Purdue Studies in Romance Literatures

Italy's New Migrant Cinema

Vetri Nathan

• Publisher: Purdue University Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781612494890
• Topic: Mezzi di comunicazione e arti performative
• Subtopic: Storia e critica del cinema

Historically a source of emigrants to Northern Europe and the New World, Italy has rapidly become a preferred destination for immigrants from the global South. Life in the land of la dolce vita has not seemed so sweet recently, as Italy struggles with the cultural challenges caused by this surge in immigration. Marvelous Bodies by Vetri Nathan explores thirteen key full-length Italian films released between 1990 and 2010 that treat this remarkable moment of cultural role reversal through a plurality of styles. In it, Nathan argues that Italy sees itself as the quintessential internal Other of Western Europe, and that this subalternity directly influences its cinematic response to immigrants, Europe's external Others. In framing his case to understand Italy's cinematic response to immigrants, Nathan first explores some basic questions: Who exactly is the Other in Italy? Does Italy's own past partial alterity affect its present response to its newest subalterns? Drawing on Homi Bhabha's writings and Italian cinematic history, Nathan then posits the existence of marvelous bodies that are momentarily neither completely Italian nor completely immigrant. This ambivalence of forms extends to the films themselves, which tend to be generic hybrids. The persistent curious presence of marvelous bodies and a pervasive generic hybridity enact Italy's own chronic ambivalence that results from its presence at the cultural crossroads of the Mediterranean.

Chapter One

Cultural Hybridity in Italy

Italy’s detourist new migrant cinema presents scholars with a unique opportunity to test theories of cultural hybridity. As I have briefly described in the Introduction, postcolonial theory can be useful in carefully distinguishing the commonly used terms of multiculturalism from true hybridity, which is a far better term and mechanism to describe increasingly complex interactions between a variety of cultural groups in a globalized transnational world. In this chapter, I will primarily focus on defining some terms and elucidating aspects of Homi Bhabha’s understanding of cultural hybridity that will be useful for the analysis of the films in the following chapters.

Postcolonial Studies: A Search for Discrepant Experiences

The field of postcolonial studies has evolved from its original intentions of analyzing primarily British Commonwealth literature. In order to establish a valid critical framework that will respect Italy’s unusual cultural position on the crossroads of the Mediterranean and present a case for the pertinence of postcolonial theory to this study, let me begin with one of the first explicit definitions of “postcolonial,” given to us by one of the early scholars in the field, Bill Ashcroft. In The Empire Writes Back, he argues that:

We use the word post-colonial […] to cover all the culture affected by the imperial process from the moment of colonization to the present day. This is because there is a continuity of preoccupations throughout the historical process initiated by the European imperial aggression. We also suggest that it is most appropriate as the term for the new cross-cultural criticism which has emerged in recent years and for the discourse through which this is constituted. In this sense this book is concerned with the world as it exists during and after the period of European imperial domination and the effects of this on contemporary literatures.

So the literatures of African countries, Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Caribbean countries, India, Malaysia, Malta, New Zealand, Pakistan, Singapore, South Pacific Island countries, and Sri Lanka are all post-colonial literatures. (Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin 2)

Ashcroft, writing at a time when postcolonial theory was yet in its infancy, was trying to create a feasible container for the range and focus of the theory. The initial formulations of postcoloniality demonstrated the difficulty of creating a balance between establishing contained definitions of postcolonial times and spaces and yet maintaining an openness to other related phenomena. Ashcroft hints at this openness in his use of the term “continuity of preoccupations.” The early container of the postcolonial theories was that of the literatures of the British Commonwealth nations. Ashcroft’s definition, although allowing for a “continuity of preoccupations,” still revolves around the interpretation of a precise historical moment—that of nineteenth- and twentieth-century European, and especially British imperialism—and its aftermath. The second point that I would like to draw our attention to is the vast range of the resulting list of nations and literatures that come to be included under the umbrella of postcolonial literatures. Ashcroft addresses a problem of legitimacy posed by an umbrella theory by pointing to the unifying experience of imperialism on cultures:

What each of these literatures has in common beyond their special and distinctive regional characteristics is that they emerged in their present form out of their experience of colonization and asserted themselves by foregrounding the tension with the imperial power, and by emphasizing their differences from the assumptions of the imperial centre. It is this which makes them distinctly post-colonial. (2)

The problem, I purport, with such a definition of postcolonial culture, is not that it is too broad in its scope and ambition, but actually, it is not broad enough. In the process of trying to make sense of a complex set of theories and list its practical applicability to cultural studies, definitions such as these opened up a multitude of issues. Indeed, such definitions have at times had the unintended effect of restricting the potential reach of postcolonial theories, and limited the discussion to a critical squabble as to which cultures and nations get to be part of the postcolonial club and which do not. Postcolonial studies began in the context of a Commonwealth literature, but it has since then matured to take into account contemporary transnational societies. The recent growth of globalization and transnational studies, fields that have been derived from this effort by postcolonial theorists, are promising signs of a path forward. It is my hope that this book will provide yet another voice to the rapidly emerging field of post-colonial studies in Italy, which is still in its infancy.¹

Edward Said is considered the founding father of a branch of postcoloniality called “Colonial discourse analysis,” chiefly due to the success of his seminal work, Orientalism. He meditates on the importance of generating a realistic vision of the possibilities of postcolonial theories in Culture and Imperialism. Indeed, Said’s definition of imperialism itself allows the field of enquiry to open up to a subtler and grander vision and analysis of a host of cultural phenomena, local, national, and transnational, without posting a list of historical or material prerequisites to the applicability of postcolonial criticism. Imperialism for Said, is “the practice, the theory, and the attitudes of a dominating metropolitan center ruling a distant territory” (Said, Culture and Imperialism 9). National and ethnic identities, for Said, are “historically created and a result of interpretation” (31) and it would be incoherent and counter-productive for postcolonial theories to try and posit these as essential in any way, since the very goals of the theories are to examine the relationship between identity creation and discourse and between power and knowledge. Said highlights his notion of “discrepant experiences” as a better way of understanding power relationships in culture at all levels, thus allowing for dialogue and interaction beyond the limits of Manichean oppositions of “colonizer” and “colonized” nation states. For Said, such discrepant experiences highlight the limitations of abstract ideas such as “East” and “West,” and he proposes that theory must acknowledge the existence of these differences and understand how they are constructed, rather than utilize them to build artificial conceptual boundaries of all kinds. Said posits that all cultures assert identity. Thus, postcolonial studies, in such a situation, should work toward exposing and dismantling scholarship that “rather than affirming the interdependence of various histories on one another, and the necessary interaction of contemporary societies with one another, [perpetuates] the rhetorical separation of cultures” (38). The central question for Said in Culture and Imperialism is also the broader central question that I would like to propose to scholars of immigration cultures in Italy:

What is the inventory of the various strategies that might be employed to widen, expand, deepen our awareness of the way the past and present of the imperial encounter interact with each other? (39)

Italy presents postcolonial scholars a concrete way to enable such a furthering of our knowledge of the mechanisms of imperialism and culture. This is because it plays an ambivalent role as both colonizer and colonized. It represents both the center and the periphery of the imagined Western Civilization and is as such, a discrepant nation. A study of immigration in Italy can be furthered only by a refinement of what we mean by terms such as imperialism, colonialism, and hybridity, and the Italian case provides us with the material and historical conditions to do just that. Post-colonial theories have grown to go beyond the “reified polarities of East versus West, and in an intelligent and concrete way attempt to understand the heterogeneous and often odd developments that used to elude the so-called world historians as well as the colonial Orientalists, who have tended to herd immense amounts of material under simple and all-encompassing rubrics” (Culture and Imperialism 26). With these words, Said encourages a more evolved and dynamic critical apparatus that will go beyond the “rubrics” that they initially set out to dismantle.

Bhabha’s Hybridity

Homi Bhabha’s theory of hybridity takes Edward Said’s project of dismantling lingering postcolonial dualities to its logical conclusion, and is therefore, I believe, a useful tool in fully excavating the possibilities provided by the Italian case.² I would like to present a view of the Italian case through the lens of his enunciation of hybridity as outlined in the volume of his collected writings, The Location of Culture (1994). Bhabha’s theory of hybridity is important in understanding this magmatic state, as it gives new relevance to the “post” in “postcolonial”: no longer does the post simply denote the linear temporal framework of colonial and after-colonial time, and the specific spatial territory of the land occupied under European imperialist forces. The post now signifies beyond—beyond a critical vision that employs cultural comparativism to create notions of “homologous national cultures, the consensual or contiguous transmission of historical traditions, or ‘organic’ ethnic communities” (7). Indeed, for Bhabha, the understanding of identity creation through such a discourse “can only be achieved through the death, literal and figurative, of the complex inter-weavings of history, and the culturally contingent borderlines of modern nationhood” (7). Bhabha, in effect, strikes at the heart of underlying notions that form the basis of the idealized neoliberal ideas of both nationhood and multiculturalism, which, as I have noted in my introductory chapter, “[rely] on the assumption that there were primeval, separate, and distinct global cultural orders which are only now beginning to meet in the context of global migration.”

To fully answer the question of why it is so essential to conceptually re-negotiate identities that go beyond the duality of Colonizer/Colonized, especially in the Italian case, it would first be important to summarize the various historical and material conditions that make Italy and Italian immigration culture a particularly apt model for the understanding of hybridity as Bhabha envisions it. Since the word “hybrid” has had a long and convoluted usage, and is currently used to convey a broad range of cultural situations, it would also be prescient to underline the distinctness of Bhabhian hybridity, and especially demonstrate the importance of the role of “mimicry” and “menace” as hybrid strategies of representation. There are various ways in which these concepts can be useful in the study of literary or cinematic texts, also in the way they suggest caution upon an excessive use of the literary and textual approach to the study of cultural upheavals, opening up the study to a more interdisciplinary approach. Another important characteristic of Bhabha’s hybridity is its neutral connotation. Bhabha goes beyond an optimistic or naïve celebration of hybrid states and articulates a more nuanced and complex understanding as a difficult, yet all-pervasive presence in cultures.

Italy’s Chronic Ambivalence—The Ghosts of Crises Past

I would like to expand upon my suggestion in the Introduction that the Italian nation has a relatively unstable oikos. Indeed, Italy’s contemporary crisis of immigration can be situated within a thematic continuation of a very ancient and vibrant national cultural leitmotif of fragmentation. This narrative of fragmentation is inscribed within the Italian literary and cinematic canon, its history, and also its geography. As Parati rightly mentions, Italy is a nation at the “cultural crossroads of the Mediterranean.” It is also a geographical bridge, a long and narrow peninsula that not only spans North and South, but also East and West. Francesco Cossiga, the Christian Democrat leader who served as the President of Italy from 1985 to 1992, describes this geographical four-way split in an appropriately striking manner:

Anche se gli storici la prendono sempre a male quando devono citare la calzante intuizione del principe di Metternich che riduceva l’Italia a una semplice “espressione geografica,” secondo me non aveva torto! O, per dirla con più pertinenza, sbagliava a negare all’Italia risorgimentale il diritto di farsi Stato, ma aveva molte ragioni nel rappresentare l’Italia così come la vedeva campita sulla mappa d’Europa. L’Italia deve tutta la sua storia alla sua geografia: ancorata alle Alpi, “insuperabile confine” già per Tito Livio, ma distesa sul Medeterraneo, punto d’approdo di popoli e culture. Oltre che ponte fra Nord e Sud, crocevia obbligato fra Est e Ovest: all’estremità adriatica del Puglia il sole sorge quaranta minuti prima che in Ventimiglia, perchè Otranto è più a oriente di Trieste. Perciò siamo nati meticci … (Cossiga and Chessa 8)

Although the historians are always reluctant to cite the fitting intuition of the Prince of Metternich, who reduced Italy to a simple “geographical expression,” I do not think that he was wrong! Or, to be more precise, he was wrong to negate Risorgimento Italy the right to declare itself a State, but he had many reasons to represent Italy just as he could see it situated on Europe’s map. Italy owes all of its history to its geography: anchored to the Alps, “the insurmountable barrier” for Livy, but spread upon the Mediterranean, the point of meeting for peoples and cultures. Other than bridge between North and South, an obligatory crossroad between East and West; at the Adriatic end of Puglia the sun rises forty minutes before it does in Ventimiglia, because Otranto is to the east of Trieste. This is why we are born mestizo …

Indeed, as Cossiga implies, any discussion of Italian immigration cannot exclude Italy’s own history as Europe’s internal, hybrid Other, and I would like to accentuate the importance of this otherness within by very briefly mentioning the chief ways in which Italy connotes or embodies otherness:

1. The “Belated” Nation: Italy had witnessed a relatively late and complicated formation of the Nation-State in the late nineteenth century. The complexity of the relationship between political unification and cultural formation of the nation is well described by Derek Beales and Eugenio Biagini: “While it is in a sense possible to treat Italian unification as an affair of war and diplomacy, more or less completed within two years, and then to explain it just in these terms, no historian of unification would limit himself or herself to this period and these aspects. [Unification] was a result or a stage of national revival, known as the Risorgimento, which originated in the eighteenth century, and has lasted, according to many writers, into the twentieth. […] it seems to us that the precise relationship between Risorgimento and unification is exceedingly hard to determine.” (Beales and Biagini 2)

2. The “Fragmented” Nation: Italy has had a relatively fragmented and diverse population speaking a myriad of languages and dialects (Massimo D’Azeglio’s aphorism comes to mind here, “Abbiamo fatto l’Italia; si tratta addesso di fare gli italiani” (“We have made Italy, now we must make the Italians”). Beales and Biagini again make a persuasive claim that the questione della lingua was a national problem that has often been blown out of proportion and context. They problematize Tullio de Mauro’s claim that official standard Italian was alien to a majority of the new citizens, conclusively claiming that the language problems accentuate class differences rather than problems of cultural unity (75–80). This further highlights my point about the subjective nature of Italy’s material situation of ambivalence with respect to European identity.

3. The “Southern Question”: Italy’s relatively heterogeneous economic development, leading to a sharp divide in wealth between the North and the South, is a consequence of historical political inequalities. This combination of inequities resulted in a wave of internal emigration from the mostly agrarian South toward the industrial North. The South, in effect, is historically Italy’s internal Other, just as Italy is Europe’s internal Other, a situation illustrated by the term La questione meridionale (The Southern Question).³ The Southern Question has continued to be a political and cultural concept that has been used to great effect in Italian public life. We only have to listen to any of the Northern League’s ex-leader Umberto Bossi’s denunciations of Italy’s South (whose metonymic image is Roma ladrona/padrona, “Robber/Master Rome”) to observe that the Southern Question has remained relevant, and is intimately connected to Italy’s identity relationships with Europe, Africa/Orient, and the immigrants:

Finalmente con la Lega Nord per la prima volta il Nord ebbe un suo partito e quindi la possibilità di passare dal borbottio dell’insoddisfazione contro Roma alla denuncia chiara e forte dell’oppressione centralista. Era nata cioè ufficialmente la questione settentrionale; esplose il risentimento che si era accumulato contro Roma nella nostra società fin dal dopoguerra. Dapprima sul Nord si erano riversate forti immigrazioni per sostenere lo sviluppo industriale che avevano distrutto l’identità delle nostre grandi città […] la cassa del mezzogiorno, opere faraoniche sempre pagate da noi ma spesso neppure realizzate […] alibi per incassare oltre un milione di miliardi. Il Nord trasformato in un pozzo di San Patrizio senza un limite e senza fine. (Bossi)

Finally, with the Northern League, the North was able to have its own party and therefore the possibility of passing from dissatisfied mutterings against Rome to a clear and strong denouncement of centralized oppression. Thus was born, that is, the Northern Question, and the sentiments accumulated against Rome by our society since post-war years exploded. From the beginning, strong waves of immigration had destroyed the identity of our great cities […] the Fund for the Mezzogiorno, pharaonic works always paid for by us but often never constructed […] alibis made in order to take in more than a million bil...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Detourism: Italy’s New Migrant Cinema
• Chapter One: Cultural Hybridity in Italy
• Chapter Two: Beyond Neorealism: The Cinematic Body-as-Nation
• Chapter Three: Ambivalent Geographies
• Chapter Four: Ambivalent Desires: Desiring Gazes: Bhabha and Mulvey
• Chapter Five: Ambivalent Moralities
• Conclusion: Inside the Paradise of Marvelous Bodies
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Filmography
• Index
• About the book