Lorella Zanardo
Having lived in Italy for the past 13 years, it is something of a relief to see a growing protest against the way women are portrayed on the national TV. This is powerfully articulated in the excellent short documentary by Lorella Zanardo called Il Corpo Delle Donne. An English version of this film (Women’s Bodies) can be seen on the related blog and an article about this has appeared in todays’s Guardian.
Zanardo admits that prior to making this film she didn’t watch much television. A friend challenged her feminist credentials by saying that she could know nothing about women unless she watched more. She recorded around 400 hours and reduced this to around 25 minutes which show clearly how young women (there are very few over the age of 40) are used as adornments. This is something she expected to see;.what she didn’t expect, and what the film shows, is how they are routinely humiliated in the name of entertainment.
Her motive for making the film was to open a debate and in this respect she has already succeeded. The timing couldn’t be more perfect given the recent controversy over Berlusconi’s ‘escorts’.
I’m sure there are many who will argue that these women choose to appear in this way and that they are willing accomplices. In part, this is true but TV is such a powerful medium that it does not simply reflect trends but actually creates them. In other words, TV establishes the role models and one of the key issues is that smart women who don’t fit the super-babe image aren’t given any significant airtime.
Reconstructed red blooded men need to enter this debate too. Taunts like “Whassa matter donta you lika the sexy woman?” need to countered – and while we’re about it, a few more intelligent men on the box wouldn’t go amiss!
Perhaps unwittingly, but then again perhaps not, Bologna University are guilty of backing Silvio Berlusconi’s dumbed down and sexed-up representation of Italy in the 21st Century.
