Tag: italian cinema

5. Media-ting “Sterile Masculinity”: On Male Aging, Migration, and Biopolitics in a (post)Berlusconi Italy

This article intervenes in current discussions on perceptions of aging, masculinity, and (in)fecundity, and their combined effect on perceptions of Italy. The first half of this piece centers on Berlusconi and the broader phenomenon of Berlusconismo. Drawing on queer theorist Lee Edelman’s notion of “reproductive futurism,” and works by Italian philosophers and scholars (Ida Dominijanni and Lorenzo Bernini) who bring together theories of psychoanalysis and biopolitics in their analyses of Berlusconi/Berlusconismo,

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4. Rita Pavone’s Musicarelli: Rethinking Genre and (Young) Women’s Representation

by Stephanie Hotz

This essay examines Rita Pavone’s star image and musical films of the 1960s, including a close analysis of two of her most famous musicarelli, Rita la zanzara (Rita the Mosquito, 1966) and its sequel Non stuzzicate la zanzara (Don’t Sting the Mosquito, 1967). While studies on the postwar “woman’s film” have focused primarily on melodramas,

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13. Precarious Masculinity: Intersections of Race, Gender, and Desire in Claudio Giovannesi’s Alì ha gli occhi azzurri

by Lisa Dolasinski

This article examines the precarious masculinity performed by Nader Sarhan, the male migrant protagonist featured in Claudio Giovannesi’s Alì ha gli occhi azzurri (2012). The theoretical framework draws on scholarship from postcolonial studies, film theory, queer theory, and gender studies. In particular, following recent work on representations of non-national male migrant film protagonists as “queer” and thus inassimilable to the national Italian body, the author contends that Nader’s desire for “white,” hegemonic masculinity (sexual and civic) ultimately results in his own undoing.

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3. Blue-Haired-Girl Mnemonic: Italian Sci-Fi Nirvana

Blue-Haired-Girl Mnemonic: Italian Sci-Fi Nirvana

by Roberta Tabanelli

This article analyzes the science fiction Italian film Nirvana (1997) directed by Oscar-winning Gabriele Salvatores. Specifically, Tabanelli proposes a gendered reading of the film focused on the character of Naima, a female hacker with blue hair and an implant in her forehead. The author claims that Nirvana’s closing scene, and in particular the last photogram, by re-configuring the characters’ roles in the story,

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4. The Performance of (Dis)orientation; a queer reading of Pietro Marcello’s La bocca del lupo (2009)

The Performance of (Dis)orientation; a queer reading of Pietro Marcello’s La bocca del lupo (2009)

by Oliver Brett

In this article, Oliver Brett focuses on the role of the “object” in Pietro Marcello’s docufiction film La bocca del lupo (2009). In a context where “difference” can be perceived as problematic particularly if shaped through a politics of “identity”— his analysis draws on a phenomenological framework in seeking to elucidate the “queer” features of this award winning film.

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