Masculinity, Stardom, and Italian Cinema 1. the Actresses Listed Were Margherita Buy, Claudia Gerini, and Cristiana Capotondi

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 feminism: “The omnipresence and presumed ‘universality’ of men in history, 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” masculinity: “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 masculinity (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 “masculinity 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.

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