Un’altro passo verso un regime… Another step towards a regime…

Da stamane chi si vuole collegare al sito www.ilcorpodelledonne.com si trova l’accesso sbarrato da un avviso:
“Alcuni lettori di questo blog hanno contattato Google poiché ritengono che il contenuto del blog sia opinabile.”
Quali sono i contenuti opinabili?
E’ ancora possibile portare avanti una una critica educata e circostanziata nella società in cui viviamo?
Invito tutti a sostenere questo blog, condividerlo, e sostenerlo.

HERE COMES THE SUN, LALALA…

Finally, last week, the sun reached the British Islands. Temperatures soared to 25 degrees, every single patch of grass pullulated with Britons sun bathing and turning progressively pink (ignoring the weather man warning always to wear sun screen – the weather man in Britain sound like a HIV campaign: REMEMBER, ALWAYS WEAR PROTECTION), crowds of Pimm’s drinkers gathered outside pubs and restaurant… It was fun, colorful, it was… a normal week in late spring.
This for about two hours. After that, a word started crawling its way up to the British collective conscience… It’s HOT. Oh dear, it’s so hot, it’s scorching! people started winging, oh my goodness I’m sweating!!
The first reaction of “aliens” like me in front of such complains is usually “are you kidding?” It’s been raining for a month. 25C isn’t scorching, it isn’t even remotely near to hot. 25C degrees is just about pleasant, it’s what allows you to leave home, for a change, without looking like an onion – covered in layers of clothes that you’ll have to peel off only in order to put them back after five minutes. 25C during the day still means night temperatures of around 13C. Not exactly “sitting outdoors” conditions. At 13C people in “normal” countries wear coats and hats!
But the best thing happens on the Tube. Come late May, at every station loudspeakers start broadcasting the message “in this hot weather always carry a bottle of water with you when travelling on the London underground.” I want to suspect Travel for London is rehearsing a comedy show as I can’t imagine anyone dying for lack of dehydration on a twenty minute journey on the Tube. You must always carry a bottle of water if you’re crossing the Sahara, if you visit the Death Valley, if you’re on a boat in the middle of the sea. But on the Tube??? Are they serious???
The only result of such panicked messages is to install in the British minds the absurd idea that hot (or what they think is hot, ie 25 degrees) is bad. Hot is dangerous. Hot is only to be enjoyed in very small doses or when on holiday abroad…
Result, after three sunny days Britons starts missing the rain. They do. I swear. They truly truly do.
“Oh, but it’s so boring having hot weather for months,” they say, “isn’t it?” No it isn’t. It’s called SEASONS. Spring is warm, summer is hot, autumn is mild and winter is cold.
“Miserable weather produces great arts, culture and literature!”
Hmmm… Can I kindly remind you civilization started in Greece? Where temperatures all through summer stay well over 33C??? And how about the Renaissance? Florence isn’t exactly renowned for its rain. How about French and Spanish poetry and novels and arts? You’re not making any sense! You’re a country of miserable sods who enjoy their misery!
Anyway, four days later of course the sun goes away again and the rain comes back. The weather man, looking particularly pleased, says “finally we can enjoy some fresher nights” (FRESHER? It’s so bloody freezing I need the heating on) “and rain is very good news for our gardens!”
Oh, the gardens, of course. Nothing is more important than gardens in life, isn’t it. You might need to drink yourself unconscious to relieve your misery but God forbid your dahlias should suffer!
Honestly, I think there’s something profoundly wrong with this country, which explains its problems, its general unhappiness, its violence and its ridiculous levels of alcoholism. People who can’t enjoy the sun, who can’t enjoy the warmth, who can’t enjoy what such things do to your body (apart from making you sweat), can’t enjoy life. Summer is a celebration if life at its peak. People strip off their clothes, let themselves be more in contact with nature, stop hiding. They stay out until later hours because there’s more light, they socialize, eat together, talk together. In “normal” countries summer is the time to sit outside our house in the evening and talk to your neighbours until the early hours. Of leaving work behind. Of eating lighter food and have ice creams.
Summer is sensual, intense, passionate. All adjectives unknown to the British psyche.
Because the British can’t appreciate such things, because they’re attracted to them but scared of them, because they can’t produce endorphins in a natural way, they need artificial enhancement to avoid getting suicidal. So they drink. Alcohol is their substitute for sunny days. Alcohol is what makes them intense, chatty and inhibited. They drink and drink and they can’t see that all they need is to start enjoy life starting from right in front of them: the elements. So even when they do have the opportunity of grabbing “natural enjoyment”, they refuse it. They start moaning that it’s too hot.

Yes I know, now you’re all wondering why the hell I’m still in London if I resent the British so much. Well, number one, London is full of non-British, which is what makes it a great city. Two, there’s only one thing that sunny countries have been unable to produce, at least in the last 2000 years: great theatre. Yes, I’m in London for the theatre. Theatre has undeniably proved itself to be the greatest love of my life… Some people move abroad to follow their love… I did it for mine.
Which is why I’m really looking forward to the invention of a time machine. Then I’ll travel back to ancient Greece, where, they had it all: theatre, arts, literature, philosophy. And all of this open air.
Now, wouldn’t that be swell!

ITALIAN WOMEN: Guardate il video, inviatelo, condividetelo, unitevi alla pagina facebook e ribellatevi!!!!!

http://www.ilcorpodelledonne.it/documentario/

Sam Mendes’ “Cherry Orchard”: a disappointing show

Say “Cechovian” and everyone will immediately picture some bored and fallen aristocrats, languidly spending their summer days in interminable discussions about life while the world around them collapses. They lie on chaises longue, into soliloquies in which they recollect the past. From time to time one of them kills himself. “Cechovian” is used not only in reference to Cechov’s work but every time we come across a play or film where conversations are more important than actions and the rhythm is slow and decadent.
Pity that, if you truly read Cechov – not only his plays but his letters and stories – you’ll discover he never meant his characters to be just bored and languid. Cechov’s stage directions are full of “on the verge of tears”, “shouting”, “laughing”, indicating a very intense temperament typical of people who have a lot going on inside them apart from boredom. Comedy in Cechov is crucial. “Cherry Orchard” is described by his author as a “farce”. He wants to show how inane some people are, how ridiculous our lives can be, and tragically so. His characters don’t just “languidly converse”, they fight, they suffer, they have fun… What we consider “Cechovian” comes from a prejudice. Especially in Britain, people think that Cechovian characters are like the British middle-upper class. But watch Cechov performed by a Russian company, and you’ll see how the Russian temperament has nothing to do with the British. The Russians are loud, emotional and melodramatic. Melodrama was so typical on the Russian stages that Stanislavsky, when first directing Cechov, decided to restrain all that ”overacting” and go for a more naturalistic, contained style. This was then copied abroad, and especially in Britain, producing the “Cechovian” we talk about. But Cechov never meant to be Cechovian. Just real.
All this to say, from a director like Sam Mendes, whose theatre and film credits place him in a very high league, I expected so much more. His “Cherry Orchard”, despite the stellar cast – Simon Russell Beale, Rebecca Hall and Ethan Hawk to mention the biggest names – is so predictable, it could have been staged by any middle scale rep theatre. It’s all you can expect. The bored characters, the soliloquies that seem to spring out of nowhere, the languid longing for a lost past… It’s boring. And if there’s one thing that makes me furious is to see a boring Cechov, as Cechov for is one of the greatest playwrights of all time. He’s a genius. So why can’t directors give him more credit and listen to what he wrote, really READING his texts??  

The first act of Mendes production is particularly bad. It shows a total lack of understanding of the script. Mendes doesn’t seem to have asked himself questions about characters’ motivations, he just took for granted Cechov has to be languid, lyrical and slow. For instance, when Lubov returns home after only 5 years (not 50 years, five), and her daughter Anya happily asks “mother, do you remember which room is this,” Lubov replies “the nursery!”. It’s totally unclear from the set design (an open space covered in rugs and few items of furniture) whether the nursery is still looking like a nursery or not. Obviously Mendes didn’t ask himself that question. Lubov recognizes it immediately – as it’s only normal – and seems suddenly happy to be back in the old room. Now, we learn later that Lubov left Russia because her child drowned. Certainly returning to the nursery must be a very disturbing moment. But in this version neither Anya nor Lubov seem to aknowledge that. They’re just happy. This is just an example. There are dozens in the first act. People burst into soliloquy without any reason. Without a clear impulse. They address their monolgues to audience, which make them so fake. Why is somebody recollecting a past event everybody else knows about, unless they have a PROFOUND reason to do so?

Basically, what’s totally lacking in this production is work on the relationship between characters and their deep motivations. Actors say lines, they don’t talk to each other. They say lines in “Cechovian” style, languid, lyrical, unnatural, theatrical, and, yes, boring. Boring because it’s just talk. It doesn’t seem to come from anywhere. It’s acting.

As the cast is of very high level, I don’t think it’s just the actors’ fault. My feeling is that there’s no big concept behind this production. No real work on characters. What is it that Mendes is trying to say? What’s the point of choosing this play if he then presents it in the most conventional and stereotyped way? There are moments where some ideas seem to come to surface, but they’re just sketched. The threat coming from the serving class, whose shadows appear in the horizon, ready for revolution. The surreal, devilish dance at the beginning of act two. But they’re just moments.

In the second part the acting generally improved – there are more events to react to and less speeches, so it easier for actors to find motivations for their words – and Rebecca Hall and Simon Russell Beale are incredibly good in the final scenes. But unfortunately even their great talent isn’t enough to save a mediocre show.

the joys of British life

No, I won’t start ranting about weather again, I promise (but just because today is finally sunny. And, Italian readers, before you start with your lithany “it’s so hot here, it’s awful, che caldo, che sudore…” SHUT UP! I won’t feel sorry for your 32 degrees in May, in fact I ENVY you from the bottom of my heart, I’d swap the cold rainy week we’ve just had with a Milanese boiling day ANYTIME. Live 12 years in a country that has no real summer and you’ll also start appreciating O sole mio…)
Ok, I did rant about the weather after all. But this is not what I wanted to talk about today.

Today I’m mute. Not metaphorically, out of sheer surprise in front of life’s wonders, but literally, since no sounds comes out of my mouth. My throat hurts so badly I can’t swallow and the only things I can eat are yogurt and ice cream (which is fine when you’re 5 years old but at my age is a little frustrating).
Now, for those who don’t know, I make money by speaking. My first source of income has always been voice over work. If I don’t regain my voice quickly, I’m in trouble. In fact, I already had to cancel a job. And I can’t afford cancelling jobs! Therefore, as it’s only natural, I call my GP (English for “medico della mutua”) to ask for an emergency appointment. Now, in Italy if you want to see your doctor you have to arm yourself with lots of patience and wait for a couple of hours in a reception full of old ladies talking about dead people and food (not in the same sentence. As a general rule.) If you don’t strangle one the ladies while you wait and get taken away by the police, you eventually manage to see the doctor and get a prescription.
But in Britain, GPs have a complex system that basically allows you never to be able to see them. You have to book an appointment weeks in advance, which is fine if you just need a routine check, or if you’re an old lady whose greatest entertainment in life is to visit a doctor (old ladies in doctors’ reception rooms are the same everywhere in the world). But most people, like me, only go to the doctor’s when they’re sick. And since it’s impossible to predict when you’re next going to be sick, it’s also impossible to book an appointment with your GP.
Because of such flawed system, most surgeries offer the opportunity to get “emergency appointments”. Basically you call first thing in the morning and moan and grunt and spit inside the phone until you convince the receptionist you’re ill enough to be seen. Great acting abilities are necessary, because unless they think you might die and sue them (from Hell, full of great lawyers there), the receptionists will always say the doctor is too busy. But I’m an actress, and I woke up truly mute today, so there was no way I was getting no for an answer.
But I hadn’t taken into consideration the perverse NHS system and its passion for letter writing…
8am. After a sleepless night, I call my surgery with such a coarse voice I sound like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. I beg to be given an appointment.
“What’s wrong with you?” the receptionist asks
“I have no voice,” I say with no voice. “And I can’t swallow, it’s too painful. I need to see a doctor.”
“Mhhh,” she replies suspiciously. “Can I have your date of birth and name, please?”
I give her my details and after a few minutes she returns to the phone.
“I’m sorry, you’re not registered with us anymore.”
“What? Why? Since when?”
“Have you moved recently? You’re not in Sandstone place anymore, are you?”
“No, I’m not. But I moved over 4 years ago.”
“You should have given us your address.”
“I gave it to you 4 years ago.”
“It’s not in our system.”
“That’s your problem, I need to see a doctor please.”
“I can’t book you in, if you’re not in our system.”
“But I was in your system for 8 years, I was there only 6 months ago…”
Pause
“My system says you weren’t here 6 months ago, you were here last summer.”
I want to kill this bitch.
“Please, the doctor knows me, I’m sure she’ll see me.”
“The lady doctor isn’t here today.”
“I’ll see the male doctor.” (the GPs in my surgery are a married couple so they’re both called Dr Sinha.)
“I’m not allowed to book you in, if you’re not in the system.”
Blood starts raising to my temples. I feel too poorly to keep calm so I start shouting, but I have no voice so it’s just breath coming out.
“You had my details last time, I gave them to you!”
“Then perhaps the NHS noticed that you’re now living outside our catchment area and has decided to cancel you from our system. You should have looked for a new doctor in your area.”
“And how was I to know? Nobody told me.”
“They wrote to you. But the letters came back because you moved.”
Now I feel like I’ve landed on a planet where people live according to different logic that I can’t grasp.
“You’re telling me the NHS wrote to me. By post.”
“Yes.”
“They wrote that because I had moved I couldn’t be your patient anymore.”
“Yes.”
“If they knew I had moved why the hell did they write to me at my old address????!!!”
“You didn’t give us the new one.”
“I did! 3 times!!! How could they know I had moved in the first place????”
“I’m just trying to help you here,” the receptionist is losing her patience, she must think I’m truly unreasonable.
“If you want to help me, book me an appointment today.”
“I’m not allowed. You must find a new doctor.”
“I WILL find a new doctor, but I can’t do it unless I get better. How can I go out with a fever, with no voice, no strength, feeling faint… and look for a new doctor on a Friday before bank holiday?” I’m going Norma Desmond here, very dramatic. I have tears in my voice and I start coughing louder than Violetta in Traviata’s death scene.
The receptionist is worried. She softens up.
“Well… perhaps I can book you as a temporary patient. But you’ll have to find a new doctor next week.”
I see the light at the end of the tunnel. Temporary patient. Couldn’t she have offered it from the start?
“I’m fine with temporary.” everything in life is temporary I want to add, but this awful woman doesn’t seem keen on philosophy.
“Come at 11.30.”
“Good.”
I hang up without even saying thanks or goodbye.
I’m exhausted. Now I’ll have to start rehearsing again to persuade the doctor I need something stronger than Paracetamol, which in this country is considered the only medicine for every sort of desease. Head ache? Paracetamol. Back pain? Paracetamol. Chest infection? Paracetamol. Crooked teeth? Paracetamol. You can even add it to your soup to make it tastier or use it to clean the furniture, it’s a magic potion…. All this because the so renowned NHS has a monthly budget, a cap that each GP has to avoid touching, so basically before prescribing anything more expensive than 16 pence a box they must be really sure you have a lethal disease. No wonders Britain has the highest number of cancer-related deaths. Prevention is an unknown word in this land…
But stop talking… hm… sorry… stop writing. It’s time to go. I won’t bother putting on make up in case I don’t look sick enough…
Wish me luck!!!

the (old and corrupted) prince and the dancer (and Italian women’s chilling silence)

There’s no need to tell the story in detailis because everyone knows it:

ACT 1) infamous Prime Minister Berlusconi first tries to candidate to the European elections some young ladies whose only proven experience is appearing on TV in a bikini, posing for calendars and chanting the PM’s great political abilities while displaying their big boobs. Of course he immediately accuses the “communist press” of mistanderstanding his intentions. He’s only trying to prove that for a woman being beautiful doesnt mean necessarily being stupid, so his is a noble attempt at “emancipation”. Yes, right. Pity there are women with the right kind of age and experience out there who’d never make it to the Parliament because they don’t have a nice booty to shake…  Berlusconi’s wife publicly defines her husband’s latest trend as “shameless trash, whose only aim is to entertain the emperor…” She adds that women can be beautiful or ugly, it doesn’t matter. By displaying women’s curves and bodies in the Parliament, this government discredits all those women who have been working hard. It is an insult to women’s credibility

act2) Berlusconi makes a inexplicable appearance at a 18 years old’s birthday (so far he’s been unable to give a good enough reason for being there) by the name of Naomi Letizia (sounds like a homeopathic remedy). He gave her a golden pendant as a present (for the naughty ones among you, “golden pendant” is not an euphemism, it’s a real kitch piece of jewelry) The following day his wife publicly asks for a divorce.

 

 Good for her. High time. The following week, to discredit the ex first lady, some magazines owned by Berlusconi published old photos of Mrs Berlusconi posing topless (she used to be an actress, and despite the sexy pics, she actually did lots of good theatre). The man is classy.

Of course the public opinion’s reaction was to speculate about the kind of relationship Silvio has with the young girl, with theses on Noemi spanning from secret lover to secret daughter. In the meantime Noemi (who might be young but is screwed as an old fox and, like most modern teenagers, is obsessed with fame and success) releases an interview declaring she’s known “papi Silvio” since she was little, that they spend time together, that he confides in her and has given her many presents. She says papi Silvio will help her become a showgirl or a politician (there’s obviously not much difference between the two).

Berlusconi, as usual, started shouting and accusing nasty lefties of conspiring against him, brainwashing his wife and making insulting innuendos. He says Naomi Letizia is just the daughter of an old friend. Still, he doesn’t do the only thing that could put a clear end to this pathetic mess: explaining how he knows the girl’s father (who is a clerk earning 12.000 euros a year, and whom nobody in Naples political entourage seems to know) and why he’s so keen on the girl.

To be honest, Berlusconi disgusts me to such a degree, I almost don’t care. What I think is worth considering though is which kind of youth Italy has been producing, and which kind of values most families have. Naomi Letizia aged 17 did a photoshoot in very seductive poses, hoping to break into showbusiness and possibly be chosen for a calendar… Great. But this nice provincial girl didn’t do all this behind mammy’s back, as a sort of rebellion towards a conformist society. No. Mamy and dad went with her. Her father even paid for her plastic surgery (how can a 12K a year clerk afford plastic surgeons, photo shoots and designer clothes for his daughter, I don’t know). Posing half naked has become as conformist and middle class as study holidays in England. ..

If a girl wants to be an actress, and her family supports her dream, that’s nice. They should gather help her applying for drama school, perhaps pay for acting lessons rather than fake lips (I have a theory: Naomi Letizia doesnt exist. It’s a photo-montage, produced by nasty communists and obtained by combining different people’s fake features. Everything in her body looks so artificial she must be synthetic) But of course studying is such a waste of time, and Naomi – and the other wannabes like her – can’t let the world wait for so long! So let’s hang on to “papi Silvio”, whatever their relationship is, and he’ll make it happen for her in change of whatever she or her very suspicious family might offer.

Some right wing newspapers tried to paint Letizia’s family as a normal, nurturing, nice middle class family. If this is what average middle class parents teach their teenagers in Italy, I really want to cry.

And it gets worse. A reporter from RAI went to Naomi’s secondary school to interview her teachers. Did they look appalled at Naomi’s behaviour and sexy photos? No, of course. They giggled and say the photos were photoshopped because she’s not that curvy. The reporter asked what they thought of Naomi’s friendship with Berlusconi, and one of them replied: well, it’s lucky to know somebody that powerful. The reporter pressed on: what do you mean? And the teacher: well, it’s normal. He can help her. We all wish we knew somebody powerful because it makes your life easier. If you have an uncle who’s a doctor you jump the queue, no? It’s normal.

Yes. It’s normal. In country where democracy and equal rights are still a chimera and the only sure and well known way to have a career is by being “recommended” by a “friend”. That a TEACHER should say that though means that even school has given up on trying to push young people to learn, experience and grow through hard work and study. Studying  is for those poor sods who aren’t “lucky” enough to have a “friend.”

A journalist friend of mine said that Berlusconi will come out even more powerful from this “affair” because, despite the Vatican, Italy isn’t a puritanical country and the idea of an old man cracking dirty jokes in the arms of a young pretty girl appeals to Italian men’s machismo. I do hope Italian men are better than that. Please……………..

Miss Letizia, far from being embarrassed, is now ready to shoot a movie (her second, her “debut” being a short where she plays chess with a Mafioso, pouting her fake lips and sulking), even though her real dream is to take part in a reality show.

The most idiotic among Berlusconi’s supporters even said that whoever despises Naomi must be some ugly old lesbian who’s just envious of young beautiful women. There’s a Facebook page in support of “poor Naomi and all the nice looking girls with big dreams who get nothing but envy”. I like young girls with dreams. In fact, I like old girls with dreams. I like dreams ful stop. And ambitions and people who are truly driven. But I personally would MUCH MUCH MUCH rather hang myself than have Berlusconi as a “papi” and pose for a calendar. My personal idea of hell is appearing in a reality show even just to fart at Simona Ventura.

Now, are Italians appalled at this story and its ludicrous protagonists? No, with the exception of La Repubblica’s readers and the few TV journalists and personalities – including Veronica Berlusconi, bless her – who are trying not to let the issue being forgotten.

Have Italian women gone down into the streets protesting against the troglodyte culture inculcated  into young women’s brains, thanks to our trash TV and press? No. The silence coming from young women is chilling and scaring. This is the way it is. Naomi is clever. She’s exploiting a system that is exploiting women. She’s hungry for fame and she’s getting it, no matter whether it won’t last longer than a summer, since she has no talent, experience nor preparation. In papi Silvio’s golden empire, she can become an eternal muse, simply because he says so.

Naomi’s disgusting story basically means not only we deserve Berlusconi, but that we should stop bothering with elections altogether and simply declare him our everlasting Emperor, because there’s no hope. THERE’S NO HOPE and you know why? Because young people accept all this. Even worse, WOMEN ACCEPT ALL THIS. Young women in Italy want to become showgirls. “Veline”, “letterine”. Because that’s the way to power. No matter nobody will ever take them seriously, because nobody will be able to really respect them and see them as human beings rather than pieces of flesh. Fame is the only God. And Power its Prophet.  They don’t seem to realise that they’re not using the system, the system is using them. They cant see, for example, that nobody will ever really respect the Minister for Equal Opportunities Mara Carfagna, no matter how hard she tries. She became minister out of the blue, after appearing on semi-erotic calendars and on daytime TV. She claims she’s studied since the days of the calendar, that she attended party meetings and political gatherings. But we all know that had she been unknown and ugly, she would never be minister at the age of 32. She wasn’t nominated DESPITE being sexy and famous. She was nominated BECAUSE she was sexy and famous.

Many silly young women like Naomi, and the average Berlusconi’s voter, look at Carfagna and see the proof that the only teaching worth following is “if you have it, flaunt it”. “If you can have plastic surgery, go for it.” “If you can use your body, exploit it, shake your bum and show your tits and smile. Open your legs and you’ll get higher and higher.” But Mrs Berlusconi was right. This culture is only an insult to women’s brain, hard work and intellect. We’re stuck in the middle ages, thanks to Emperor Silvio and his court of buffons.

Italian women should start making their voices heard. I’m so angry about this situation I want to scream. Or ask for a British passport. At least the ones who don’t think like Naomi should follow our ex Mrs Berlusconi and say something! There must be some intelligent beings left out there. React, for God’s sake, or we’re going to slip into the middle ages! Should Naomi, or anyone like her, appear on TV, boycott her! Stop watching programs with half naked women on it. Don’t read gossip magazines about them. They’re the result of a rotten culture, it’s fascism of the soul. Talk to your men. Your lovely men who still think whores are fun to watch, even though they will always marry nuns. This is the 21^st century! Naomi shouldn’t appear anywhere, ever. All the “papies” in the world will have to understand that they can’t go on playing with women as if they were Barbies. But the only way to do that is to stop looking and behaving like Barbies.

Really. Wake up. Barbie is 50 years old, has fake hair and no genital organs. Is it really what you wish for yourselves???

What’s worse…

Last year I cringed watching the BBC-produced series “Rome”, where a bunch of undeniably British actors in peplum and sandals pretended to be ancient Romans. Hahahahah!!! To hear somebody called Caius Semproniusspeaking with an East End accent rang as true as Tom Jones trying to pass for a rap singer.

It just didn’t work.
No matter how lusty, sexy and dirty the BBC Romans tried to be, they remained quintessentially British. I expected them to stop their circus fighting and have tea. Not for a second could I forget that Romans never spoke nor looked that way.
Fast forward to last week, end of April 2009. I’m in Italy and I switch the TV on. Sunday night, prime time, RAI1: David Copperfield.

Now, if Britons playing Romans are fake as fakeness, Italians playing 19th century English are plain rubbish. The most English thing about the David Copperfield Italian cast was the custard they ate at some point. The acting was truly terrible. There was no attempt to capture the style of the period. All minor characters were overacted, ugly caricatures; the main female character was totally miscast (I usually like Maia Sansa but she looked like David’s mother rather than his potential lover); and as for poor David, well… he was completely unintelligible. Giorgio Pasotti, perhaps in the vain attempt of sounding modern and “real”, mumbled his words from beginning to end, speaking so fast he seemed like an awkward teenager. I just wanted him to shut up and go.
But it wasn’t not just the poor acting that made me laugh… Nothing in the production was quite right. They did make an effort, poor things. But look at a BBC drama and look at the RAIseries and it’ll be like that game of “spot the differences” you find at the back of some newspapers. On the surface the two seem similar enough. But the moment you start observing the details you realize one of the pictures has things that don’t make sense. It’s the same with David Copperfield. The costumes were sort of all right, but not quite. The exteriors didn’t look at all like England, and unsuprisingly so, since they were shot in the Czech Republic. The houses were posh and beautiful but in the worng style. When you keep mentioning being in londonit won’t be bad to have at least one shot of the city, instead of some random (Czech) buildings withodd pointed windows. I mean, as an Italian who knows England fairly well, I really wasn’t proud. Our David Copperfield looked like the poor cousin of a BBC version, put together with scraps and left overs from other TV shows. 

Sad.

Now, my question is: why dont we leave ancient Rome to the Romans and Victorian England to the English? We dont live in the 50’s anymore, when most people didnt travel, had no idea what other countries were like, hadn’t watched millions of reproductions of past times on the internet and therefore could easily be persuaded that Ceasar looked like a plumber from Sussex and David Copperfield like a Milanese brat. We’ve lost that naivity that made our grandparents gasp in astonishment in front of Taylor’s “Cleopatra”. Ask a 2009 kid to watch the film and the first thing they’ll say is that old Liz “ain’t North African at all!”
These modern attempts at reliving some other culture’s past are simply pathetic, hilarious without meaning to be, and also incredibly boring.
Modern drama would probably cost less and achieve more. Even though it does present a problem that is often sadly insurmountable: it needs good, fresh, original writing. Now, that is a challange.

stress relief device for foreigners in Britain

This isnt my idea.

My friend Becka, who, like me, is often frustrated by the attitude some British people display (especially when dealing with foreigners), came up with a truly incredible invention, that will provide great relief to all those foreigners living in the UK who, at some point in their expat lives, have wished they could smash a Brit’s face in order to wash off their smugness, sense of superiority, out-of-place cynism and truly unbearable certainty they’re the only people in the world with innate sense of humour. So often in my 10 years in London I’ve felt the overwhelming  desire to shout “Get over yourselves! you lost your Empire a century ago! you’re a small country with crap weather and the highest percentage of teeneage pregancies in Western Europe… You’re nothing special. Welcome to the world!”

Well, Becka’s device will help all those poor souls who feel the same.
I think it’s so cool she should present it to Dragon’s Den and ask for 100K to produce it on a large scale.

Ready? Here it is…

WHACK-A-BRIT – a fun social game for frustrated ex-pats

“All of the experiences I’ve had here have given me a wonderful idea for a stress-relieving device for expats in britain: Whack-a-Brit. It’s based on the arcade game Whack-a-Mole (not sure if this exists outside the US – basically, it’s a table w/holes in it and moles pop out of the holes and you hit them with a big hammer thing and it gets faster and faster), only instead of moles, you’d have various obnoxious-Brit stereotypes: football hooligan, self-righteous yummy mummy, snooty shop girl, officious border control officer, etc. There could even be a customizable line that would let you buy clothes and hats, etc. so that you could dress the Brits in the outfit of your choice.”

Now, isn’t that a WINNER?
Should you be interested in ordering a prototype, please get in touch and I’ll pass the order to Becka. We’re planning to market it by word of mouth to start with, and then proceed to proper advertising.
Please let us know your opinions, suggestions, amends, etc…

is homo the new black?

Remaining on the Guiding Light theme…

Despite being cancelled by CBS, the soap in the past few weeks has seen new audience peaks thanks to “Otalia”, soap jargon for Olivia+Natalia… Basically after 7 decades the pretty town of Springfield now has its first lesbian couple.

And don’t they like it!

It’s a bit late, really. Back on the mid 90s I remember my always delightifully ambiguous and beautiful Maureen Garrett discretely suggesting in an interview that perhaps GL should awknoledge the existence of homsexuality and HIV, a suggestion everybody carefully ignored (when the issue of AIDS was addressed the sick person was a serial killer who dressed up like a woman to lure his victims… Yes, right.)
But now, 15 years later, lesbians rule on TV, and GL couldnt fall behind. It’s as if all of a sudden TV planet had woken up and decided women in love with women is the way to go. I almost can’t name a show that hasn’t displayed a lesbian couple of sorts. The curvaceous Greek doctor in Grey’s Anatomy, who in the previous series had been pining for her little husband, is now all over her female colleagues. Even in silly realities such as America’s Next Top Model now they make sure to select at least one lesbian. No gay equals uncool. It’s quite funny, considered how conservative the States still are and how no President so far has had the guts to openly defend gay rights (Obama did say a couple of things during his campaign but knew that going too far would have alienated some sympathies…)
I’m personally delighted to see TV world opening up to the variety of relationships that life offers, but I do find this recent obsession with lesbians a bit suspicious. Call me cyncial but I doubt this choice comes from a desire to fight discrimination or from sudden liberalism. Rather some producers have decided that sexual ambiguity sells… And voila’! Let’s exploit it and fill the screens with lipstick lesbians.

But the even funnier thing is that, in my personal life, the trend has gone far beyond TV screens. I keep meeting women uncertain about their sexuality and confessing their attraction for other women. I’m starting to wonder whether there’s something wrong with me. I’m not joking. I can count at least 5 in the past 3 months…

What’s going on? Is homo the new black? Or have many women, after repressing their feelings for decades, suddenly decided the moment has come to come out? Do they feel freer to express their true selves, now that even daytime TV seems to have embraced the idea of two women together?
I don’t think so… The truth is, I’m willingly trivializing here, because the friends I talk about tend to be quite troubled and definetly not relaxed about their sexual confusion. Even in superliberal Britain, where openly gay ministers aren’t a problem and everyone seems happy to advertise their sexual life, I know women who have been effectively ostracyzed by their families who pretend to have accepted their homosexuality while in fact carefully avoiding them.  One particular friend tried to talk to her mother, who is a psychoanalyst, and she first threw a fit, then tried to “analyse” her daughter for a few hours to find out who was the “culprit”, then said “ok, do what you want, I don’t want to hear about it ever again.” Encouraging!

My fear is that despite Grey’s Anatomy, Ellen, GL and all the fab lesbians on TV, female homsexuality is still often a taboo in our society, which on one side offers a totally liberal and open minded face, but behind this facade feels uncomfortable at the thought. My suspect is that beautifully made up TV lesbians risk only to transform female homosexuality into something “glamorous and naughty that happens on TV.”  By glamorizing lesbians, they make them less real. One thing is to watch beautiful soap characters forging a gay relationship in fictional Springfield. It’s different stuff when you have to confront the issue in real life. Then suddenly things are slightly less easy, unfortunately. In soapland this month you’re a lesbian, next month you’re kidnapped by terrorists, and then discover you have a teenage son delivered while you were unconscious…  No such things happen in our world, do they? Only sometimes they do.

Talking about it is a first step.  But the journey from TV world to reality can be a long one.
For now, let’s wait and see what happens to Otalia. I’m pretty sure at some point Olivia will discover her real vocation is to be a nun and she will retire in a convent on the Swiss Alps.

A lipstick nun, of course…

SAVE THE LIGHT!!!

Three days ago, on April’s fool day – not a reliable date – I was told by one of my voice over colleagues in Milan that Guiding Light – the series I’ve been dubbing for 15 years – is going to END forever, as CBS has apparently decided to cut all its soaps.
I was – and still am – in total shock. GL isn’t something that can end. GL is eternal and recurrent like Christmas, sunrise and chocolate ice cream. Guiding Light started on the radio in the USA 72 YEARS AGO. It has survived World War 2, the cold war, various recessions and George Bush. GL is part of our collective identity whether we like it or not, because it created a genre – the soap opera – that went on to conquer TV networks all over the world.

In Italy, GL, under the (terrible) name of “Sentieri”, has touched at least 3 generations. I remember my latin teacher at high school rushing home after her last lesson at 12.30 to watch what had happened to Beth and Phillip (who were teenagers back then). I was personally hooked by the Roger and Holly story way before beginning to “dub” the soap.
GL DESERVES to be saved, because it makes no sense to keep other soaps alive (horrible stuff such as the Bold and the Beautiful for instance) while killing their “mother”. We either decide to abolish all soaps or we keep GL!
And then, I wonder, how are the producers thinking of ”ending” the stories of characters that have been alive for decades?

It’s impossible to end GL because GL is like the world. Since it began in 1937 we’ve seen characters being born, growing up, getting married, giving birth to new charcaters who have married other characters creating a second generation, then athird, then a fourth… The families in fictional SPRINGFIELD have multiplied, it’s not only the Bauers anymore, it’s the Lewis and the Spauldings, and the Santos, and the Coopers, and the Marlers and many many others…

…It’s humanly impossible to come up with an end for all those stories because GL simply deals with life and you can’t put an end to Life, unless you have a cosmic catastrophy sweeping away the whole human race. This is really the only end for GL, an asteroid falling onto the city of Springfield, delating all its inhabitants and every trace of their existance. In that case Reva, and Harley and Lizzie and Phillip and Rick will suddenly disappear like the dynosaurs.
I do hope Procter and Gamble, who have been producing GL since 1937, will find a different collocation for the show and therefore save Springfield from extinction. If they don’t, I can imagine myself, a few years from now, wondering how my friend Lizzie Spaulding is doing - because nobody knows what happens to characters once writers stop telling their stories and actors stop embodying their lives.

Where do they go? Where would the thousands and thousands of people who have been passing through “Springfield” end up now that CBS is going to take away their right to exist?
If Pirandello was alive, he might try to write a play about it. “2500 characters in search of a channel”.
Perhaps he would end up writing a soap.

TO HELP SAVING GL PLEASE GO TO:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/petition/585207060

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zQeGZjMfz0&feature=related