Introduction Trouble Men: Masculinity, Stardom, and Italian Cinema 1. The actresses listed were

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Notes
Introduction Trouble Men: Masculinity,
Stardom, and Italian Cinema
1. The actresses listed were Margherita Buy, Claudia Gerini, and Cristiana
Capotondi. Capotondi was bracketed with regular costar Fabio De
Luigi in eighth place. Buy ranked nineteenth and Gerini twenty-third.
The top male stars were mostly comics (including Alessandro Siani,
Claudio Bisio, Christian De Sica, Checco Zalone, Carlo Verdone, and
Antonio Albanese). See Ciak, September 9, 2013.
2. The majority of this criticism has been Anglophone, though see
Grignaffini (1988). On Loren, see Gundle (1995a) and Small (2009);
on Lollobrigida, see Buckley (2000). Gundle (2007: xix) mentions
that male beauty could also be discussed, and cites Malossi’s volume
on the figure of the Latin Lover. However, it is interesting that La
Cecla in that book admits that “it is difficult to take the Latin Lover
seriously” (1996: 26), and he is interpreted as a figure of slightly
pathetic comic value, rather than as a symbol of the nation. All trans-
lations from Italian are my own, unless otherwise stated.
3. See the cover images for Bondanella (2014), Bertellini (2004),
Brunetta (2009), Wood (2005), Sorlin (1996), Brizio-Skov (2011),
and Nowell-Smith (1996).
4. De Biasio identifies this as a compensatory move on the part of femi-
nism: “The omnipresence and presumed ‘universality’ of men in his-
tory, in the arts, in science, in public life, has led to the focusing on
women’s identity, lobbying for the rights that were still denied them
[ . . . ] and valorizing their achievements and their contributions to the
collective” (2010: 12).
5. Jedlowski says: “While we have an abundant literature on the dif-
ferent manifestations and transformations of female identity, reflec-
tions on masculinity are, till now, few and far between in Italy”
(2009: 11). Benadusi, in his analysis of the male body in Italian
culture, notes the absence of work on masculinity, “an object of
investigation that is almost completely ignored, partly because
of the late arrival of men’s studies” (2009: 31); Camoletto and
Bertone say that Italian male heterosexuality “has remained virtu-
ally unexplored, both because of the late development of men’s
studies in Italy and the persistence of a naturalized conception of
168 NoTeS
male sexuality” (2010: 235); De Biasio talks of the “low visibility”
(2010: 29) of gender studies in Italy and argues that those engag-
ing in discussions of Italian masculinity must “take account of a
debate that is not only recently opened, but that [ . . . ] has very little
structure” (32). Bellassai and Malatesta complained of “a total lack
of interest in masculinity” (2000: ii–iii) while Vaudagna’s overview
of men’s studies in the same volume focused entirely on the Anglo-
American academy, before lamenting the lack of ‘self-reflexive men’
(2000: 48) who might bring their experiences to bear on the Italian
academy in the same way. See also Pescarolo and Vezzosi (2003)
and Piccone Stella (2000).
6. For example, Marcello, “the intellectual,” discusses both the “crisis of
the cock” (Lombardo Radice 1977: 58) and the “male crisis as painful
contradiction” (66).
7. See also the letters included in the collection Care compagne, cari
compagni: lettere a Lotta Continua/Dear Comrades: Letters to Lotta
Continua (1978) in which activists testify anxiously to the impact
on left-wing masculinity of feminism. The work of Sandro Bellassai
has been particularly important in developing the field since the late
1990s, although an important precursor to the post-2000 debates was
the 1989 issue of the feminist journal Memoria (vol. 27), devoted to
“Uomini” (Men).
8. See Kimmel (2013) on the “boy crisis.” Susan Faludi’s 1999 Stiffed:
the Betrayal of the American Man was an important precursor to the
American crisis debates.
9. See Wanrooij (2005). Solomon-Godeau agrees that there is no “utopic
or normative masculinity outside crisis” (1995: 70).
10. Edwards (2006: 4). Edwards also quotes Connell, who argues that
masculinity is a “configuration of practice within a system of gender
relations” and cannot therefore be considered to be in crisis, as it is
not itself a coherent system. Connell suggests that “we can logically
speak of the crisis of the gender order as a whole, and of its tendencies
towards crisis” (Connell, quoted in Edwards 2006: 17).
11. Belpoliti refers to Berlusconi as a “transvestite” (2009: 71, 160) and a
“transsexual” (68). See also Merlo (2004): “For Berlusconi trasform-
ismo [political opportunism] has become transvestitism.”
12. Bernini claims here to be quoting Italian feminist journalist Ida
Dominijanni, but gives no reference.
13. Parotto argues that Berlusconi displays his “weakness, just like his
feminine aspects,” and gives as examples of this his “self-care,” his
“softness,” his wearing of a bandana, and even his love of gardening
(2007: 85).
14. “Berlusconismo is both cause and effect of that catastrophe of virility of
which Italian fascism was the precursor” (emphasis in original).
15. Solomon-Godeau makes this point in relation to “feminized” mascu-
linity: “Imagery of masculine impotence and debility appears not to
NoTeS 169
contradict an official language of gender that condemns if not excori-
ates effeminacy and is further concerned to secure rigid distinctions in
gender” (1997: 11).
16. See Foucault (1988) and Harvey and Gill (2011). I am drawing on
Hipkins (2013) here.
17. In Kirkham and Thumin’s words, “Patriarchal language locates the
feminine beyond the boundaries of the masculine. The feminine is all
that which the masculine is not” (1993: 15).
18. On “technologies of emotion,” see Swan (2008: 89); on the “femi-
nization of labor” in the Italian context see Luciano and Scarparo
(2012) and Morini (2007).
19. “It is through the performance of crisis that white masculinity both
expresses its disempowerment and works towards a new conceptual-
ization of power” (Robinson 2000: 93). See also Traister on masculine
crisis as so ubiquitous that it becomes “normative and exculpatory”
(quoted in Kegan Gardiner 2002: 10).
20. Walsh takes slight issue with Robinson, arguing that she fails to
acknowledge those masculinities that are made peripheral by patriar-
chy because of their failure to conform to hegemonic norms of mas-
culinity (2010: 8).
21. See Holdaway’s work on crisis in Italian film history, in which he draws
upon Koselleck’s framing of crisis in terms of three semantic models:
these are continual crisis, crisis as apocalypse, and, most useful for
my argument, crisis as accelerating process in which conflict bursts in
upon a system, and “following the crisis the system reconstitutes itself
in a new set of circumstances” (quoted in Holdaway 2012: 268).
22. Likewise, Reeser asks, “What does masculinity look like when we do
not assume that masculinity and men are directly related? What hap-
pens when masculinity is dissociated from the male body altogether
and the possibility of female masculinity is considered?” (2010: 3).
Halberstam picks up Sedgwick’s argument and critiques discussions
of masculinity within cultural studies that seem “intent on insisting
that masculinity remain the property of male bodies” (1998: 15).
23. A film such as Salvatores’ Quo vadis, baby? (2005), starring Angela
Baraldi as a female detective who also boxes and has no interest in the
conventional trappings of femininity, is quite unusual in the Italian
mainstream.
24. See Greene (2012, especially 200–204) on the precarious whiteness
of Italians as constructed in cultural representations; see also Giuliani
and Lombardi-Diop (2013) for a more historical account of the same
topic.
25. See, e.g., Duncan (2009) on migrant masculinities in recent Italian
cinema.
26. This argument is similar to that of Halberstam, who noted that “mas-
culinity becomes legible as masculinity where and when it leaves the
white male middle-class body” (1998: 2).
170 NoTeS
27. See Gundle on Loren (1995a) and on postwar female stars (2002),
and Buckley on Lollobrigida as “national body” (2000: 531). See
Dell’Agnese (2007) on models of masculinity in postwar Italian
cinema. See also Landy on Nazzari, Sordi, Totò, Mastroianni, and
Gassman (2008: 132–58), as well as Wood (2004) on postwar
masculinities.
28. See also Nakahara (2012) on male infantilism in 1970s Italian sex
comedies. Comic stars like Alberto Sordi and Totò have had numer-
ous biographical volumes and encyclopedia entries devoted to them,
but little serious analysis.
29. De Bernardis also compares current stars to great past ones, calling
Accorsi “the metaphorical end-point of the Mastroianni type” (2007:
32), and Luigi Lo Cascio the new Gian Maria Volonté.
30. In the same journal issue (a special issue of Segnocinema devoted to
“The Politics of the Actor”) Pierini, however, praises actors such as
Favino, Servillo, and Lo Cascio, representatives of a “strong natural-
istic school” whilst castigating Accorsi and Giovanna Mezzogiorno as
“very bad actors” (2007: 17).
31. See Krämer and Lovell (1999), De Cordova (1991), Taylor (2012),
Wojcik (2004), and Cherchi Usai (2007: 13) on the critical neglect of
acting. Fabrizio Deriu, in his book on Volonté, claims that “the work
of the actor in film is elusive” (1997: 134).
32. Deriu claims that performance analysis has been hampered by the
volume of sociological attention to stardom (1997: 134).
33. Raoul Bova has made several American films, including Under the
Tuscan Sun (Wells, 2003) and AVP: Alien vs Predator (Anderson,
2004). Pierfrancesco Favino has worked in Hollywood films as
diverse as Rush (Howard, 2013), World War Z (Forster, 2013),
Angels and Demons (Howard, 2009), and Miracle at St. Anna (Lee,
2008). In addition, several Italian stars work regularly in France
(Accorsi, Scamarcio, Monica Bellucci).
34. See Reich on Mastroianni as a “window” onto aspects of Italian social
reality (and gender relations) (2004: 1)
35. This constitutive role is also highlighted by Peberdy (2011: 170).
36. Here of course I am referring to Judith Butler’s work on performativ-
ity, which has redefined the field of gender studies. Her formulation
of gender performativity as a “reiterative and citational practice by
which discourse produces the effects that it names” (1993: 2) both
fundamentally challenges gender essentialism and also highlights
the contingency and repetition of on-screen and “real-life” gender
performance.
1 Mad About the Boy: Teen Stars and Serious Actors
1. Although Tre metri was not a huge box-office hit, Ho voglia di te
took nearly €14m at the box office in Italy, and recorded the best-ever
NoTeS 171
opening day for an Italian film at the time. Variety attributed the suc-
cess to multiple viewings by girls: “Italo exhibbers report lots of starry-
eyed girls going for consecutive viewings” (Anon. 2007a).
2. Brizzi and Martani also collaborated, with Brizzi directing and
Martani cowriting, on two sequels to Notte prima degli esami, as well
as on Ex (2009), Maschi contro femmine (Men against Women; 2010),
and Femmine contro maschi (2011); they also cowrote many of the
Christmas comedies (cinepanettoni) of the 2000s.
3. Spera discusses the “youth-oriented comedies” (2010: 40) but only to
compare them unfavorably to the commedia all’italiana films of the
1950s and 1960s.
4. Scamarcio was first introduced to Italian audiences via the RAI soap
opera Compagni di scuola (Classmates), which ran for one season in
2001; his costars included Cristiana Capotondi and his future costar
in Ho voglia di te Laura Chiatti.
5. http://cinema.sky.it/cinema/news/2011/08/19/sky_cine_news
_speciale_riccardo_scamarcio.html.
6. http://www.riccardoscamarcio.net/biografia.php.
7. Italian cinema’s valorization of male melancholy will be further inter-
rogated in chapter 3.
8. This trope is also central to the novel Sognerò Riccardo Scamarcio
(I’ll Dream of Riccardo Scamarcio) by Chicca Visconti (2007), in
which the teenage protagonist is able to have romantic dreams about
Scamarcio, an ability that increases her social standing at school. In
the novel Scamarcio’s “incredibly green eyes” (6) are a key element of
his beauty. An interesting cinematic precursor is Sposerò Simon le Bon
(I’ll Marry Simon le Bon; Cotti, 1986).
9. In the novel there are no photographs, and Step reads her journal,
which merely describes her thoughts about him. However, the tone
of Gin’s invective against Babi is even harsher there: “I can’t believe
it! They’re an item! Step, I hate you! [ . . . ] why the fuck did you get
together with someone like her, Step! I swear that one day you’re
going to have to explain yourself to me. Don’t you see that she’s a
girl without balls?” (Moccia 2006: 398). Her diatribe mimics the lan-
guage of fans convinced that they are the only person right for their
star crush.
10. Danielle Hipkins has written of how Gin’s desire to be a photographer
in the film and to “control the image” is contrasted by her work as a
velina or showgirl, a job she is merely doing to make money to study
photography: “one could argue that it is precisely because [Gin] pho-
tographs Step that she has to submit to the camera herself, in order to
maintain her femininity” (Hipkins 2012: 190, n. 129).
11. Commenters (presumably male) call the girls “geese,” “shitty hens,”
and “goslings,” as well as troiette, mignotelle, and zoccolette, all syn-
onyms for “little whores”; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7
_ejYX3mu7k. The fact that the girls in the video are Sicilian also leads
172 NoTeS
to various statements that link their wildness to their Southernness. In
comments appended to this and other videos Scamarcio’s looks and
acting talent are also routinely denigrated in a violent fashion.
12. Aubrey, Walus, and Click argue that “disempowered groups” such as
women and gay men “automatically devalue their idols’ cultural capi-
tal” (2010: 231).
13. http://www.gay.tv/news/entertainment/10-motivi-per-amare-il
-divo-italiano-meno-amato-dai-gay-riccardo-scamarcio/.
14. http://www.gay.tv/articolo/ferzan-ozpetek-trasforma-gli-etero-in
-gay-il-caso-scamarcio-gallery-video/15055/.
15. http://www.gay.tv/news/entertainment/ferzan-ozpetek-trasforma-
gli-etero-in-gay-il-caso-scamarcio-gallery—video/. In the only discus-
sion of Scamarcio on the website www.gay.it posters call him “ugly”
and “horrid”; http://www.gay.it/forum/viewtopic.php?f=168&t=2
3658&p=262488&hilit=scamarcio#p262488. Interestingly, the dis-
cussion is about his role as a gay man in Mine vaganti, and whether
this has enabled him to shake off his teen idol reputation. On gaywave.
it he is discussed excitedly as a sex symbol in one 2009 article http://
www.gaywave.it/articolo/riccardo-scamarcio-senza-mutande-il-vid-
eo-tutto-per-voi/4899/ but an earlier piece chastised him for putting
on weight and losing his “gay icon” status: http://www.gaywave.it
/articolo/riccardo-scamarcio-icona-gay-per-chi/169/.
16. See Sheffield and Merlo on concern as a “rhetorical strategy” in dis-
course around the Twilight franchise and its fans, a strategy that allows
critics and “anti-fans” to “make public their own dislike of Twilight
under the guise of disapproving of the series on behalf of less enlight-
ened readers” (2010: 215).
17. Battisti 2007. The fact that the premiere took place on International
Women’s Day thus offered an easy commentary on the supposed
degradation of public life in Italy, whereby, one presumes, rallies and
debates on feminism have been replaced by girls screaming at a teen
idol. This is reiterated in Il Giornale’s account of the premiere, which
opens with “Here they are, the little women who, instead of a mimosa
want a boy who is bono come er pane [tasty and with a heart of gold] in
the words of Deborah from Portonaccio, who will be sixteen in June”
(Anon. 2007b). Poor Deborah, from the Roman periphery, seems to
be mocked for her dialectal speech as well as for her failure to carry a
mimosa.
18. In similar fashion a fan video of Scamarcio uploaded to YouTube
attracted the following comment, which neatly combines contempt
and concern for the video’s maker: “You’re clearly a stupid adoles-
cent girl in heat . . . just stop it, watch some bergman, watch bunuel,
listen to ivan graziani [sic],” says “ienzy”; http://www.youtube.com
/watch?v=BVVF5_FtEV4.
19. Galassi discusses the “cultural phenomena” that grew up around the
Moccia books and films, mentioning as well as the lucchetti, the trend
NoTeS 173
after Tre metri for young people to ape Step and write “Me and you
three metres above the sky” on public walls (2009: 9–10).
20. Barbara Ehrenreich’s analysis of Beatlemania is apt here: she reads the
act of screaming for groups of teenage girls as empowering, arguing
that “to abandon control—to scream, faint, dash about in mobs—[is],
in form if not in conscious intent, to protest against the sexual repres-
siveness, the rigid double standard of female teen culture.” Cited in
Aubrey et al. (2010: 235).
21. Moccia himself is seen as a dangerous figure for adolescents, with his
novels supposedly encouraging consumerism and “conformist and
conservative values and models of behaviour” (Rotondo 2008: 20).
22. http://www.motocorse.com/news/altro/6270_Una_Ghezzi
-Brian_diventa_movie_star.php.
23. http://freeforumzone.leonardo.it/lofi/ghezzi-amp-brian-otto-la
-moto-di-3-metri-sopra-al-cielo-/D226786.html.
24. http://freeforumzone.leonardo.it/lofi/Un-brivido-strano
-GHEZZI-BRIAN-quot-FURIA-/D1007202.html.
25. http://www.motociclando.com/forum/printview.php?t=1600&
start=0.
26. http://www.tuninglove.com/ghezzi_brian_furia_8.asp. On another
site a poster is mocked for admitting that he saw the bike not in the
film but in the music video by Tiziano Ferro used to promote HVDT.
Ferro came out as gay in 2010 but even before that his status as popu-
lar singer with female and gay appeal marked him out as problematic
for straight males to admit to liking. http://www.fazeritalia.it/fazer
forum/archive/index.php?t-227606.html.
27. Poster “Amosoloquellenude” says “I wanted to leave!! And I only
went to see the film because of that bike!!” http://freeforumzone.
leonardo.it/lofi/film-HO-VOGLIA-DI-TE-la-moto-di-Step-c-39
–232-qualcosa-che-non-quadra/D244109.html. The thread, and
others like it, then devolve into the usual mix of disavowal of the film
and its audience and the swapping of technical expertise.
28. On Gin as a “can-do girl,” see Hipkins 2012. The inclusion of a
scene in which Gin is shown training at a boxing gym and then
challenging Step to a sparring match also positions her as a mas-
culine female; however, the way the scene ends, with Step carry-
ing her away over his shoulder and then asking her out plays into
Halberstam’s analysis of cultural representations of boxing women
in which “the exclusion of butch women signals a widespread cul-
tural anxiety about the potential effects of femaleness and masculin-
ity” (1998: 273).
29. Tres metros sobre el cielo (González Molina, 2010) and Tengo ganas de
ti (González Molina, 2012) made Mario Casas, who plays the Step
character, a national star and pin-up in Spain.
30. For Luchetti Scamarcio starred in Mio fratello è figlio unico (discussed
in chapter 5), for Placido Romanzo criminale (2005) and Il grande
174 NoTeS
sogno (2009) (discussed in chapters 4 and 5, respectively), for Costa-
Gavras he made Verso l’Eden (Eden à l’Ouest; 2009), and he starred
in Özpetek’s Mine vaganti. However, it is misleading to suppose that
there is a clear trajectory from lowbrow to highbrow in his career:
before Tre metri he had appeared in Giordana’s La meglio gioventù
(The Best of Youth; 2003), and in between his political films he made
Manuale d’amore 2 and 3 (Veronesi, 2007 and 2011).
31. The film, a teen romance, was only rereleased due to the success of Ho
voglia di te, and the article notes that Scamarcio refused to promote it:
“he’s a bit ashamed of it.”
32. http://www.nonmidire.it/articolo/riccardo-scamarcio-ruolo-gay
-per-mine-vaganti-di-ozpetek/5687/.
33. http://www.gay.it/forum/viewtopic.php?f=168&t=23658&p=262
488&hilit=scamarcio#p262488.
34. Accorsi appeared in Özpetek’s Le fate ignoranti (Ignorant Fairies) in
2001, while Gassman starred in Il bagno turco (Steam: The Turkish
Bath; 1997), and Argentero and Favino played a gay couple in
Saturno contro (Saturn in Opposition; 2007). Scamarcio’s costar in
Mine vaganti is heterosexual sex symbol Alessandro Preziosi, who also
plays a gay character.
35. http://www.gayprider.com/nicolas-vaporidis-riccardo-scamarcio
-pierfrancesco-favino-bacio-ozpetek-film/.
36. In recent years Scamarcio has put on weight and has appeared in
public often looking unkempt; it seems possible that this is part of a
strategy of “actorly legitimization” (McDonald 2009) by which the
stomach becomes a “somatic index” of the actor’s maturation to seri-
ousness. It is a strategy that also appears to have been adopted by
Leonardo DiCaprio, who has also noticeably bulked out in recent
years.
37. L’uomo perfetto was coproduced by Warner Bros and the British com-
pany Aquarius Films, which accounts for its quite un-Italian feeling,
noted by critics.
38. Earlier in the film we saw Antonio attempting reluctantly to work out,
which we can presume goes against his seriousness as an actor.
39. See Susan Bordo’s work on Calvin Klein and its mainstreaming of a
gay aesthetic (1999: 168–228); in the Italian context Alberio (2009)
points to the importance of the homoerotic Dolce and Gabbana adver-
tising campaigns (photographed by Mariano Vivanca) featuring the
AC Milan football team (2004) and the Italian national team (2006)
posing in their underwear. Fagiani has an interesting discussion of
the metrosexual and feminization, in which she names Scamarcio as a
metrosexual and stars Kim Rossi Stuart and Raoul Bova as “models of
groomed masculinity” (2011: 89).
40. “By means of the posture of joking male eroticisation can be toler-
ated” (MacKinnon 1999: 22).
NoTeS 175
41. The idea that Lucia has manipulated this situation to her own career
advantage also complicates matters, just as the advert fits in precisely
with the Celluvia client’s demands at the beginning of the film: he
rejected Lucia’s proposed campaign based on female models and
asked for something “more transgressive, more against the flow,” so
it is clear that the advert is working with, rather than challenging,
established gender norms.
42. This ties in with MacKinnon’s work on the “secrecy” surrounding
the gaze at the male (1997: 4) and Bordo (1999) on the male body
as normally “hidden” because its revelation undermines the ideal of
phallic masculinity.
43. Mainstream Italian cinema, it appears, cannot tolerate a high degree
of male eroticization despite the fact that many of its stars display
their bodies outside films: e.g., after appearing in Italy’s Big Brother,
Luca Argentero posed nude for the 2004 issue of the popular MAX
calendar, something that Raoul Bova had already done in 2000.
However, diegetically this kind of bodily display is traditionally a
problem. Scamarcio is naked for part of his film with Costa-Gavras,
Verso l’Eden, but this is very much at the service of a plotline that
has him as a displaced migrant, stripped of everything including
clothes.
44. The instances when she does abandon this uniform are significant,
however: first, when she puts on a bright red, low-cut top to seduce
Paolo, and when she wears a strapless black dress on her date with
Antonio.
45. “Since Scamarcio became all serious, making films with directors of the
calibre of Costa-Gavras and trying hard to be gay in Özpetek’s Mine
vaganti so as to get rid of the label of the dim hunk, Nicolas Vaporidis
has become the new, unchallenged teen heartthrob” (Romani 2010).
46. Iago was directed by Wolfgang De Biasi, who had already directed
Vaporidis in Come tu mi vuoi, and costarred Laura Chiatti. It was
widely panned by Italian critics and not very successful at the box
office.
47. See the interview with Vaporidis entitled “Turning Point for Vaporidis:
no More Films for Teens” (Cappelli 2009), where he talks about
producing and about leaving behind “films aimed at teenagers: it’s a
genre that doesn’t belong to me any more.”
48. His novel Parlami d’amore was cowritten with Carla Vangelista and
published in 2006. The book and film depict a relationship between a
young man, played by Muccino in the film, and a much older woman.
Muccino and the much older Carla Vangelista have been linked in real
life, creating a parallel with the relationship between Scamarcio and
actress Valeria Golino, who is thirteen years older than him. Scamarcio
and Golino are also professional collaborators, with him producing
her directorial debut Miele (Honey; 2013).
176 NoTeS
2 Comedy and Masculinity, Italian Style
1. “Comedy is modal, an inflection of a noun-object” (King 2002:
3). See also Ilaria De Pascalis, who draws on King’s work to call it a
“modality” (2012: 13), as well as a “problematic and elusive object of
investigation” (7).
2. Both Paolo Genovese, director of Immaturi, and Marco Martani,
cowriter of Maschi contro femmine and Femmine contro maschi, among
other films, have said that the Italian film industry produces episodic
or choral films rather than boy-meets-girl rom-coms because of the
absence of big national stars who will appeal to everyone. They thus
confirm, from an industrial viewpoint, the importance of an array of
different stars who will appeal to different sectors of the cinema-going
public. Genovese made this comment in a Q+A session in Rome on
June 5, 2013, while Martani’s comments were made at a roundtable
on the cinepanettone and Italian comedy at RomaTre University, June
7, 2013.
3. Vito Zagarrio notes of comedy and melodrama in Italy that they are
often inextricable, “as if the two national-popular genres were in some
way forced to become entwined” (2012a: 54).
4. See the ANICA report “L’Export del Cinema Italiano 2006–2010
/The Export of Italian Cinema 2006–2010,” published in 2012,
which notes the difficulty for Italian comedies of finding a market
overseas, as opposed to auteur films.
5. http://www.anica.it/online/attachments/032_anica_doxa_2008.
pdf.
6. http://daily.wired.it/news/cultura/2013/07/15/cinema-italiano
-numeri-47893.html. See Canova (1999: 7–8) on the popularity of
comedy in late 1990s—65 out of 93 top-grossing Italian films from
1998–99 were comedies.
7. See ANICA report 2013: http://www.anica.it/online/allegati
/dati/Dati_Cinema_Anno%202012_produzione_distribuzione
_tv_16042013.pdf. The one definitively noncomic film is Castellitto’s
Venuto al mondo (Twice Born; 2012), while the lists feature several of
the films analyzed here, including Posti in piedi in paradiso, Immaturi,
Immaturi: il viaggio, Femmine contro maschi, Maschi contro femmine,
Scusa ma ti voglio sposare, and Baciami ancora.
8. It is worth noting, however, that the “rigidity” of the Italian star
system of which Gianni Canova complains (“always the same faces,
the same stories, the same voices,” 1999: 29) means that actors work
across a variety of genres and often slip fairly comfortably from com-
edy to drama to thriller, and this applies also to female stars. Here, for
reasons of space, I am not looking at figures such as Checco Zalone or
Antonio Albanese who are working with an established comic persona
rather than as characters in a choral or episodic plot.