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90-Second Cinema: Videocracy
Videocracy, an excerpt

Italian television is notorious for its smut and misogyny. Its programming consists almost entirely of soft-core soap operas and game shows in which nubile young women compete for a shot at stardom. Anyone who has ever flicked on a television in an Italian hotel room can attest to the somewhat exploitative nature of its programming. Erik Gandini’s Videocracy explores the phenomenon of Italian television and the commanding role current President Silvio Berlusconi has in controlling its content: President Berlusconi owns and directly controls over 90% of Italian television alone. The TV entertainment industry centers around him, placing him at the top of both the political and media pyramids.

Gandini delves into the complex history of Berlusconi’s rise to power, including his close relationship with famed talent agent Lele Mora. Effortlessly, Gandini exposes Mora as a neo-fascist who lovingly compares his president and friend to former despot Benito Mussolini. Mora is almost solely responsible for recruiting game show contestants and even news and weather personalities for the president’s programming.

In this clip, as in much of the movie, footage from one of the president’s many game shows is presented, complete with a grown man in a dog suit and scantily clad women contorting themselves into licentious poses. Contestants wait breathlessly to perform, eager for a chance to become one of the reality show celebrities that are so adulated in Italian pop culture. Gandini’s voiceover is lilting, even when he is reading off rather disturbing statistics as to the president’s ominous media dominion.

The strobe lights and pyrotechnics of the show juxtaposed with the whimsical harp music in the background make the scene almost hallucinatory, like some kind of Death to Smoochy acid flashback. The opulence is such that one can’t help but be transfixed. This is escapism at its most blatant, a fantasy world where everyone is attractive, young, affluent and carefree. For us it may be fantasy, but with wealth and political clout, Silvio Berlusconi has made it his reality.


~ editorial intern Ariana Costakes

Clip courtesy of Kino Lorber.

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