Allora…

Well then, it’s occurred to me that in the final week of my blog there has to come a point of the ‘last post’ for the purpose of my Media Project. So this one is it.

For the last post concerning my project, I’d like to look at some of the key reasons that to date, Berlusconi’s project has been so successful. He’s absolutely, somewhat of an enigma but to say that is the key to his success is far to simplistic. An article I will be referring to in my written Italian project has looked at Silvio Berlusconi in a comparative context, to try and answer the question of why was Berlusconi able to rise to power, by looking at others who are like him yet have failed at the task.

The article, written by Erik Jones, describes at 5 key areas that according to him, absolutely needed to be present for Berlusconi to succeed. But the article did not present an analysis of the 5 key areas as a case study of Berlusconi, rather, 4 other figures were analysed, each missing an what Jones considers to be at least one crucial area that led to their eventual failure to combine their entrepreneurial skills with rule-bending, humongous amounts of capital in the pursuit of political power.

As follows they are:

• Opportunity – a gap in the political environment, so the fall of the DC and Tangentopoli created the perfect political opportunity.
• Financially – having support to transfer his business interests into political interests, it’s no great discovery that financially Berlusconi was ready and able to take such a leap.
• Institutionally – a mechanism to reach voters quickly and easily, so the Berlusconi media empire came quite in handy, through the party of ‘Forza Italia’.
• Ideologically – A widely-appealing policy program with manipulative imagery and symbolism, so looking at reaching out to different classes through ‘soccer speak’
• Personally – energy, ambition, charisma, personality, no-one has more the Berlusconi.

These key factors, without deep analysis are obviously quite superficial and cannot be substantiated. Part of what I’m trying to achieve in my own project is to look at these 5 key areas and provide an analysis of his motives and entry methods to try and demonstrate the existence of a self-interested, personal project rather than a political one. And how I want to do that is to look at areas such as the media empire he has created and how that has affected Italian democracy, not just in the sense of the inherent conflict of interest that exists as a result, but in that television consumption of Berlusconi is accepting Berlusconi for example. How Berlusconi’s lack of economic strategy is a key indicator of a self-interested project. How changes to media-ownership legislation are completely self-serving. How from the very beginning, his financial trails are murky at the very least. How his project, is indeed patrimonial. These are just some of the areas that I will be addressing to confront the issue of a self-interested project. And this blog has served to allow these ideas to develop and evolve and looking back on my earlier posts, the direction of my project has definitely changed, something which I think needs be at the very least partly attributed to a consistent development of this blog’s contents. And that’s it…

Ci vediamo a qualche posto

When in doubt, divert attention

Or maybe there even reaches a point where the completely self-interested individual realises he has landed himself in very, very hot water, again. So what do you do? Divert attention. Take the focus away from one scandal, that is fundamentally a question of responsibility, accountability and an adherence to the judicial system in which you reside and govern and create another, that while equally as scandalous and eruptive of numerous social issues in Italian society does not directly question an area where Berlusconi is constantly under scrutiny. Say something utterly ridiculous as is the norm, stand by that decision much to the dismay of external criticism, divert attention away from the issue at hand by creating another and hope that the latter is the focus and the former forgotten. Such is the cycle of Silvio Berlusconi.

I can’t find a video link on Youtube or Google as yet so a link here will have to suffice.

Tags: Italian politics, scandal, Silvio Berlusconi

And again, and again, and again

Yes, another scandal-clad story has broken about Berlusconi. This time, he’s been accused of defending a 17-year old Moroccan girl against theft accusations and insisting she be freed. The girl, known onstage as Ruby is apparently a dancer who attends the infinite festivities at Berlusconi’s private residence, Villa Arcore. It’s simply yet another claim of scandalous behaviour on the part of Berlusconi, explicit interference with the Italian judicial system and simply more insistence that there is no such interference. And as for reference to another young female, well that’s no issue either. This is Berlusconi we are talking about after all.

 

Berlusconi to the left, and 'Ruby' the dancer at the centre of Italy's latest scandal

He simply doesn’t care. And to some critics, this all part of his appearance and representation of just exactly who and what he is. He’s above and beyond any other Italian. Hell, he’s above and beyond everyone. He’s absolutely dismissive of criticism not as a mechanism of defence but simply because he truly believes in what he is and what he has created, both of himself and of Italian democracy. To me, it’s just another feature of what I have come to understand as a Berlusconi project. His project of acquisition, ownership, control, (pseudo) leadership, public-gaffe simply cannot be successful if he doesn’t present himself as a figure of transcendence, answerable to nobody but himself and responsible for everything and nothing at the same time.

Tags: Italian politics, scandal, Silvio Berlusconi

Videocracy – Basta apparire

I was given a DVD to watch the other day to help me with my project. It’s called Videocracy and is produced and directed by Erik Gandini, an Italian Swedish filmmaker. The outline on the back of the cover describes the DVD as not a documentary, not a journalistic inquiry and not an academic analysis of Berlusconialism. Rather, it’s a horror film, a horror film that penetrates, with the powerful instruments of cinema, the darkness and obscurity behind the glittering world of television. It’s an account of an alien invasion however this time, the aliens are us. I wish these were my words however I just translated the description from Italian to English.

Gandini presents an account which is indeed horrific. If you do a simple IMDB search, there’s not many reviews however of the 10 that there are, half love it and half hate it. I really think the half who hate it have completely missed the point, the common complaint amongst the haters was that the film lacked depth of information and appeared to lightly graze the surface of Italy’s social and political problems. I don’t think the point of the film was at all to provide a deep historical, social or political context, if you just look at the damn description on the back of the DVD that point is very clear.  I think what Gandini has done here is something many documentarists do not dare do, he’s assumed a great deal of knowledge on the part of the viewer, leaving the conclusions to be drawn up on one’s own accord. Sure, if I was to show this film to a friend who had little or no knowledge of Italian politics and the media situation in Italy it would be an overwhelmingly uninformative film to watch. But here this works well in both directions: to the knowing person it provides a cinematic account of a horrific situation and to the unknowing person it provides an intense desire to try and understand that situation and to seek more information about it. Why do we have constantly have to be told what to think all the time and why can’t be just be provided with the little nudge to make us want to know more, like I think Gandini has done so here.

Something that  I really liked about the film was the tag line found on some of the DVD’s: basta apparire. It means literally, ‘enough, to appear’ or in a slightly different translation, ‘you just have to be seen’. In the beginning, I had no idea what the tagline meant and how it would tie into the documentary but by the end of the film, when it’s spoken by Lele Mora, Italy’s biggest television agent, it all ties in together. I’d love to explain it here but if you happen to read this, it would be a real shame to not find out for yourself. It’s quite saddening really, in a depressing sense.

Tags: Erik Gandini, Fabrizio Corona, Italian media, Italian television, Lele Mora, Silvio Berlusconi

Berlo & Sarko… celebrity politicians

I attended a lunchtime seminar today, held by the CESAA. The seminar discussed the politics of global celebrity, with Silvio Berlusconi and Nicholas Sarkozy as the celebrity politicians in question. One of the lecturers from our uni, Bruno Mascitelli presented on Berlusconi and a lecturer from Monash presented on Sarkozy.

The seminar, while brief, was extremely interesting and as I said to Bruno afterwards, was very beneficial for me to attend because alot of questions I had in mind, and many issues that I didn’t yet quite know how to tackle when writing my essay were cleared up and most if not all of my thoughts relevant to the presentation were confirmed.

Some of the most interesting and important points that I took from the Berlusconi side of things were:

• That between 1992 and 1994 there existed a political vacuum in which Berlusconi the politician was born.
• That Berlusconi is first and foremost a businessman, Forza Italia was created in the structure of a business prism, with a hierarchical structure that simply cannot function in the interactive manner that is required in politics. And of this business prism, Berlusconi is the CEO – Forza Italia displayed many qualities of a fan club and like any fan club, loyalty was indeed rewarded.
• Something that I had read but without reading into the importance of was that Berlusconi made many of his longterm acquaintances in his younger days, prior to entering the entrepreneurial field, whilst working as an entertainer on cruise liners and ships. Until then, I had wondered where exactly the starting point for Berlusconi’s relationships with such controversial figures began and now, it simply makes sense.
• Berlusconi is the epitome of the amalgamation between celebrity, politicians and extreme populists.
• And an extreme populist he is – prior to his 2001 victory he published a letter that was sent to almost every Italian home promising that if he wasn’t able to complete and achieve 5 specific goals than he would resign as Prime Minister and retire from politics because he couldn’t bear to be unable to serve his Italian public – mind shuddering.
• There there is no current unified or coherent opposition in Italy, the centre-left is too unstable and unified to withhold a strong opposition standpoint – the real question of opposition here is internal, the real opposition lies within the current coalition, which, at our current point in time is on shaky ground and dangerous territory and this is where the real question of the future of Berlusconi lies.
• A question was asked by one of the attendees if Berlusconi ever had the support of Italian intellectuals and the staunch answer, although it cannot be factually substantiated is no, absolutely not. And the reason why for this is that Berlusconi ‘entered the playing field’ with an agenda, that to the intellectual, informed and analytical eye was completely untrustworthy and unconvincing however unfortunately, as we know the intellectual society does not in any way make up any form of majority of a population and can therefore find it very hard to shape and influence opinion.
• And finally, an interesting point that was made in regards to Berlusconi’s presentation of himself to not only Italian society, but the European and global stage is constantly filled with sexual innuendo and literally a foray of his own personal sex life – Bruno considers this, and while it is purely his own interpretation, I think it is one hell of a good one, that here, Berlusconi is indulging in a measurement of his longevity – he is a 70+ year old man and ‘he’s still got it’ so-to-speak and it’s an extreme reference to his ability to achieve much more than what the average person would expect…

And that’s it… for today.

Tags: Celebrity politicians, CESAA, Italian politics, Nicholas Sarkozy, populism, Silvio Berlusconi

Ginsborg video, Take 2

Quite early on in the life of this blog I found a video of what appears to be Paul Ginsborg presenting a video lecture for a University in Sydney. Ginsborg presents a very informative 19 minute presentation on the many ways in which Silvio Berlusconi, as Prime Minister of Italy undermines Italian democracy. The video speaks for itself and for anyone studying recent Italian politics, it’s very helpful.

Tags: Italian democracy, patrimonialism, Paul Ginsborg, Silvio Berlusconi

I don’t know if I can watch all of this myself…

In much of my research I’ve been reading alot about a hymn that Berlusconi supposedly created in the founding stages of his first political party, Forza Italia around the end of 1993. Berlusconi also allegedly exclaimed, in Italian of course, ‘With a hymn like this, we can’t lose!

So I thought, maybe I’ll try and find this hymn, although I don’t really know if that’s such a good idea. Took me a little while to find it but alas, someone kindly, or not so kindly uploaded it on Youtube some time around 2006. I can’t bear to watch all 2 minutes and 58 seconds of it but you might.. It does sound pretty tacky and horrible, much like the rest of Berlusconi’s musical pursuits.

Tags: campaign tactics, hymn, Italian music, Italian politics, marketing, Silvio Berlusconi