Performative giovani in Italian popular media: rethinking generations through gender theory (original) (raw)

Abstract

This paper aims to establish gender theory, and in particular the concept of performativity (Butler 1990; 1999), as a useful tool in understanding i giovani as an ideological identity represented in, and constructed by, Italian popular media. The use of the Italian term, i giovani, comes from the need to distinguish it from the merely age-related meaning of the expression ‘young people’. Firstly, I will define i giovani as a social category directly interpellated (Althusser 1977) by Italian popular media. I will then characterise i giovani as a performatively constructed category, arguing that discourse produced the giovane identity through the reiteration of specific practices which were performed in opposition to naturalised ‘adult’ practices, with community building and normative effects. Secondly, this paper aims to show how this theoretical framework can be useful to guarantee to (young) women their ‘place in history’ (Grisard 2014): while generational analyses often overlook gender specificities, investigating the social construction of il giovane allows to untangle specific issues pertaining to giovani masculinities and femininities. To this end, an analysis of how differently the ‘growing up’ of male and female giovani is represented shows the permanence of normative discourses on the social expectations towards women. To explain my use of this theory, I will make several examples taken from my PhD thesis on representations of i giovani in 1960s Italian popular media.

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