Before we start, I should make a disclaimer : I love Italy. It's given me many a good holiday (see earlier Florence and Tuscany blogs, for example) and was a country I fell in love from Italia 90 onwards. The food, the language, the light and vivid colours of its countryside and the generosity of its people have kept me coming back for more, and I spent 50% of my degree and 6 months in Verona studying Italian. But, as Tobias Jones outlined in his wonderful book, there really is a dark heart to Italy and this is expertly demonstrated in Erik Gandini's film, Videocracy.
Potted history: Berlusconi's Forza Italia party arrived in a political vacuum, caused by the Mani Pulite (clean hands) corruption scandal that erupted in 1992. This created a political "market", where old affiliations to certain parties like the Christian Democrats died. As the old ideologies passed away, and traditional news media like newspapers lost influence, so a new political era dominated by TV was born. Today, 80% of Italians are said to use TV as their main source of information. This inevitably led to a commodification of politics, and Forza Italia was the first political party to invest in market research, while Berlusconi gave government roles to executives from his Pubblitalia advertising arm. In freedom of press terms, Italy is ranked 77th in the world.
Videocracy underlines how Berlusconi was responsible for unleashing a cultural revolution of bad TV, dancing girls and unrelenting crassness. As anyone unfortunate enough to watch Italian TV will tell you, girls in G-strings dominate. Most are known as "veline" (showgirls not allowed to speak), who perform a "stachetto" (a 30-second dance break to keep audiences interested). One velina even became the Minister for Gender Equality in Berlusconi's government, an indication as to why Italy ranks 74th in the world in terms of gender equality, behind Ghana and Paraguay.
Television and power are one and the same in Italy, with the elite and media moguls gathering in the Costa Smeralda in Sardinia to party and play polo. Berlusconi owns three commercial channels and all those operated by the state, so 90% of the total TV network. This means he has created a world in his own image, full of "donne prosperose" (voluptuous women), wealth, light and garish colours. But this striving for perfection (notably in the way Berlusconi's researchers have scoured the national archives to remove any less than flattering pictures of the President) has come at a democratic cost, and scandals continue to engulf his presidency. Having a powerful personality pays off in most societies, but especially so in Italy.
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