Catherine Spaak: L'invecchiamento di una diva, tra postfemminismo ed evoluzione dei media italiani

The female stardom of the so-called "golden age" of Italian cinema it is still a familiar presence in contemporary media, especially in talk-shows, reality shows, and sometimes in series and l-ms. Among these personalities, Catherine Spaak stands out for the continuity of her career and for the intellectual characterization of her public gure. Even in her latest participations to national TV shows, such as L'isola dei famosi and Un medico in famiglia, Spaak is introduced to the audience in relation to the character of rebel adolescent that made her a star in the Sixties, while in other occasions, she is compelled to discuss her aging with the public, sometimes as a way to frame her presence on screen. Drawing from Spaak's case, this contribution analyses the transformations of the discourses about gender and age in the Italian media culture. Spaak's star persona will serve as a prism to look at the adaptation of postfeminist media discourses in the Italian media and how the representations of aging intersect with wider changes in women's positionality in society and culture

Playboys and the Cosmo girls: Models of femininity in Italian men’s and women’s magazines and the popularization of feminist knowledge

This article offers a historical and textual reading of soft-core pornography in Italy by analyzing a group of men and women’s magazines, including the Italian editions of Playboy and Cosmopolitan, and the soft-core magazine for women, Libera, which was published from 1972 to 1978. As part of the ‘sexualization of western culture’ (Attwood 2009), porn produced new discourses regarding femininity, which openly challenged second-wave feminism and, at the same time, assimilated some of its aspects. Sexiness, self-care, monogamy and compulsory heterosexuality became foundational values for a new, modern, emancipated woman, one who was able to enjoy the benefits of the ‘sexual revolution’. Soft-core images also contributed to the spread of new knowledge about female sexuality, both in visual and narrative terms, and was also able to absorb some key aspects of the second-wave feminist political discourse on sexuality. In particular, the introduction of soft-core images in women’s magazines was presented as a ‘feminist move’ towards women’s empowerment. By illustrating the complex cultural function of soft-core pornography for women, this article aims to investigate the historical impact of porn in women’s lives and their relationship with popular culture

The Boom in Sex. Eroticism in Italian Cinema of the 1960s

Questo lavoro analizza il processo di progressiva sessualizzazione del cinema italiano negli anni Sessanta. Attraverso un ordine cronologico, lo studio propone una metodologia che integra gli strumenti dei film studies con quelli degli studi culturali, della history of sexuality e dei gender studies. L’obiettivo è fornire una lettura del processo di liberalizzazione delle rappresentazioni della sessualità nel cinema italiano come un elemento di un fenomeno socio culturale più ampio. Per questo la tesi integra in maniera consistente la ricostruzione della cultura cinematografica del periodo con i discorsi sulla sessualità veicolati nell’editoria di consumo, nei periodici e nei rotocalchi. Inoltre, si è posta particolare attenzione alle influenze provenienti dall’estero come prova di una crescente tendenza all’espansione transnazionale delle industrie culturali di quegli anni. Le cinque sezioni tematiche della tesi analizzano: la questione dell’emancipazione femminile e le sue rappresentazioni nei film inchiesta; la presenza nella cultura popolare e nelle commedie di argomenti psicanalitici e sessuologici; le rappresentazioni di gender e sessualità nei generi popolari; la “rivoluzione sessuale” in relazione alla nascita delle riviste per soli uomini e del “film sexy”.The thesis analyzes the process of sexualization of the Italian cinema in the sixties. Following a chronological order, the study employs a methodology which combines film studies with cultural studies, the history of sexuality and gender studies. Its ultimate aim is to read the liberalization of the representations of sex in Italian cinema as part of a wider socio-cultural process. As such, the thesis reconstructs not only the cinematic culture of the time, but moreover consistently analyzes discourses on sexuality in publishing, newspapers and the popular press. Furthermore, it investigates the foreign influences in Italian popular culture, as proof of the increasing transnational character of the cultural industries. In particular, the five main sections of the thesis focus on: the theme of women’s emancipation in the film inchiesta, the dissemination of psychoanalysis and sexology in Italian mass culture and comedy, the representations of gender and sexuality in popular film genres, the “sexual revolution” in relation to the birth of the adult-only magazines and the formation of the “sexy” film genre

(Feminist) Academic friendships: Discussing and re-thinking the labour of love

In this collaborative piece, originated from a series of conversations between the authors, we reflect on our friendship as a form of peer-to-peer mentorship and as an experience of informal collaboration. Drawing from our academic relationship, the article also makes some broader considerations on the meanings and potentials of academic friendships and how they offer an unvaluable source of mutual and self-care in the context of neoliberal academia

Cecilia Mangini:A Counterhegemonic Experience of Cinema

This essay offers a feminist reading of the work of Italian film director Cecilia Mangini. Drawing on an archaeological approach, it focuses on Mangini’s experience as a woman in Italian cinema and her contribution to the realization of three movies—To Arms! We’re Fascists! (codirected with Lino Del Fra and Lino Micciché, 1961–62), Stalin (directed with Lino Del Fra and Franco Fortini, 1962–63), and Being Women (1963–65)—all clear examples of the counterhegemonic cinema that Mangini developed in the fissures of mainstream, male dominated practices. In her view, nonfiction film is a tool for cultural and political struggle, and it must affect the present in order to provide democratic access to knowledge. Following the Gramscian notion of the organic intellectual, Mangini has built a specific aesthetic and a personal approach to film direction, which aims to reach the broadest audience possible and, at the same time, to develop a coherent feminist militant discourse

Re-bordering UK Feminist Video in the 1980s : Cross-border Exchanges and Reflexivity in a Digital and Archive-based Project

This article discusses the benefits and limitations of the use of digital humanities tools in the context of transnational research in women’s film and television history, with a particular attention to issues of positionality, cross-border circulation, and exchange. To do so, it details on the methodology and results of a research project reconstructing the transnational impact of the collaborations between women producers and practitioners and UK broadcasters in the context of the UN Decade of Women (1975-1985). The investigation, funded by FIAT/IFTA (International Federation of Television Archives), analyses a group of programmes from the BFI archives by producing data-visualisations such as maps and network analysis generated through the collection of geographical, biographical, and chronological information. The goal of the study is offering a deeper understanding of transnationalism in the context of local television productions, while avoiding risks of fragmentation and methodological nationalism. However, while digital tools and data visualisations helped the identification of recurring tropes and transnational collaborations, the process of data collection and the visual aids themselves made evident the persistence of problematic geographies of knowledge and representation, that would require a broader assessment through collaborative, cross-national investigations

Una questione di priorit\ue0: la politica imperfetta di Cecilia Mangini, donna, regista e militante in "Essere donne"

Il capitolo analizza nel dettaglio l'uso del found footage nel film di Cecialia Mangini "Essere donne" del 1965. Si tratta di un mediometraggio documentario realizzato per l'Unione Donne d'Italia realizzato con materiale d'archivio che indaga la situazione della donna in Italia nel periodo della congiuntura. Il capitolo analizza in un'ottica femminista le scelte estetiche della regista ponendole in relazione con il contesto del cinema italiano di quegli anni

Titillating Cuts:Genealogies of Women Editors in Italian Cinema

The article analyzes the experiences of Italian women editors as examples of the complex interplay between modes of resistance and acceptance developed by women professionals in a male-dominant film industry. Retracing the evolution of the profession of editor from the silent era to the 1970s, the article navigates the genealogies of Italian women who worked in the cutting room. These women used their creative and professional skills to overcome obstacles imposed by a film industry that otherwise reproduced entrenched patterns of gender and class discrimination. In particular the case of Ornella Micheli, a professional editor who worked on more than sixty films between the 1950s and the 1970s, reveals a practitioner who fitted into the mechanisms of her working environment, but also developed her own personal strategies to affirm her professional status and ensure the continuity of her career

Playboys and the Cosmo Girls:Models of Femininity in Italian Men’s and Women’s Magazines and the Popularization of Feminist Knowledge

This article offers a historical and textual reading of soft-core pornography in Italy by analyzing a group of men and women’s magazines, including the Italian editions of Playboy and Cosmopolitan, and the soft-core magazine for women, Libera, which was published from 1972 to 1978. As part of the ‘sexualization of western culture’ (Attwood 2009), porn produced new discourses regarding femininity, which openly challenged second-wave feminism and, at the same time, assimilated some of its aspects. Sexiness, self-care, monogamy and compulsory heterosexuality became foundational values for a new, modern, emancipated woman, one who was able to enjoy the benefits of the ‘sexual revolution’. Soft-core images also contributed to the spread of new knowledge about female sexuality, both in visual and narrative terms, and was also able to absorb some key aspects of the second-wave feminist political discourse on sexuality. In particular, the introduction of soft-core images in women’s magazines was presented as a ‘feminist move’ towards women’s empowerment. By illustrating the complex cultural function of soft-core pornography for women, this article aims to investigate the historical impact of porn in women’s lives and their relationship with popular culture