• ‘Who wants to be a TV Show girl? Auditions, talent and taste in contemporary Italian popular cinema’, The Italianist, 32, 2012, pp. 154-190 (original) (raw)
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https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/SJWUINSSSM4QDAKPJQFZ/full?target=10.1080/01614622.2021.1988212
My article provides a better understanding of commedia dell'arte's transformation from an indecorous form of popular entertainment, performed in public spaces (piazze) and accused of teaching lust and corruption, into a legitimate and respected art form, performed in aristocratic and royal court theatres before refined and educated audiences. I show how relevant performances by such actresses as
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As a medium that produces both a visual and spoken interpretation of elements of social identity, cinema proffers an instructive look at a culture's reaction to challenges to the gender conventions that define it. Alessandro Blasetti's La corona di ferro (1941), Bernardo Bertolucci's Il conformista (1970), and Lina Wertmuller's Sotto … Sotto … Strapazzato d'anomala passione (1984) reveal what can occur when individuals step outside the strict parameters of gender enforced by society and usher in the possibility of alternatives to the heterosexual union. The way the three films respond to their female characters' attempts at controlling gender provides insight into the social unease with the interpretation of masculinity and femininity. Indeed, the films mobilize to strengthen and reaffirm conventional gender categories. The female character who defies conventional codes of feminine behavior in these films is, respectively, the transvestite, the androgyne, and...
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