978; Spogliamoci insieme (1977); Colpo grosso, broadcast from 1987 to 1991; Il cappello sulle 23, broadcast from 1983 to 1986; Due di tutto, broadcast between 1982 and 1983; and Blitz, broadcast between 1983 and 1985.
- 45.
Federico Boni, Il superleader. Fenomenologia mediatica di Silvio Berlusconi (Roma: Meltemi, 2008), 11.
- 46.
See Fabio Dei, “Pop-politica: le basi culturali del berlusconismo,” Studi culturali 8, no. 3 (2011): 480–1; Elisa Giomi, “Da Drive in alla Makeover Television. Modelli femminili e di rapporto fra i sessi nella TV berlusconiana (e non),” Studi culturali 9, no. 1 (2012): 3–28; Guaraldo, “(In)significante padrone”; and Massimo Panarari, L’egemonia sottoculturale. Da Gramsci al Gossip (Torino: Einaudi, 2010).
- 47.
Maxine Leeds Craig, “Race, Beauty, and the Tangled Knot of a Guilty Pleasure,” Feminist Theory 7, no. 2 (2006), 163.
- 48.
See Giomi, “Da Drive in alla Makeover Television,” 7–10.
- 49.
Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology, 128.
- 50.
Manzoli, Da Ercole a Fantozzi, 184–5.
- 51.
Ferruccio Gambino, Migranti nella tempesta (Verona: ombre corte, 2003).
- 52.
Elisabetta Pesole, “Genere, ‘razza’ e crisi albanese a Telenorba,” in Giuliani, Il colore della nazione, 106–22.
- 53.
Alessandro Dal Lago, Non-persone. L’esclusione dei migranti in una società globale (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1999).
- 54.
Paola Tabet, La pelle giusta (Torino: Einaudi, 1997).
- 55.
Istituto Nazionale di Statistica (ISTAT), “La presenza straniera in Italia negli anni ‘90,” Informazione no. 61 (Roma: Ministero degli Interni, 1998).
- 56.
Nicholas De Genova, “Conflicts of Mobility, and the Mobility of Conflict: Rightlessness, Presence, Subjectivity, Freedom,” Subjectivity 29 (2009): 456; see also Jeff Huysmans, The Politics of Insecurity: Fear, Migration and Asylum in the EU (London and New York: Routledge, 2006).
- 57.
Enrica Rigo, “Razza clandestina. Il ruolo delle norme giuridiche nella costruzione di soggetti-razza,” in Immigrazione. Tra diritti e politica globale, ed. Carlo B. Menghi (Torino: Giappichelli, 2002); Rigo, “Ai confini dell’Europa. Cittadinanze post-coloniali nella nuova Europa allargata,” in I confini della libertà. Per un’analisi politica delle migrazioni contemporanee, ed. Sandro Mezzadra (Roma: Derive Approdi, 2004).
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Giorgio Grappi, “Lungo la linea del lavoro. Migranti e razzismo istituzionale,” in La razza al lavoro, ed. Anna Curcio and Miguel Mellino (Roma: Manifestolibri, 2012).
- 59.
See Salvatore Palidda, “Deviation and Victimisation,” in The Fourth Report on Migrations 1998, ed. Fondazione Ismu (Milano: Ismu/Angeli, 1998), 65–80; Palidda, “Immigration, racisme et néocolonialisme en Italie,” Passerelles: revue d’études interculturelles. Science et culture 15 (1997): 105–11; Palidda, ed., Délit d’immigration. La construction sociale de la déviance et de la criminalité parmi les immigrés en Europe (Bruxelles: COST-Communauté Européenne, 1996).
- 60.
On the increasing violence from the 1990s onwards, see Grazia Naletto, Rapporto sul razzismo in Italia (Roma: Manifestolibri, 2009); and Annamaria Rivera and Paola Andrisani, “Inventario dell’intolleranza,” in Estranei e nemici. Discriminazioni e Violenza razzista in Italia, ed. Annamaria Rivera (Roma: DeriveApprodi, 2003); Giuseppe Faso, Lessico del razzismo democratico (Roma: DeriveApprodi, 2010).
- 61.
Charles Burdett, Italy, Islam and the Islamic World: Representations and Reflections from 9/11 to the Arab Uprisings (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2016). On the evolution of media discourse on (im)migration to Italy, see Emma Bond, Guido Bonsaver, and Federico Falloppa, eds., Destination Italy: Representing Migration in Contemporary Media and Narrative (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2015), especially Part 1 on the media.
- 62.
See Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson, “Borderscapes of Differential Inclusion: Subjectivity and Struggles on the Threshold of Justice’s Excess,” in The Borders of Justice, ed. Étienne Balibar, Sandro Mezzadra, and Ranabir Samaddar (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011), 181–203; and Mezzadra and Neilson, Border as Method (Durham: Duke University Press, 2013).
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Giuliani, G. (2019). Visualising Race in Italian Public and Private Television (1980s–2010s). In: Race, Nation and Gender in Modern Italy. Mapping Global Racisms. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50917-8_6
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