Fashioning Italian youth: Young people's identity and style in Italian popular culture, 1958-75 9781526162014

Table of contents :
Title page
Contents
Figures
General editor’s foreword
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 Urlatori and amici, 1958–65
2 Beats, 1965–67
3 Hippies, 1967–70
4 Fragmented youth, 1970–75
Coda: Noi, ragazzi di oggi
References
Index

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Fashioning Italian youth

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STUDIES IN

POPULAR CULTURE General editor: Professor Jeffrey Richards There has in recent years been an explosion of interest in culture and cultural studies. The impetus has come from two directions and out of two different traditions. On the one hand, cultural history has grown out of social history to become a distinct and identifiable school of historical investigation. On the other hand, cultural studies has grown out of English literature and has concerned itself to a large extent with contemporary issues. Nevertheless, there is a shared project, its aim, to elucidate the meanings and values implicit and explicit in the art, literature, learning, institutions and everyday behaviour within a given society. Both the cultural historian and the cultural studies scholar seek to explore the ways in which a culture is imagined, represented and received, how it interacts with social processes, how it contributes to individual and collective identities and world views, to stability and change, to social, political and economic activities and programmes. This series aims to provide an arena for the cross-fertilisation of the discipline, so that the work of the cultural historian can take advantage of the most useful and illuminating of the theoretical developments and the cultural studies scholars can extend the purely historical underpinnings of their investigations. The ultimate objective of the series is to provide a range of books which will explain in a readable and accessible way where we are now socially and culturally and how we got to where we are. This should enable people to be better informed, promote an interdisciplinary approach to cultural issues and encourage deeper thought about the issues, attitudes and institutions of popular culture. To buy or to find out more about the books currently available in this series, please go to: https://man​ches​teru​nive​rsit​ypress​.co​.uk​/series​/studies​in​-popular​-culture/

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Fashioning Italian youth Young people’s identity and style in Italian popular culture, 1958–75 Cecilia Brioni

Manchester University Press

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Copyright © Cecilia Brioni 2022 The right of Cecilia Brioni to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Front cover: A group of Italian young people in Borgosatollo (BS), 1974. Family photo, courtesy of the author. Published by Manchester University Press Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL www​.man​ches​teru​nive​rsit​ypress​.co​.uk British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 5261 6200 7 hardback First published 2022 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

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Contents

List of figures General editor’s foreword Preface Acknowledgements

page vi ix x xi

Introduction: Noi siamo i giovani: youth in Italian popular media 1 Urlatori and amici, 1958–65 2 Beats, 1965–67 3 Hippies, 1967–70 4 Fragmented youth, 1970–75 Coda: Noi, ragazzi di oggi

1 29 57 109 160 210

References Index

217 234

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Figures

1.1 First encounter between the urlatori and the group of Giulia’s friends in Urlatori alla sbarra (1960). The two groups’ difference is marked by their style (screenshots by the author) page 39 2.1 The ‘Big-Pipermarket’ initiative allowed young people from all over the country to receive youth-oriented fashion by mail. G.S. (1966) ‘Sta per scattare l’operazione BigPipermarket’, Big, 16:II (22/04/1966), pp. 44–5 (author’s own collection) 62 2.2 The fashion trend of badges featuring written messages or depicting giovani stars. ‘Nuovo stupendo pacco regalo!’ (1967) Giovani, 11 (16/03/1967), p. 3 (author’s own collection) 64 2.3 Youth-oriented advertisement: the moped ‘Ducati yé-yé’, colourful and ‘urlato’ (yelled). Ducati (1966) Advertisement for Ducati yé-yé moped, Big, 16:II (22/04/1966), p. 21 (author’s own collection) 66 2.4 Rita teaching her mother how to dance the Shake in Non stuzzicate la zanzara (1967) (screenshot by the author) 68 2.5 Caterina Caselli becoming a beat singer by adopting a giovane style in Io non protesto, io amo (1967). In the first screenshot, she sings to her students; in the second screenshot, she performs with her beat band (screenshots by the author) 73 2.6 British band the Rokes’ association with the Beatles: here, the band is depicted in an article discussing the Beatles’ tailor. ‘Tutti dal sarto dei Beatles!’ (1967) Giovani, 11, 16/03/1967, pp. 34–5 (author’s own collection) 78 2.7 Journalist Gianni Boncompagni’s first reportage from London. Boncompagni, G. (1966) ‘Anche a Londra tutto sotto controllo’, Big, 16:II (22/04/1966), pp. 12–13 (author’s own collection) 82

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Figures

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2.8 Rita Pavone’s concealed sexuality: Rita and Paolo’s kiss behind the umbrella. From Non stuzzicate la zanzara (1967) 93 (screenshot by the author) 3.1 Youth-oriented advertisement after 1968. The advert reproduces protest imagery: young people carry posters saying ‘We want a longer summer’. Algida (1969) Advertisement for Gelato Paiper, Giovani, 20 (15/05/1969), 113 p. 11 (author’s own collection) 3.2 Anti-authoritarian fashion: magazine fashion spread reporting the readers’ fashion sketches. ‘Bam! La moda lei e lui’ (1969) Giovani, 20 (15/05/1969), p. 48 (author’s own collection)117 3.3 1930s-inspired fashion worn by famous giovani stars. ‘Un documentario esclusivo di Giovani: gli anni Trenta rievocati dai cantanti’ (1968) Giovani, 12 (21/03/1968), pp. 18–19 125 (author’s own collection) 3.4 American singer Rocky Roberts playing Bob, a young Congolese student, in a photo story. ‘30 in amore’ (1969) Giovani, 35 (28/08/1969), p. 56 (author’s own collection) 133 3.5 Patty Pravo, hippy femme fatale: ‘I smoke boys like cigarettes’. ‘Chi è Patty Pravo? I ragazzi io li fumo come sigarette’ (1966) Ciao amici, 36 (12/10/1966), pp. 54–5 143 (author’s own collection) 3.6 Change in male standards of attractiveness: Maurizio, singer with the band New Dada, here presented as a ‘blonde God’. ‘Tu sei il nostro biondo dio!’ (1966) Ciao amici, 36 145 (12/10/1966), pp. 46–7 (author’s own collection) 3.7 Advertisements for male products using male domination imagery: Vidal for men. Vidal (1970) Advertisement Vidal for Men, Qui giovani, 19 (07/05/1970), pp. 6–7 (author’s 149 own collection) 4.1 An example of Democrazia Cristiana advertising: short hair, beard and sunglasses identify the potential voter of Democrazia Cristiana. Democrazia Cristiana (1972b) Campaign advertising, Ciao 2001, 16 (23/04/1972), p. 70 168 (author’s own collection) 4.2 Marcella Bella, a southern giovane singer. Regini, T. (1972) ‘Marcella Bella, un personaggio nuovo di zecca’, Ciao 2001, 181 16 (23/04/1972), p. 73 (author’s own collection)

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Figures

4.3 Advertisement for women’s jeans, allowing ‘an incredibly free lifestyle’. Wrangler (1972) Advertisement for Jeans Wrangler, Ciao 2001, 16 (23/04/1972), back cover (author’s own collection) 4.4 Adriano Pappalardo, Italian singer representing southern virility. Marengo, R. (1974) ‘Un uomo chiamato Pappalardo’, Ciao 2001, 1 (06/01/1974), p. 80 (author’s own collection)

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General editor’s foreword

All across the Western world, the decade of the 1960s was synonymous with youth and change. It was the era of the ‘youthquake’, an explosion of freedom and creativity particularly in the fields of music, fashion and film. In this fascinating and ground-breaking book, Cecilia Brioni explores the social construction by the media of a new identity for Italian youth in the 1960s and 1970s. The post-war Italian economic boom, dubbed the ‘Economic Miracle’, promoted a consumer culture which developed a new market, ‘i giovani’, the young people for whom that market created distinctive products concerned with style and image. Brioni seeks to shift the focus of previous historians from the political activities of young people associated with the ‘events’ of 1968 to the cultural construction of the youth culture. Her analysis is structured around three particular themes. Central to her interpretation is the construction of a ‘performative’ image of youth, which was embodied in distinctive styles of dress, dance, hair, slang and attitude. Magazines, films and television programmes aimed exclusively at the young produced teen idols who personified the new image. The second of Brioni’s themes is the influence on Italian youth culture of foreign cultures – such as the French Nouvelle Vague, the Swinging London of Carnaby Street and the laid-back Californian hippie lifestyle – and the incorporation of elements from these cultures. Her third theme is the role of the media in promoting new identities of masculinity and femininity. Long-haired boys and short-haired girls, unisex fashions and the increasing discussion of hitherto taboo subjects (premarital sex, contraception and abortion foremost among them) challenged strongly held views on what it meant to be a man or a woman. Brioni concludes her study in the 1970s, arguing that that decade saw a fragmentation of the previously homogeneous youth culture, along social, class and geographical lines. It also saw the development of new and militant movements such as feminism and gay rights. Deeply researched and carefully argued, Cecilia Brioni’s study throws important new light on the nature, meaning and promotion of youth culture in Italy. Jeffrey Richards

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Preface

This book originates from my interest in Italian popular culture during a period of Italian history when, for the first time, several monolithic norms connected to age, gender, race and sexuality began to ostensibly crumble, thanks to the emerging visibility of young people in Italian society. I hope that it will initiate a discussion about what it has meant to be ‘young’ in Italy across time, and about the role of popular culture in the circulation of subversive and subcultural representations of Italian identity. My analysis depends on source material gathered in several Italian libraries and archives. With regard to magazines, I accessed Ciao amici, Big, Ciao Big/Ciao 2001 and Giovani/Qui giovani at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Rome. I consulted some of the early issues of Ciao amici and Sorrisi e canzoni TV at the Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense in Milan. To watch television programmes, I accessed the RAI online catalogue at the Discoteca di Stato in Rome and the Mediateca Santa Teresa in Milan. Musicarelli films are relatively easy to access, as most of them have been distributed on DVD, and some can even be found full-length on the online platform YouTube. Quotations are given in the original language in-text, and italics in the quotations are in the original unless otherwise noted. English translations of quotes in the monograph are by me and are given in a note, or in-text for single words or titles.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the many colleagues who have offered suggestions and feedback on this work, in particular Clare Bielby, Stephen Gundle and Laura Rorato. I am grateful to Jessica Lott for perfecting my words, and to Michele Gusmeri for perfecting this book’s illustrations. Special thanks are due to Loredana Placidi, Brunella Serana, Giovanni Serana and Rosa Tognoli for allowing me to use their photograph on the front cover. In the last few years, I have had the luck to work with extremely inspiring mentors: thank you, Rachel Haworth, Ruth Glynn, Clodagh Brook and Catherine O’Rawe, for your enthusiastic support and honest feedback on my work. I am grateful to all the colleagues I met at Hull, Bristol and Trinity College Dublin for being constant sources of inspiration and new ideas and for their invaluable friendship, in particular Martin Nickson, Simon Willmetts, Riccardo Orlandi, Fruela Fernàndez, Stefania Triggiano, Stefania Placenti, Vera Castiglione, Carla Mereu-Keating, Daniel FinchRace, Lorenzo Dell’Oso and Marco Bellardi. Thank you to the colleagues I met due to our shared interest in the history of Italian youth and Italian popular culture, particularly Alberto Mario Banti, Danielle Hipkins, Alessia Masini – hoping that this will be a step forward towards the fulfilment of our plan! – and Alessio Ponzio. I owe my deepest gratitude to an inspiring colleague and a precious sorello: Simone Brioni. Thank you for our endless discussions about the many meanings of the ‘Other’ in Italian popular culture. A heartfelt thank you to my parents, Lidia and Giuseppe – who were young, but not giovani, in the 1970s – for their unwavering support and unconditional love. I am grateful to my uncles Federico and Davide for holidays, Burraco games and tarots, to Katherine for being a thoughtful and supporting sister(-in-law) and for lots of practical help, and to Ella, who always reminds me of the importance of bisbocciare together.

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Acknowledgements

A final thanks goes to the many places I call home: Borgosatollo, Brescia, Bologna, Edinburgh, Pisa, Paris, Kingston upon Hull, Bristol and Dublin. And to all the friends I met in these places and who contributed to the development of this research with their thoughts and ideas. I dedicate this book to the memory of Marina Fasser: I will always miss your energy, irony and curiosity.

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Introduction Noi siamo i giovani: youth in Italian popular media

Ma che cosa c’è / Balla insieme a me E vedrai che poi / Ti passerà. Noi siamo i giovani / I giovani più giovani Siamo l’esercito / L’esercito del Surf.1 ‘L’esercito del Surf’ (Mogol & Pataccini, 1964) In 1964, Belgian actress and singer Catherine Spaak hit the Italian charts with the song ‘L’esercito del Surf’ (Army of Surf). In the song, Spaak directly invites the listener to join a group of people dancing. That group of people is referred to as i giovani, the Italian term for ‘young people’. The song defines i giovani through a leisure activity – dancing – and by referring to the ‘surf’ music genre, which originated in southern California and was most famously represented by the Beach Boys. ‘L’esercito del Surf’ was written by an Italian lyricist and an Italian composer; however, the fact that reference is made to a foreign musical genre and that the song is performed by a foreign singer with a strong French accent arguably suggests to the listener that the community of i giovani has no specific national belonging. It also seems that in this group there are no gender differences: the fact that Catherine Spaak, a female singer, is singing about i giovani, which in Italian is a masculine and collective noun, means that women are also part of the community of i giovani. Clearly, i giovani più giovani described in this song are a homogeneous group of people, defined through leisure activities, in which national and gender differences are not visible. What is more, the song seems to invite young people to join a community of peers identified by the first-person plural pronoun noi (we), as the point of view is not that of an external viewer but comes directly from within the group. In other words, the song’s lyrics do not discuss young people; rather, they are directed at young people. This form of address is symptomatic of a broader trend in Italian culture: from the end of the 1950s, popular media forms aimed at an audience of young people proliferated in Italy. Young people were addressed in songs, magazines, television and radio

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programmes and films. In these popular media, young people seemed to be the active agents of their own representation; yet, these media were ultimately controlled by publishing, music, television and cinema industries led by adults. The use of the pronoun noi in Italian popular culture functioned to socially construct youth: by directly addressing young people, popular media contributed to the construction of a collective identity, which had commercial, community building and ideological functions. This monograph analyses representations of Italian youth in popular media aimed at young audiences – specifically magazines, television programmes and Musicarelli2 films – during the period 1958–75. I giovani are the subject of this study: I use this Italian term to denote popular media’s representation of young people, and to distinguish it from the actual youth, for which I use the English term ‘young people’. From the late 1950s, popular media played a significant role in the social construction of i giovani as a ‘performative’ identity (Butler, 1999, 2011) which was not defined by age, but rather by the reiteration of specific practices. In particular, this book concentrates on visual and written representations of young people’s style trends and bodily practices, focusing on their clothing, hairstyles, dances and the spaces occupied by their bodies. These elements are particularly relevant in my discussion for three different reasons. First, youth fashion was one of the main categories of goods created for young people’s consumption, and at the same time, it was one of the vehicles through which young people were able to express political and social claims. Second, the subcultural styles adopted by Italian young people, and those appropriated by the fashion industry, were often inspired by global trends coming from other Western countries. Third, style and bodily practices were used by young people to define their gender identity, and were therefore often the main site of struggle between the emancipation from, and the reaffirmation of, stereotypical gender roles, at a time when ideas of masculinity and femininity were being questioned both by emancipatory movements and by consumer culture. These three themes will be the focus of my chronological analysis. The period under consideration starts in 1958, when media forms aimed at an audience of young people began to emerge, and continues through to 1975, when youth-oriented media for young people became diversified. Through an emphasis on popular culture, I interrogate the widely held view that popular media largely produced normative representations of young people. This monograph shows that popular culture is a site of negotiation between normative and subversive discourses, between the perpetuation of stereotypes and the circulation of emancipatory discourses. In short, by looking at images and descriptions of i giovani’s bodies and style in popular culture, I engage with the ambiguous media construction of young people’s generational, national and gender identity, and situate it in the context

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of 1960s and 1970s Italian social and cultural history. This introductory chapter contextualises my study, setting it against previous studies on the emergence of youth as a social subject in Italian society. Then, it outlines the theoretical and methodological framework that I apply to the subject, themes and sources utilised in this research.

Context: youth in Italian society Youth is a social construction that has been naturalised over time, whose definition and relevance have been analysed by sociologists (Mannheim, 1928), historians (Mitterauer, 1993; Sorcinelli & Varni, 2004), cultural theorists (Hall & Jefferson, 1975; Hebdige, 2002; Hebdige, 1988) and journalists (Savage, 2007). Most historians have argued that, in the Western world, the emergence of youth as a separate social subject can be traced to the nineteenth century (Mitterauer, 1993; De Bernardi, 2004). However, it was in the twentieth century that generational kinship started to prevail over other patterns of social interaction for young people. Indeed, in nineteenthcentury European societies, young people did not share the same formative experiences, as their regional, class and gendered forms of belonging were more significant to their development than their generational identity (Mitterauer, 1993: 235–40). Young people’s values and attitudes were also much more influenced by the family context, since young people had fewer opportunities to meet up and share common experiences with their peers. Furthermore, during the twentieth century, ‘youth’ has come to define a cohort of persons sharing not only the same age range, but also an attitude of rebellion against the established social order (Marchi, 2014: 23). This representation was not negative in itself: for example, the unruliness of youth was celebrated as part of the belligerent ideal of Fascism. The perception of youth as disobedient was often limited to specific groups of young people, especially those with a working-class background. During the post-war period, youth started to be increasingly perceived as a homogeneous group. Three processes contributed to creating this perception: the growing equality among young people from different backgrounds thanks to compulsory education, the creation of a youth market and the improvement of mass communication. These processes occurred in Italian society in the late 1950s to early 1960s, during the Miracolo economico italiano (Crainz, 1996) (Italian economic boom). Schooling had the effect of creating a standardised lifestyle for young people and removing them from the family context on a daily basis (Mitterauer, 1993: 237–8). In Italy, secondary compulsory education until the age of fourteen was introduced by law in 1962: as a consequence, the number of school

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students had nearly doubled by the end of the 1960s (Ginsborg, 1990: 298). Not only did young people meet in schools, but they also started to gather in their free time. Michael Mitterauer claims that in the post-war period the ‘informal gathering of friends’ became ‘the most important form of adolescent community’ (1993: 225). Young people also started to use style as a form of identification, to express social and political affiliations and ideals, and to differentiate themselves from other generational groups (Mitterauer, 1993: 227). Fashion trends were not only emerging from within the community of young peers: in the late 1950s, young people became a potential category of commercial consumers (Gorgolini, 2004: 214). The market took advantage of this newly created and relatively wealthy section of society by manufacturing goods specifically for youth. The products designed for young people’s consumption included mopeds and cars, which allowed for travel; fashion and accessories to visually distinguish young people from adults; and popular music, which was central in defining young people’s leisure activities. The commercial designation of products specifically designed for young people contributed to the homogenisation of both young people’s tastes and their everyday and free-time activities. The perception of youth as a homogeneous group was also facilitated by the expanding interaction between young people, both in person – through increased local, national and international travel – and indirectly, through the mass media (Mitterauer, 1993: 238). Indeed, the emergence, post-war, of young people as a social category coincided with the spread of popular media in Italy, especially television (Crainz, 1996: 142–6). Mass media played a significant role in circulating information among young people of different nationalities and social classes, particularly those who could not afford to travel overseas or within Europe. It also helped to spread fashions and trends all over the globe. Italian popular media represented the features of the newly formed youth culture through images, songs and language (Gorgolini, 2004: 219). By doing so, they contributed to making youth more intelligible to both adults and young people themselves, by characterising them with specific styles, practices and behaviours. From the late 1950s, young people also became a discursive object in the media (Colombo, 1993: 65). In particular, the concept of ‘youth’ encapsulated all the anxieties connected to the rise of consumerist society and to the increasing social and sexual emancipation of the young population. The print media tended to promulgate an image of irresponsible youth to adults: in particular, from 1958 to 1963 newspapers insisted on the emergence of teppismo (minor youth delinquency) in the major cities of northern Italy. These petty crimes ‘without a cause’ committed by a minority of Italian young people were represented as a large-scale

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phenomenon that could lead to social disturbance (Piccone Stella, 1993). Consumerism, too, was seen as a danger for the young generations. Democrazia Cristiana (Christian Democracy), the conservative party in power, and the Catholic Church argued that it could corrode traditional Italian values. The left-wing intelligentsia also critiqued mass consumerism for being the main instrument for the Americanisation of Italian society (Gundle, 2000: 80–2). From the late 1950s, in Italy, young people were therefore perceived to be a problem, which, more generally, reflected the society’s overall anxiety about modernisation. The connection between youth and delinquency diminished after 1962, when popular media increasingly tended to offer a reassuring image of Italian youth to the adult audience in order to reduce social tension (Piccone Stella, 1994: 158). This was mostly carried out by building a connection between youth and entertainment, emphasising the leisurely aspects of youth and promoting young people’s consumption. Accounts of the media’s construction of Italian youth from the mid1960s to the early 1970s tend to draw a neat demarcation between the ‘commercial’ youth of the years 1965–67 and the ‘political’ youth of 1968 and the following years, for which ‘capelloni, musica beat, vestiti sgargianti, gonne corte, Beatles e Rolling Stones, sono una cosa, il ‘68 un’altra’ (Ghione & Grispigni, 1998: 9).3 One example of this approach is Diego Giachetti’s book on the 1968 Italian student unrest, in which he describes the generation prior to 1968 as a ‘generazione leggera’ (2008: 21),4 defined by music, fashion and consumerism, while, according to the author, in 1968 young people stopped defining themselves through fashion (2008: 27). Similarly, Fausto Colombo refers uniquely to leisure activities when describing the generation that was young in 1953–64, setting it apart from the ‘political’ youth of 1968: indeed, young people belonging to the 1953–64 generation are defined in the title of his book as ‘those who did not participate in 1968’ (2008). In contrast to this strict division, Ghione and Grispigni’s collection of essays Giovani prima della rivolta (Youth Before the Unrest) concentrates on 1965–67 to demonstrate that, even before 1968, Italian youth were far from apolitical (1993). The collection suggests that the first half of the 1960s can be seen as a sort of preparatory period, as the origins of the 1968 season of unrest are rooted in the final years leading up to it. Conversely, the ‘commercial’ side of youth in the period from 1968 to 1975 has rarely been taken as a subject of inquiry and analysis. In many accounts of this period, the Italian student movement is implicitly taken to stand for the experiences of Italian young people as a whole. Scholars often consider the political role of youth in the Western world and in Italy as predominant, to the point where, for some of them, young people were all, to a certain extent, ‘political’. For instance, Grispigni describes the generation of

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young people from 1968 to 1975 as a ‘generazione politica’,5 in which most young people were united by political ideologies (1993: 46). The alleged division between the disengaged generation of the period 1965–67 and the political generation of the period 1968–70 is caused by the evident centrality of representations of the Sessantotto (1968) in Italian history, journalism and cultural analysis. It is quite common to associate the idea of young people uniquely with those young students and workers who, from 1966 to 1969, started to organise demonstrations and university occupations to demand better education, the social emancipation of the working classes, better working conditions and a more integrated society in general. Moreover, many historians consider the Sessantottini (young people participating in the 1968 protests) to be the main ‘subjects of history’ in the 1960s, and thus the only young people who deserve academic consideration (Parisella, 1998: 20). The year 1968 was indeed fundamental in the history of young people and Italian society as a whole, and its history and that of the many political movements that emerged in Italian society during the 1960s and the 1970s have been exhaustively analysed.6 However, it seems evident that the history of 1960s Italy is far too ‘’68-centric’, and does not take into consideration other, more commercial aspects of the emerging Italian youth cultures. In this regard, John Foot maintains that the history of the 1960s is mainly a ‘self-referential’ history (2011: 115), written by the Sessantottini themselves, which tends to ignore other histories that were arguably less politically relevant but nevertheless significant from the point of view of social and generational changes in Italian society. In order to investigate these other histories, and to get beyond the widespread contrastive construction of Italian youth scrutinised above, this monograph focuses on the analysis of popular media representations of young people. Indeed, in popular culture there is no clear-cut division between ‘commercial’ and ‘political’ youth: emancipatory claims were often used to appeal to an audience of young people, and they impacted the definition and advertisement of commercial fashion and music trends imported from other Western countries.

Subject: i giovani Fashioning Italian youth distinguishes between representations of Italian youth in popular culture and those young people at whom this construction was directed through the use of two terms: i giovani and the adjective giovane; and young people, respectively. In this work, i giovani are a media construction ‘interpellating’ Italian young people (Althusser, 1971: 127– 86). Althusser notably introduced the term ‘interpellation’ to indicate how

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ideological state apparatuses such as educational, religious and family institutions contribute to creating ideological subjects by turning ideology into ‘a lived, material practice – rituals, customs, patterns of behaviour, ways of thinking taking practical form’ (Storey, 2009: 78). Similarly, popular media can be considered ideological state apparatuses, given that they function to ‘ceaselessly … perform the critical ideological work of “classifying out the world” within the discourses of dominant ideologies’ (Hall, 1977: 346). From 1958, Italian popular media started to interpellate young people as their audience, by constantly naming them ragazzi (guys), or giovani. At the same time, they were contributing to the construction of this ideological category, by defining what was considered giovane and what was not. The way in which i giovani were represented in popular media can therefore shed light on the roles and behaviours that Italian society envisaged for young people in the 1960s and the 1970s. In the process of socially constructing i giovani, popular media reproduced dominant discourses that were circulating in Italian society during that time. Discourse denotes here ‘a system of representation’ (Hall, 1997: 44), which includes all the ideas, practices, acts and language connected to i giovani that circulated in the media.7 Michel Foucault maintains that discourse can either stabilise or undermine relations of power within society, where power is a ‘process which … transforms, strengthens or reverses [force relations]’ (1978: 92). The idea of power as a process suggests that it is constantly produced from ‘innumerable points’ (1978: 93), and therefore is inherently ambiguous. Indeed, media representations of young people were not solely controlled by commercial, social and political hegemonies, nor had the work performed by journalists, directors, screenwriters and actors a deliberate normative aim. I giovani were constructed through a contradictory combination of normative and subversive discourses, in which hegemonic power was exercised and resisted at the same time. In fact, popular culture is a site of struggle ‘between the “resistance” of subordinate groups and the forces of “incorporation” operating in the interests of dominant groups. Popular culture … is … a terrain of exchange and negotiation between the two’ (Storey, 2009: 10). In this monograph, i giovani are also considered a ‘collective identity’, homogenised in popular culture through the construction of ‘symbolic codes of distinction’ and elements of demarcation between an ‘outside’ and an ‘inside’ of the community itself (Eisenstadt & Giesen, 1995: 74–6). Stephen Gundle has highlighted that 1960s youth was ‘the first generation in Italian history to be broadly homogenous in terms of language, tastes, and cultural reference points’ (2000: 108). Considering the geographical, social and gender differentiations that permeated Italian society, it may seem unexpected that young people were so consistent in their cultural tastes. I am

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arguing that the media construction of i giovani played a fundamental role in homogenising Italian young people. As Stuart Hall has noted, as social groups and classes live … increasingly fragmented and sectionally differentiated lives, the mass media are more and more responsible … for providing the images, representations and ideas around which the social totality composed of all these separate and fragmented pieces can be coherently grasped. (1977: 340–1)

To analyse how the media shaped ideas around young people, I took inspiration from works on the social construction of national communities, and in particular Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities (2006). Representations of young people can be seen as echoing several of the aspects examined by Anderson: first, just like nationalism, age is a socio-cultural construction that has become naturalised over time, therefore a person is young as well as of a certain gender, nationality and ethnicity (Anderson, 2006: 5–7). Second, similar to the community of nationals, the community of young people can be considered ‘imagined’ because its coherence is not created by direct communication between its members, but rather by institutions – such as the popular media – which tend to ideologically delineate those features with which individuals could identify as a group. For example, since 1958 popular media have often represented i giovani visually as a crowd of indistinguishable people, a ‘unisonant’ group singing, listening to music from a juke-box, dancing together in clubs and adopting the same style. The notion of ‘unisonance’ is used by Anderson to explain how, for example, singing the national anthem together helps to create a bond between people and thus a national imagined community. Practices enacted together, such as singing and dancing, make individuals ‘feel selfless’ (Anderson, 2006: 145), thus encouraging the sense of belonging to a group such as i giovani. Another significant aspect that connects the ‘imagined community’ of young people with that of nationals and other collective identities is its limitedness; its cohesiveness is reinforced through its opposition to ‘other’ groups (Anderson, 2006: 7). Discourses pertaining to i giovani in popular media tended to define through contrast to other groups, first and foremost other generational groups like children and adults, often by paradoxically insisting more on what i giovani ‘were not’ than on what they actually ‘were’. However, this distinction was a fluid one. Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt and Bernhard Giesen note that although any chance of crossing the boundary between inside and outside [of a collective identity] would obviously blur the distinction and weaken the control over the members of the collectivity … sometimes a limited crossing of

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the boundary is necessary – whether to oust members from the community in order to avoid internal crisis, or to adopt new members from outside. (1995: 78)

Likewise, although i giovani were constructed in opposition to other groups, this opposition changed over time: the ‘Other’ could be the adults, other groups of young people or young people from other countries. This book examines to what extent these fluctuations in representation were influenced by Italy’s social and political situation, as well as by the different preoccupations that Italian society projected onto the construction of i giovani. When analysing media representations of i giovani, this volume also aims to identify evidence of the fictionality of this homogeneous construction. The construction of i giovani in Italian popular media may recall that of the French copains in the 1960s which, according to Jonathyne Briggs, provided a homogeneous and fictional image of French young people, which erased social, geographical and gender differences: ‘despite the seeming availability of social movement symbolized by the copains, the reality was that divisions still existed within France, between urban and rural experiences, between Paris and the provinces, between men and women. Despite the rhetoric of inclusion, copains varied widely in their lives’ (2015: 25). A similar ‘rhetoric of inclusion’ is evident in media representations of Italian young people. For example, i giovani were represented as using a common language without regional accents, but which incorporated foreign jargon, and as wearing unisex fashion, which seemingly concealed gender differences. From the early 1970s, Italian popular media representations started to emphasise differences within the community of i giovani. Chapter 4 of this monograph examines the potential causes of the fragmentation of i giovani’s homogeneous construction by looking at the social and cultural factors that could have influenced this shift in media representations of young people. In order to examine the practices through which young people were represented in popular media, I consider i giovani as a performative identity, drawing on Judith Butler’s analysis of the social construction of gender identities (1999, 2011). Similar to gender identities, which are produced through the constant reiteration of specific practices – such as ‘acts, gestures, enactments’ (Butler, 1999: 173) – i giovani were constructed in popular media by the reiteration of a specific language, style, music and dances that defined and at the same time constituted them. In being performative, the giovane identity was also fluid and accessible: one could ‘become’ giovane by adopting those practices that were said to ‘be’ giovani – for example, specific style trends. As a consequence, when someone abandoned those practices, they ‘grew up’. I put this term in quotes because even the process of growing up can be considered performative – as specific rites of passage that are often

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gendered, like pregnancy and marriage, define the moment at which a giovane becomes an adult, regardless of age. Furthermore, by asserting that the giovane identity is performative, I am implying that it is subject to change. Butler underlines how what the person ‘is’ … is always relative to the constructed relations in which it is determined. As a shifting and contextual phenomenon, gender does not denote a substantive being, but a relative point of convergence among culturally and historically specific sets of relations. (Butler, 1999: 15)

Similarly, the construction of the giovane identity was influenced by historical events, social relations and cultural practices. As these changed, so did representations of young people. The titles of this book’s chapters – urlatori and amici, beats and hippies – are terms that were used to describe giovani trends in different time periods, which suggest a different characterisation of the giovane identity over time. This monograph aims to analyse how these trends were discussed in popular culture, in order to provide a cultural history of the emergence of youth as a social subject in Italian society.

Themes: style, transnationalism, gender The outcomes of my research can be grouped under three main themes: the media construction of i giovani through style, bodily practices and representations of giovani stars; the transnational inspiration of the giovane style; and the representation of giovani masculinities and femininities as they appear in descriptions of young people’s and stars’ style. These three themes feature in each subsequent chapter; however, there is not a clear-cut division between these areas, as they often overlap in the popular media construction of i giovani. Broadly speaking, in each chapter the first section outlines the elements of style and bodily practices which defined the giovane identity in popular culture in that specific period. The second section of each chapter concentrates on those aspects concerning i giovani as a transnational identity by analysing the influence of national, racial and ethnic ‘Others’ in the media construction of Italian giovani. The third section deals with the role of style and bodily practices in defining giovani masculinities and femininities, and in either reinforcing or challenging the traditional power structure between genders.8

Style The word ‘style’ is used in this monograph to express every aspect connected to practices of bodily adornment and grooming through which i

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giovani became visible in popular media, both as a form of identification with peers and as a vehicle to signify opposition to adults. My approach to the examination of style is inspired by Roland Barthes’s semiological analysis of ‘fashion through the written word’ (2010: x). In The Fashion System, Barthes maintains that fashion is created when a piece of clothing becomes language, and therefore when it is given a meaning. Not only does language give a signification to the actual garment (by which, for example, a dress becomes an evening garment, or a skirt becomes a female prerogative), but it also carries hegemonic values that are naturalised through fashion. Barthes’s methodology will be used to understand how, by representing and describing mass-produced trends, popular media either exposed or masked the political and/or subversive meaning of specific style trends. The fashion and style trends promoted and represented in Italian youthoriented popular media were often the result of commercial incorporation of subversive fashion elements. Dick Hebdige has investigated how young people, and especially youth subcultures like the British punks, tend to make a subversive use of fashion and hairstyles, which function as forms of resistance to hegemonic culture (2002). According to Hebdige, subcultural styles tend to be appropriated and domesticated by the media, and consequently may lose their subversive power. Subcultural signs can be converted into mainstream objects, so that original innovations are codified and used for commercial and normative purposes. This appropriation works through the mass production of objects, which turns the subversive wearing into a commercial trend. Moreover, deviant behaviours are labelled and then re-defined by dominant groups, who create a domesticated version of subcultural styles. An article on a ‘punk marriage’ with pictures, for example, can recuperate a subversive style through references to a ritual which is understandable to the reader (Hebdige, 2002: 94). One of the aims of this book is therefore to take into consideration the ways in which subcultural styles were labelled, resignified and converted for the Italian audience in popular culture. By displaying images of i giovani dancing and interacting with young people and adults, popular media also offer a privileged point of view from which to analyse bodily representations of young people’s social, romantic and sexual relationships. Foucault has demonstrated that the body can be examined as a site of struggle, where discursive and institutional forces create, exercise and resist power, for example by promoting acceptable bodily practices and discouraging deviations from these norms (1995, 1978). The analysis of music performances and dances, for instance, contributes to showing the acceptance of, but also the resistance to, ongoing changes in young people’s social and sexual behaviours. Moreover, the physical space reserved for young people and their practices in television programmes and

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films reveals the extent to which young people were able to express their subjectivity in public spaces. Through observing these differences in bodily practices between Italian and foreign young people, we can also identify media representations of ‘Otherness’, not only in terms of ethnicity, but also nationality, as often these representations seek to reaffirm an ideal of superior Italian-ness, reminiscent of Fascist ideals. Finally, the analysis of representations of young people’s bodies in popular media is particularly telling with regard to the definition of i giovani’s gender identities. Not only did bodies express a change in the way gender identities were conceived of by young people, but they also portrayed the permanence of discriminatory discourses in Italian society. For example, my analysis of the representation of young women’s bodies explores the extent to which the body was a site of sexual emancipation and/or a source of objectification. The giovane style was not only defined in magazines through articles or fashion spreads; it was also showcased by giovani stars appearing in films, magazines and television shows. During the 1960s, many young music stars came to be characterised by being, performing and behaving as i giovani. The celebrity status of giovani stars was not limited to their success in the music industry: they were also television hosts and cinema actors, meaning that their celebrity status was reinforced and reproduced by all youth-oriented media. Just like other giovani, giovani stars were not necessarily defined by their young age, but by the practices they performed in popular media. These singers’ specificities echo Hall and Whannel’s 1964 description of the British pop singer: He is usually a teenager, springing from the familiar adolescent world, and sharing a whole set of common feelings with his audience. But once he is successful, he is transformed into a commercial entertainer by the pop-music business. Yet in style, presentation and the material he performs, he must maintain involvement with the teenage world, or he will lose his popularity. The record companies see him as a means of marketing their products – he is a living, animated, commercial image. The audience … will also regard the pop singer as a kind of model, an idealized image of success, a glamorized version of themselves. (1964: 276)

Like the ‘pop singer’, Italian giovani stars were characterised by their humble origins, and by their friendly attitude towards their peers, despite their fame. Unlike other music and cinema stars, then, giovani stars were not ‘“divi”, icone lontane e inavvicinabili, ma compagni di viaggio, espressione del nuovo e agenti di mediazione nel passaggio dal passato al futuro’ (Piredda, 2013: 268).9 If one of the most important features of a movie star is to incorporate elements of both ordinariness and extraordinariness within their persona (Morin, 1961), then the giovane star was presented as mostly

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ordinary, because part of their construction functioned to reinforce the idea of i giovani as a community of homogeneous individuals. Nonetheless, giovani stars were extraordinary, in that, just like other celebrities, they functioned as role models for their audiences: they promoted the identification, or, as Edgar Morin defines it, the ‘mimetism’ of the audience with them (1961: 166). Their style, for example, was widely imitated by their young audiences. Some singers started to be identified by style features, which became their trademark and inspired their nicknames: for instance, singer Caterina Caselli’s hairstyle, invented by the Vergottini hairdressers in Rome, inspired her nickname, Casco d’oro (Golden Helmet), and was immediately replicated by many of Caselli’s female fans (RAI Television, n.d.). In this study, particular attention will be given to the strategies through which giovani stars presented and promoted the giovane style: through their own style, which was clearly different from that of adult film and television stars, giovani stars seemed to declare their difference from adults and from their social rules. The style used by giovani stars can be defined as a ‘panoply’, an armour of adolescence, or ‘a wardrobe in which is expressed a whole attitude towards society: … so many ostensible signs (having the value of political badges) of a resistance against the social conventions of a world of adults’ (Morin, 1961: 124–5). Giovani stars’ distinct and often provocative style was frequently publicly advertised by popular singers. Given their power over their audience, stars can be considered living advertisements for commercial products: ‘[the star] invites us to use her cigarettes, her favourite dentifrice, i.e., to identify ourselves with her … The consumer appropriates, consumes, and assimilates into his own personality a little of the star’s body and soul’ (Morin, 1961: 169). The mass production of low-cost garments and accessories facilitated this process: stars ‘may spend more than the average person, but nonetheless they can be, on a smaller scale, imitated. Their fashions are to be copied, their fads followed, their sports pursued, their hobbies taken up’ (Dyer, 2004: 39). Besides advertising commercial products, young singers also influenced standards of beauty and attractiveness, behaviours and lifestyles, gender roles and values. Richard Dyer notes that ‘the star phenomenon reproduces the overriding ideology of the person in contemporary society’ (2004: 12): in other words, the star is an ideological construct. Giovani stars’ performance of their giovane identity on-screen influenced the way in which young people imagined, and experienced, themselves and their generational identity. Stars also represent ways of ‘making sense of the body’ (2004: 12): through their style, their interactions with other people, and their performances, they naturalise ideas about gender, sexuality and race, by reproducing acceptable behaviours and values.

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The ideological influence of giovani singers did not just come from their media performances; it also included their ‘private’ lives, or the magazines’ narration of their private lives. Dyer points out that A film star’s image is not just his or her films, but the promotion of those films and of the star through pin-ups, public appearances … as well as interviews, biographies and coverage in the press of the stars’ doings and ‘private’ life. Further, a star’s image is also what people say or write about him or her, as critics or commentators, the way the image is used in other contexts such as advertisements. (2004: 2–3)

The multi-layered construction of a star persona, which is made up of different levels of ‘intimacy’, allows for contradictory representations: it is by playing with an on-stage and off-stage persona, a ‘true’ versus ‘artificial’ self, that a star can embody multiple meanings at one time. This study examines these ambiguities to explain how giovani stars were constructed in popular culture as simultaneously subversive and normative, and therefore both appealing to a young audience and acceptable to the adult audience.

Transnationalism In Italian popular culture, representations of i giovani often referenced other Western youth cultures. Most of the trends that started to emerge in Italy during the 1960s were presented as being inspired by foreign subcultures, such as the Carnaby Street-style beats and the California hippies. Furthermore, the practices that defined i giovani, such as the music young people listened to, the fashion they adopted, and the stars that they imitated and idolised, were frequently imported from abroad. Even the language used to describe the giovane style drew on foreign languages, especially English: Franco Minganti points out that the ‘cultural deparochialization’ of Italian society embodied by youth in popular media was symbolised by the use of forestierismi (foreign-imported vocabulary) and distinctive jargon (1999: 150). Foreign inspiration within Italian popular culture was not new, nor was it limited to young people. For example, the influence of Western countries – and especially the United States – on Italian popular culture was already visible during the inter-war period, when Hollywood films started to be imported into Europe, including Italy (Gundle, 1996; Forgacs, 1993). However, during the 1960s and 1970s the models which young people aspired to were not only provided by the Hollywood movie industry, but also by those politically and socially engaged youth countercultures such as the beats and the hippies that, by adopting a distinctive style and fostering social and political unrest, were starting to be represented in media

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across the world (Portelli, 1998: 35). Popular media circulated news about Western countries and made foreign trends available to social and geographical strata as diverse as the urban middle class, the southern young people who were migrating to industrialised northern cities, and those who were still living in the rural south. Journalists, singers, presenters and actors featuring youth-oriented popular media acted as invisible cultural translators of foreign trends for the Italian audience, influencing the audience’s reception and contributing to the media construction of foreign young people and Italian giovani. Moreover, popular media accounts domesticated the foreign ‘Other’ by either ‘mirroring’ or ‘othering’ trends, attitudes, practices and language (Venuti, 2008).10 In other words, they facilitated Italian young people’s appropriation of trends and behaviours that were traditionally attributed to foreign youth, whilst simultaneously highlighting the ‘Otherness’ of those aspects that were not compatible with the definition of respectable Italian giovani. David Forgacs claims that in order to analyse foreign influences in Italian culture, it is essential to take into consideration not only the reality of the relationship between countries, but also the ways in which ‘other’ countries are imagined and represented (1993: 162). Indeed, popular media representations of foreign youth in the 1960s were often based on stereotypes. At times, the foreign ideal was positive, as popular media accounts described foreign young people’s modernity and freedom as an antidote to Italian society’s provincialism. Yet negative stereotypes, such as northern European young women being promiscuous, or American hippies being drug addicts, were used to affirm the moral superiority of Italian young people. Popular media’s reference to foreign trends in the giovane style was used as a way of transferring anxieties to ‘other’ countries and ‘other’ subjects, and the distinction often made in popular media between Italian and foreign young people tended to uphold a normative Italian giovane identity that was respectable. Respectability is meant here as a bourgeois set of ‘“decent and correct” manners and morals’ (Mosse, 1985: 1), especially in regard to sexuality. Being respectable giovani in Italian society meant limiting extravagance to clothing, dance and speech, and not being sexually active, using drugs or being politically active. Moreover, Forgacs suggests that one should ‘distinguish between Americanisation and an Italian modernisation process; between American models in themselves and the reinvention and reworking of those models in Italy’ (1993: 165). Similarly, the reception of foreign influences in post-war Italy was an active process of appropriation. In reference to the popularity of Italian covers of English-language songs, Minganti points out that the process of appropriation of foreign trends often reveals more about those who imitate, and about the selection processes put in place during the

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appropriation, than about the actual foreign cultures (1999: 149). Indeed, often ‘the naming of things as American was a way of attributing to and displacing onto an external agent changes which from another point of view one could see as endogenous, generated from within Italian society’ (Forgacs, 1993: 159). I giovani’s fashion and language were imbued with references to a foreign ‘Other’, where often the actual foreign influences got lost in translation. Foreign appropriation, then, was not just a normative tool and an act of cultural imperialism; it was also a means of emancipation for Italian youth. In this monograph, then, particular attention will be given to how foreign influences helped to create a distinctive Italian popular youth culture.

Gender During the 1960s and 1970s, the modernisation of familial and social relationships and the impact of feminist and gay liberation movements on civil society brought about changes in traditional gender roles and in the power dynamics between genders (Passerini, 1996: 144). This process culminated in the 1970s with the emergence of the Italian feminist movements and their impact on the debate surrounding a series of laws passed by the Italian government in the subsequent period. These laws granted more freedom for women both in their social role – as is the case with the divorce referendum of 1974 and the reform of family rights of 1975 – and in issues concerning their own bodies – like the 1978 law for the decriminalisation of abortion, confirmed with a referendum in 1981.11 For young people, this context was beneficial to the demands for appropriate sexual education and unrestricted access to contraceptive methods.12 From the early 1960s, youth became the canvas onto which tensions arising from changes in gender identities and sexual emancipation were projected in Italian popular culture. Magazines published letters and reported on demonstrations of young people asking for sexual education, while magazines, television programmes and films displayed the ongoing changes in masculinities and femininities, especially in regard to style. The watchword used to describe the giovane style in the 1960s and the early 1970s was ‘unisex’. Jo Paoletti points out how the term ‘unisex’ came to define different trends which did not necessarily imply a gender neutralisation: Unisex includes many different ways of challenging gender rules. Some styles are best described as ‘androgynous’, or combining elements of masculine and feminine styling … The opposite approach to androgynous design is a neutral style, devoid of masculine or feminine elements … The third approach to unisex dressing is best termed ‘cross-dressing’. (2015: 30)

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Similarly, from the 1960s the Italian giovane style tended to challenge the traditional boundaries between masculine and feminine appearance in different ways. For instance, giovani men adopted long hairstyles, while giovani women wore trousers, cut their hair short and wore the miniskirt, a style choice that threatened their sexual respectability. By adopting a style that challenged traditional notions of gender, i giovani were disrupting that ‘metaphysical unity’ of sex, gender and desire that Judith Butler identifies as the basis of the social construction of ‘women’ and ‘men’ (1999: 30). According to Butler, it is through the fictional unity between sex, gender and heterosexual desire that the binary of gender roles becomes naturalised. The unisex style was seen as a threat on two main levels: first, the perceived ‘effeminisation’ of men and the ‘masculinisation’ of women increased anxieties about homosexuality. Second, the growing sexual emancipation of young women, which was often connected to the adoption of garments which showed increasing portions of women’s skin, was seen both to pose a problem for young women’s sexual respectability and to question the power structure between the sexes. However, unisex fashion was not used to the same extent by men as by women: ‘the rules of masculinity rarely permit cross-dressing, and even in that defiant time doing so was limited to details, not entire outfits. Women, on the other hand, could not only wear “man-tailored” clothing and “boyfriend sweaters” but could also wear actual men’s clothing’ (Paoletti, 2015: 30). Likewise, the media representation of Italian young people was far from being ‘unisex’, as it was based on a differentiation between ‘male’ and ‘female’ practices and expectations. Many works on youth cultures in the 1960s emphasise how the label ‘young’ often implicitly referred to a predominantly male experience. Susan Weiner underlines how ‘youth’ in France was primarily constructed as male and masculine, while the construction of young femininities was additionally influenced by social expectations, as for young women ‘there [wa]s no viable position outside the codes that determine[d] the “good girl”, that one c[ould not] escape heterosexuality, the family, and marriage’ (2001: 17). In France, young women were represented in literature and film as ahistorical and apolitical, which differed from the characterisation of their male peers as having political views and participating in the political history of 1968 in France.13 The same can be said of Italian young people: for example, in historical accounts of Italian student and worker movements, women are rather invisible, despite their actual participation in organising and carrying out protests even before the emergence of Italian feminist movements (Foot, 2011: 126). Interestingly, however, young women were extensively present in youthoriented popular media. In particular, giovani female stars were featured in

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magazines, films and television programmes. Looking at popular culture, then, can aid in the investigation of the construction of giovani femininities and in understanding to what extent popular media contained or promoted images of ‘masculinised’ and sexually active young women. Angela McRobbie has shown that consumerist culture can become a vehicle to resist traditional norms and to fight ‘the monolithic heterosexual norms which surround [young women] and find expression in the ideology of romantic love’ (1991: 26–7). Through popular media, Italian young women started to become familiar with representations of femininities that challenged traditional standards of female beauty and respectability, such as those embodied by Rita Pavone, Caterina Caselli and Patty Pravo. At the same time, however, strategies were used in popular media to contain the subversive potential of these representations, and to reaffirm the naturalised image of the ‘good girl’. The idea of giovani men as merely ‘political’ during the 1960s and 1970s is also limiting, as it ignores two ongoing processes that were generating a ‘crisis’ in traditional masculinities: young men’s appropriation of styles that were traditionally considered feminine, and the new role of men as consumers. The appropriation of stereotypically female features in male giovane fashion represented a significant change in the modern history of men’s style, after its bourgeois standardisation during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Castellani, 2010: 4–6). The wearing of these styles was often interpreted as a sign of effeminacy, and therefore of homosexuality, as ‘in the mid-twentieth century effeminacy and queerness became virtually synonymous’ (Sinfield, 1994: VII). Robyn R. Warhol points out how effeminacy is a behaviour that has been used to discriminate against both women and homosexuals: effeminacy … denotes both ‘qualities more often associated with women than men’ and ‘weakness and excessive refinement’ … Men whose gender performance includes details coded as feminine … are called ‘effeminate’ … Implicit in the label of ‘effeminacy’ is the sexual position ‘more often associated with women than men’, the sexual role of the one who is penetrated – hence the widespread association in Western culture … of ‘effeminacy’ with male homosexuality. (2003: 9–10)

In other words, the alleged connection between effeminacy and homosexuality exposes the social subordination of women and non-hegemonic masculinities, and ensures ‘the continuation of power structures based on the maintenance of clearly demarcated male and female social roles’ (Kimmel & Aronson, 2004: 247). The adoption of features traditionally associated with female attractiveness such as long hair and floral and colourful patterns in the giovane style thus created social anxieties about the potential

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homosexuality of i giovani and, consequently, troubled the power structure between genders. Similarly, the emergence of mass culture and the crisis of the rural patriarchal world in the post-war period created a crisis in the conceptualisation of Italian masculinities (Bellassai, 2011). Male consumption challenged the established division of labour between men, as wage earners, and women, as consumers on behalf of the household.14 This also concerned young people and their role as consumers of music and style. During the 1960s, media representations (including youth-oriented popular culture) and advertisements tended to connect the act of consumption to Italian men’s virility, and strategies were used to constantly reaffirm ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ (Rich, 1980) in order to dispel anxieties about male homosexuality.15 In this book, I aim to demonstrate how, behind the image of ‘unisex’ giovani during the 1960s, examples of alternative femininities and masculinities started to appear in Italian popular culture. However, these troubling gender identities were often presented in a way that perpetuated discrimination based on gender, sex and sexuality in Italian society.

Sources: youth-oriented popular culture In order to analyse media representations of Italian young people, Fashioning Italian youth concentrates on a specific typology of source, which has been only marginally taken into account in previous research: films, television programmes and magazines aimed at an audience of young people. Most of the previous research on 1960s Italian youth concentrated on media representations of young people aimed at an audience of adults. Despite their relevance in describing the increasing modernisation of Italian society and the construction of youth as a catalyst for anxieties about consumerism, these adult-oriented media mainly conceptualised youth as a problem to solve in relation to adults’ values and lifestyles. In other words, ‘the discussion among adults about the “teenage problem” tells us, ultimately, more about adult society than about young people themselves’ (Hall & Whannel, 1964: 271). Media aimed at an audience of adults tended to talk about youth using the third-person plural: as a consequence, young people were talked about as an ‘Other’ in relation to Italian society. Because of the different targeted audience, youth-oriented popular media proposed a version of ‘youth culture’ that was ‘a contradictory mixture of the authentic and the manufactured: it [wa]s an area of self-expression for the young and a lush grazing pasture for the commercial providers’ (Hall & Whannel, 1964: 276). These media seemed to align themselves with young

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people’s perspectives, supported young people’s claims and requests for emancipation and magnified differences between young people and adults. However, being commercial products, their primary function was to create standardised patterns of youth consumption. Exploring the original point of view and the liminal position of youth-oriented popular media can therefore problematise the strict division between ‘commercial’ and ‘political’ youth in the 1960s and 1970s, and show how these two aspects were both part of media representations of Italian young people. The focus of this analysis is representations of young people’s style and bodily practices; as a result, visual media such as television programmes and films have been privileged. Magazines have also been taken into consideration, as they offer not only images of i giovani, but also written descriptions of their style. Media forms such as songs have been analysed only peripherally: they have been considered only when their lyrics concerned young people’s bodies and style. Other media, despite their importance in the construction of Italian giovani, have not been examined. For example, although radio programmes such as Bandiera gialla (Yellow Flag) and Per voi giovani (To You, Young People) were fundamental in the media construction of Italian youth during the 1960s, they do not offer the visual support that this analysis necessitates. A trait d’union between all the media taken into consideration is their musical inspiration: television programmes were mainly musical programmes, the Musicarello film genre aimed to promote singers and their songs, and magazines mostly talked about singers and featured descriptions of their on- and off-stage lives (Della Casa & Manera, 2011: 11). All these media, then, portray the ‘physicality of music’ (Lury, 2001: 49): they show singers and young people performing, dancing and interacting with other young people or adults. However, it is important to introduce each of these three media forms, in order to evaluate their normative or subversive potential when it comes to representations of young people. To understand the context in which youth-oriented television programmes were broadcast, one must look at the political function of Italian national television (RAI) during the 1960s and the 1970s. The appointment of Ettore Bernabei, Amintore Fanfani’s16 ‘uomo di fiducia’ (Guazzaloca, 2011: 141),17 as general director of RAI from 1961 to 1975 strengthened political control over national television. The contents of RAI programmes were strictly supervised, in accordance with Catholic and conservative ideals of the political party in power, Democrazia Cristiana. As programmes were rigorously controlled, so were representations, including those of young people’s bodies and sexuality. According to Mauro Morbidelli, during the 1960s RAI did not have much influence over young people for a variety of reasons: while there were programmes for children, throughout the 1960s

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television did not have a substantial role in the creation of an autonomous youth culture, and through the years it increasingly became an expression of the adults’ cultural backwardness for young people (1998: 181). Morbidelli also points out that it was difficult for young people to watch television without adults present, and so RAI largely did not identify them as a segment of the population to target. Despite not being considered a potential audience, youth was represented in television: Morbidelli explains how in the early 1960s a ‘strategia aziendale’ (business strategy) was used in television programmes to provide a reassuring image of young people. La televisione mostra una gioventù disimpegnata e superficiale, limitandosi ad esaltarne gli aspetti ludici più tipici del giovanilismo che proprio in quegli anni conosceva una grande diffusione: le nuove mode canore, provenienti inizialmente dalla Francia, i balli importati dall’America che ogni anno si rinnovano, il successo degli urlatori e dei primi rockers, diventano così occasione per nuove trasmissioni e per un parziale ricambio di programmi e conduttori. (1998: 182–3)18

Morbidelli concludes by pointing out that this strategy was abandoned in the two-year period 1965–66, when, as a consequence of the emergence of Italian beats and capelloni,19 youth again started to be seen as a danger and to exclusively feature journalistic reportages (1998: 185). Although the idea of a ‘business strategy’ well explains Italian television’s approach to representing i giovani – youth-oriented television programmes were almost uniquely entertainment programmes, in which representations of sexuality and political activism were seemingly absent – Morbidelli is inaccurate in claiming that, from 1965 onwards, young people only appeared in journalistic accounts. It was actually starting in 1965 that entertainment television programmes aimed at an audience of young people were broadcast on Italian television. These programmes exclusively interpellated young people as their audience, and they were characterised by the presence of giovani stars and (usually) of a studio audience made up of young people who actively participated in the programme. Entertainment shows such as Stasera Rita (Falqui, 1965) (Tonight, Rita), Diamoci del tu (Siena, 1967) (Let’s Be Informal), Speciale per voi (Ragionieri, 1969; Siena, 1970) (Specifically for You) and Tutto è pop (Moretti, 1972) (Everything Is Pop) clearly show the continuation of RAI’s business strategy and national television’s increasing interest in young people as a target audience. These shows rekindled the rebellious attitude of Italian young people and debated the generational conflict from young people’s point of view. As far as magazines and films are concerned, the control over representations was more overtly commercial than political: the main aim of these media was in fact to promote products such as music, fashion, films and

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the media themselves. The films that I discuss in this monograph are those that are broadly categorised as Musicarelli.20 This musical film genre was the earliest Italian media form aimed at an audience of young people, as it developed at the end of the 1950s with the objective of ‘dare un volto ai beniamini della radio’ (Capussotti, 2004: 247),21 thus representing giovani singers when they were not yet featured in television programmes. This is also why, according to Capussotti, the Musicarello genre did not last long: as soon as giovani stars were fully accepted into the Italian television star system, the Musicarelli slowly stopped being produced. Daniele Magni identifies three main phases in the evolution of the Musicarello genre: the first is that of the urlatori, whose most representative films are I ragazzi del juke-box (Fulci, 1959) (Juke-Box Boys) and Urlatori alla sbarra (Fulci, 1960) (Urlatori on the Stand). Here, despite the presence of giovani stars such as Adriano Celentano and Mina, plots were always centred on a group of giovani who had to protect their music against institutions such as national television or the recording industry (Magni, 2012: 32). The second phase goes from 1964 to 1967, and it is also this genre’s most prolific phase. In this period, Musicarelli increasingly featured giovani stars, including Gianni Morandi, Caterina Caselli and Rita Pavone. These stars often played the role of young singers looking for success, a narrative that could make them more relatable to the audience. Moreover, the plot was often centred on a love story, usually obstructed by a generational struggle going on within the family. In the third phase, from 1967 to the early 1970s, the Musicarelli started to suffer a crisis, partly because of the increasing presence of giovani stars in television, and partly because, as Magni suggests, the Musicarello genre did not evolve to include new themes that were becoming dominant within youth cultures, such as protest movements (2012: 42). Musicarelli films had a deliberate commercial aim: according to Della Casa and Manera, the name Musicarello recalls the Caroselli,22 commercials featured in Italian television of the period (2011: 11). Indeed, these films were often titled after a song by the film’s protagonist and were part of a film–singer–song promotional circuit for which every element of the circuit promoted the other two. Most cinema critics cite this commercial agenda in devaluing the genre. For example, Magni defines these films as ‘roba sdolcinata e ipercolorata, a base di canzoncine e amorazzi’23 and criticises the weakness of their plots (2012: 21). Not only is Magni dismissive in his terminology when describing these films, but he also seems to suggest that these films lack academic and cultural relevance, given the presence of songs and love stories. However, Magni’s interpretation overlooks the significance of these films in representing Italian youth, as they testify to the normative construction

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of i giovani in popular media. In the Musicarello genre, the generational struggle was translated into a musical struggle, in which young people and adults defended ‘their’ musical genres – beat and classical, respectively – against the opposing generational group. Furthermore, these films always ended with a resolution of the conflict, favouring a domestication and normalisation of the emerging Italian youth cultures (Della Casa & Manera, 2011: 15). Both television programmes and films are significant sources for analysing the recuperation and spectacularisation of youth cultures as, in these media, the entertaining features of i giovani prevail over their potentially troubling ones. Although these media products were mainly addressed to an audience of young people, their mode of consumption suggests that they were also directed at a wider audience: both media were in fact available only in regulated social contexts, such as the household and the cinema, where interaction between different age groups was unavoidable. Moreover, given the limited availability of television programmes (before 1961, there was only one channel, and until 1975, the choice of television programmes was limited to two channels) and, in some areas of the country, of cinemas, these media were created with a target audience in mind, while also being cognizant that a wider audience would have access to these programmes and films. Because of this reason, films and television represented young people in an entertaining way, or depicted the resolution of the generational conflict, to reassure the adults about the emergence of this new social subject. A different case needs to be made about teen magazines, which were uniquely aimed at young people. In this book, I analysed three magazines: Ciao amici (Hello, Friends), Big: il settimanale giovane (BIG: Young People’s Weekly) and Giovani (Young People).24 These three magazines can be considered the first three Italian teen magazines: Ciao amici was first published in December 1963; after the success of Ciao amici, Big: il settimanale giovane started to be published in June 1965. The magazine Marie Claire changed its name to Marie Claire giovanissima and then Giovani in 1966, officially becoming a teen magazine. These print media mainly profiled music news and music stars; however, they also featured reports on fashion trends, society and news from foreign countries, especially the United Kingdom, France and the United States. The magazines also promoted virtual and physical encounters between young people, by putting young individuals in contact with their peers. Not only did they publish readers’ letters, which could be answered by other readers in the following issues, but they also organised concerts, where readers could meet and exchange views on their favourite singers or their experiences as young people with their peers. In 1967, the magazines Ciao amici and Big merged into the magazine Ciao Big, which was renamed Ciao 2001 in January 1968 and continued to be published up

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to the 1990s. From 1970, the magazine Giovani was called Qui giovani, and was discontinued in 1974. In teen magazines, discourses around young people’s leisure activities interacted with other topics such as young people’s political orientation, current news about Italian and foreign society and politics and debates around young people’s emancipation from their parents, their sexuality and their political involvement. Grispigni points out how in these magazines young people’s distress was made visible (1993: 38), and Giachetti claims that they were an expression of youth subcultures in Italy (2002). Although Giachetti’s point is questionable, as these magazines were commercially produced, he is correct in underlining the subversive potential of these media. Alex Schildt and Detlef Siegfried have argued, in reference to northern European youth, that ‘youth magazines evolved into important mediators of consumer culture and political standards within the young generation during the course of the 1960s’ (2006: 24–5). Magazines in particular can shed light on the process of the commercial incorporation of subcultural styles, for which subcultures infiltrated mass culture; but the subcultures regarded this as a commercial appropriation of originally oppositional styles, which destroyed their revolutionary potential. Therefore, new deviant styles had to be developed, to stand outside the established ones. This confrontation between mass culture and counterculture fostered an ongoing process of innovation. (Schildt & Siegfried, 2006: 2)

The joint analysis of youth-oriented television programmes, films and magazines in this monograph aims to reveal the complexity of the media construction of Italian giovani, which features multiple similarities and contradictions, engaged and disengaged representations and normative and subversive discourses.

Book structure The chapters of this monograph follow a chronological sequence informed by my analysis of sources: through reading the magazines and watching the television programmes and films, it became evident that there were specific moments when the construction of i giovani changed, although often the passage between one trend and another is not so clear-cut. My choice of sources has also been the rationale for choosing the periodisation of this book. The starting point is 1958, when popular media aimed at an audience of young people – in particular Musicarelli films – started to be produced.

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My discussion ends in 1975, as during the second half of the 1970s there were some substantial changes in the popular media analysed. The 1975 RAI reform pursued the liberalisation of private television: as a consequence, television channels multiplied, along with the economic and political interests in television. As the number of youth-oriented television programmes increased in the mid-1970s, some of the media discussed here, such as the magazine Qui giovani, ceased publication, and there was an increase in the specialisation of magazines and film genres for young people. Most importantly, from the mid-1970s some ‘forme di autodescrizione’ (Grispigni, 1993: 52–3),25 including free radio stations and self-produced magazines such as Re nudo (Naked King), started to increase in circulation and have a significant impact on the media construction of i giovani. Fashioning Italian youth is structured into four chapters. Chapter 1 describes the emergence of youth-oriented popular media by looking at two terms used to refer to young people in the period from 1958 to 1965: urlatori (screamers), as the Italian singers inspired by American rock ’n’ roll were named, and amici (friends), the term used in the first Italian teen magazine, Ciao amici, to address its young audience. Representations of urlatori and amici in this period reflected respectively the anxieties over the emergence of youth as a social subject, and the attempts to define and domesticate the image of youth in Italian popular media. In early Musicarelli films, Italian urlatori were presented as potentially dangerous subjects who actively resisted media industries, such as the recording industry and television, in their attempts to exclude young singers. This attitude can be seen as mirroring the social phenomenon of Italian teppisti, young ‘rebels without a cause’ who started to be represented as a social threat in Italian newspapers (Piccone Stella, 1993). Conversely, the amici were a literal and cultural translation of the commercial French youth culture of the copains, and functioned in popular media to offer a reassuring image of Italian young people. Chapter 2 concentrates on the period from 1965 to 1967, and on the emergence of the beat trend. During this period, there was a proliferation of youth-oriented popular media. I giovani were constructed in popular culture in opposition to adults, and through reference to leisure activities, especially those practices connected to experiencing music, such as concert and club attendance, and style. In this way, popular culture reconstructed Italian youth as being nonthreatening, in opposition to the perceived danger of those young people who were starting to demonstrate in schools and in public spaces. Furthermore, this chapter discusses the Italian appropriation of the mid-1960s British ‘Carnaby Street’ style and of the American beatnik movement, by looking at strategies of ‘mirroring’ and ‘othering’ in popular media. The chapter also outlines how the beat style started to modify the

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construction of i giovani’s gender identities during this period, thanks to trends such as long hairstyles for men and miniskirts for women. It thus analyses representations of giovani masculinities and femininities by looking at the construction of stars like Rita Pavone, Caterina Caselli and Gianni Morandi. Chapter 3 discusses how from 1967 to 1970 the hippy trend was constructed in opposition to the beat because it was anti-consumerist (that is, not produced by the industry) and anti-authoritarian (that is, not dictated by fashion designers). It also analyses the problematic commercial reappropriation of two American-inspired trends, namely the Afro style and a 1930s-inspired fashion, in order to show how these transnational and transhistorical influences were renegotiated in Italian popular media. As well as foreign influences, this chapter discusses how young women’s increasing sexual emancipation was discussed in popular media. The contradictory representation of sexually active stars, like Patty Pravo, attempted a compromise between the acceptance of i giovani’s sexual emancipation and the defence of young women’s respectability. At the same time, the construction of giovani masculinities, which increasingly appropriated aspects traditionally considered ‘feminine’, revealed anxieties about homosexuality and a change in the power structure between genders. Chapter 4 focuses on the fragmentation of the giovane identity in popular media during the period from 1970 to 1975. During the early 1970s, an apparent ‘normalisation’ of the giovane style coincided with the recognition of young people’s political role. However, while the giovane style was becoming increasingly similar to that of adults, gender, class and regional differences started to become more visible within media representations of the ‘imagined community’ of young people. This chapter argues that the inclusion of identities previously excluded from the media construction of i giovani resulted in the fragmentation of this homogeneous construction. In particular, it discusses the impact of emancipatory discourses that were introduced, in Italy and in other Western countries, by feminist and gay liberation movements, Marxist political movements and anti-racist movements, and their significance in the construction of gender, class and ethnicity in the Italian society of the 1970s. By looking at how age became a fundamental identity feature in popular culture in the period from 1958 to 1975, how it was performatively constructed through the adoption of specific style trends, and how its meanings changed throughout this period, Fashioning Italian youth ultimately investigates the role of popular culture in representing and at the same time contributing to the emergence of youth as a social subject in Italian society.

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Notes 1 (Why are you upset? / Dance with me / and after that you’ll see / that you’ll be fine. We are young people, / the youngest of young people / we are the army / the army of surf.) 2 The Musicarello is a musical film genre that appeared in Italy between 1959 and 1960, and was intended for an audience of young people. According to Jacopo Tomatis, ‘the Musicarelli consisted of a series of musical numbers, featuring teen idols, singers and entertainers; the plot was weak, and tailored to the protagonists’ public image and talent’ (2014: 26–7). 3 (there is a strict division between the long hairstyles, beat music, colourful clothing, miniskirts, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and the events of 1968.) 4 (disengaged generation.) 5 (political generation.) 6 For example by Tarrow (1989), Lumley (1990) and De Bernardi and Flores (1998). 7 Some significant works that have analysed media representations of young people in other national contexts: on the popular media construction of young femininities in France, see Weiner (2001); on the relationship between youth and popular culture in France, see Briggs (2015); on the impact of popular culture in the construction of youth in northern Europe, see Schildt and Siegfried (2006). 8 In Chapter 1 these three themes are discussed jointly, given the smaller quantity of analysed material. 9 (distant and unapproachable icons, but rather travel partners, an expression of modernity and of a negotiation between the past and the future.) 10 The concepts of ‘mirroring’ and ‘othering’ foreign youth cultures in the construction of the giovane identity will be further examined in Chapter 2. 11 On the specificities of Italian feminism, see Parati and West (2002); Miceli Jeffries (1994). 12 The contraceptive pill was legalised in Italy in 1976. 13 This is particularly visible in the film Masculin Féminin (Jean-Luc Godard, 1966), which emphasises the difference between young men and young women in mid-1960s France. The film represents young men as political and engaged, while young women tend to be represented as disengaged. For an in-depth analysis of this film, see Weiner (2001: 187–96). 14 On the social construction of this division in the Western world, see De Grazia and Furlough (1996). 15 More on the history of the concept of Italian virility and its ‘crisis’ during the 1960s can be found in Bellassai (2011) and in Chapter 3 and Chapter 4’s sections of this book dedicated to masculinities. 16 Amintore Fanfani was a prominent member of the Democrazia Cristiana and Italian Prime Minister for several legislatures.

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17 (wingman.) 18 (Television represents a superficial, disengaged youth, and it only emphasises the fun, playful aspects of emerging global youth cultures: the new singing styles, coming initially from France, the dances imported from the United States, the success of the urlatori and rockers become the objects of new entertainment programmes and of a partial replacement of television hosts and programmes.) 19 Capellone, literally ‘young man with big hair’, was the epithet through which Italian young men with long hairstyles were addressed from the mid-1960s. 20 On the Musicarelli, see Arcagni (2006); Bisoni (2020); Brioni (2019); Buzzi (2013); Della Casa and Manera (2011); Magni (2012). 21 (screening radio stars.) 22 The Caroselli were short films, songs and comic sketches used to advertise products which were broadcast in the famous Italian television show Carosello, airing from 1957 to 1977. 23 (hyper-coloured, mushy stuff, based on cheesy songs and love stories.) 24 Concerning these magazines, see Giachetti (2002) and Grispigni (1998). 25 (self-descriptive media forms.)

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1 Urlatori and amici, 1958–65

In his study of post-war media representations of British subcultures, Dick Hebdige explains that ‘youth’ as a social subject tends to be represented by the media as either ‘youth-as-trouble’ – criminal, delinquent youth – or ‘youth-as-fun’ – commercial, consumer youth (1988: 19). This distinction is key in representations of youth in 1958–63, the period marking the emergence of youth as a separate social category in Italy, as well as the moment when youth-oriented media started to be produced. Broadly speaking, late 1950s mainstream media, and cinema in particular, tended to portray young people as ‘youth-as-trouble’, who committed delinquent acts ‘without cause’ and were sexually emancipated. By contrast, in the early 1960s the media attempted to recoup their image. The ‘youth-as-fun’ construct in Italy, which was popularised in the media and particularly in television entertainment, tied representations of young people to the emergent youthoriented market of music and fashion goods. The few popular media aimed at an audience of young people emerging in this period, namely early Musicarelli films and the youth-oriented magazine Ciao amici, replicated and expanded upon the youth-as-trouble/youthas-fun dichotomy. Although the scarcity of youth-oriented media and the limited commercial production of a youth-oriented style in this period make it difficult to chart a homogeneous construction of youth, a brief analysis of early representations of i giovani is useful to understand the process through which a giovane identity began to emerge in youth-oriented media. I argue that between the late 1950s and the early 1960s i giovani shifted from being a metaphorical representation of the modernisation of Italian society to a normative representation of a homogeneous generational group, similar in tastes, values and consumption habits. This shift is embodied by two figures: the urlatori in the late 1950s and the amici in the early 1960s. This chapter first introduces representations of young people in the media from the late 1950s to the early 1960s, and then examines the significance of urlatori and amici in early youth-oriented media, by contextualising these figures in the

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changing perception of youth as both an ideal and a social subject in the years of the Italian economic boom.

Italian youth at the turn of the decade: ‘youth-as-trouble’ and ‘youth-as-fun’ The emergence of youth as a social subject in Italy was strictly connected to the social, economic and urban changes in Western society during the postwar period. Arthur Marwick explains that the youth subcultures of the late fifties … contained elements of true historical significance … because they interacted with, and were inflected by, other important developments … Economic and demographic changes were the structural imperatives behind the advent of the youth subcultures: but urbanization … mass communications … and nationwide educational reforms, all helped to make the subcultures homogeneous … While it would be utterly absurd to see the youth subcultures as entirely, or even largely, constructed by profit-seeking entrepreneurs, it would also be absurd to ignore the extent to which they were tied into the everyday world of consumerism and private enterprise. (2011: par. 3.2)

Marwick’s analysis highlights how, beyond the Western world’s increased wealth and the subsequent demographic boom, other factors, including urbanisation, better access to education, methods of communication and increased consumerism contributed to the creation of a youth culture that was not subcultural any more, but started to be included in mainstream culture in Western societies. Not only was the emergence of youth culture inextricably linked to modernisation and capitalism, but youth, as a category, became a repository for all the anxieties about the new forms of socialisation and consumption that were emerging as a result of the economic boom. This process appears very clearly in this period’s media discourse. Indeed, discourses around Italian youth in late 1950s popular culture reflected ‘aperture e resistenze, ottimismi e paure, interessi spesso conflittuali’1 about the modernisation of Italian society (Capussotti, 2004: 19). Simonetta Piccone Stella has explored how in the late 1950s print media tended to present the image of irresponsible youth to adults, especially by discussing the emergence of teppismo, or minor youth delinquency, in northern Italy’s major cities from 1958 to 1963 (1993, 1994). Teppisti would be charged with stealing cars and mopeds for joyriding, assault, obstruction of traffic and gang fights; these offences often had no clear motive, but they were mostly expressions of aggression (Piccone Stella, 1994: 158). Piccone Stella maintains that the phenomenon of teppismo only lasted for a short time; however, it

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provoked public outrage in the late 1950s … which resulted in a fine crop of comments and interpretations, two ad hoc conferences, political intervention including the parliamentary presentation of ‘Regulations for the Repression of Hooliganism’ (Norme per la repressione del teppismo), and above all a widespread, polemical reaction in the adult world. (1994: 158)

Enrica Capussotti has demonstrated that youth deviancy was also a dominant theme in late 1950s cinema. According to Capussotti, youth became a vehicle through which to critique Italian traditionalist society, and a metaphor for social change, which mirrored the anxieties of the adult generation. In late 1950s cinema, l’etichetta più utilizzata [per descrivere i giovani] è quella di ‘gioventù perduta’, seguita da ‘gioventù bruciata’: entrambe si riferiscono a giovani uomini, dall’età non strettamente definita, che oscillano tra atti delinquenziali e anticonformismo. (Capussotti, 2004: 48)2

Gioventù bruciata was the Italian title for the film Rebel Without a Cause (Ray, 1956), and became a common term not only for delinquent youth but also for youth in general in the late 1950s, reflecting society’s preoccupation not only with delinquency, but with young people’s social and sexual behaviour more broadly. Italian youth’s misbehaviour was often blamed on the influence of American youth cultures, and in particular American rock ’n’ roll culture, aesthetics and music, which began circulating in Italy in the late 1950s. Briggs explains that Bill Haley and the Comets, rock and roll’s initial global ambassadors, became an international musical phenomenon in 1956 with ‘Rock Around the Clock’, which was part of the soundtrack to the film Blackboard Jungle, which screened in packed theaters throughout Western Europe. Soon after, rock and roll found many new homes throughout Europe. (2015: 18–19)

Indeed, besides the problem of petty criminality and delinquency, ‘the consumption patterns of the teenagers, in particular their clothes, musical tastes, leisure activities and their enthusiasm for all forms of motorized transport’ were considered equally concerning (Gundle, 2006: 372). For example, ‘the distinctive clothes that marked out working class teenagers, in particular, jeans and black jackets, were often taken by the authorities as a sign of actual or potential criminality’ (Gundle, 2006: 372). Gundle underscores how delinquency and consumerism were often equated in the perception of ‘youth-as-trouble’ during this period, as they both clashed with the conservative Italian society. American music and youth-oriented style trends were not always easily absorbed by Europe’s national cultures, particularly in the political context of post-war Italy: ‘in the years following the victory

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of the Christian Democrats in the watershed election of 1948, a climate of restoration had taken hold in the country. Catholic influence … spread over the media and a rural or small-town mentality conditioned many cultural forms’ (Gundle, 2006: 369–70). As a result, during the period 1958–62 American rock ’n’ roll culture was recuperated in the Italian context by mixing the new trends coming from overseas with elements traditionally belonging to Italian music and culture. In particular, the image of Italian ‘youth-as-trouble’ was embodied in media entertainment by the urlatori, young Italian ‘rock performers … “yellers” … “pop-singer[s]”’ who were already successful in the music industry but had not yet appeared on Italian television (Marwick, 2011: par. 3.311). The popularity of singers like Tony Dallara (the stage name of Antonio Lardera), Adriano Celentano, Betty Curtis (the stage name of Roberta Corti) and Mina (the stage name of Anna Maria Mazzini) was based on their innovative singing style, and was the result of the increasing shift in approval ratings towards singers of a younger age in Italy (Capussotti, 2004: 236). However, the rock ’n’ roll culture represented by these stars was very different from that of their American counterparts: most of the successful urlatori in this period were essentially melodic singers, who were easily integrated into the Italian popular music system and who participated in the Sanremo music festival, which was, and still is, the most important pop music festival in Italy. In addition, the urlatori were often connected to American jazz and blues, as these genres were not seen as promoting delinquency and immorality, as opposed to rock. The combination of a transnational drive towards modernisation and a national drive towards tradition is exemplified by the young Italian star Adriano Celentano, one of the first urlatori who started out his career imitating Jerry Lewis and who later became one of Italy’s most iconic singers. Gundle maintains that Celentano evolved from being a mere imitator into an influential figure who, for better or worse, many Italians recognized as a key interpreter of their cultural context … The fact that he embodied youthful defiance and fun, as well as conformism, business acumen and sexism, helped him develop an appeal that partially crossed boundaries of political allegiance and social class. Musically … he blended in an original way jazz influences, Sinatra’s crooning, American rock, parts of the Italian melodic tradition, Italian comic rock and social commentary. (2006: 384)

The example of Celentano shows how Italian urlatori’s star personas encapsulated a combination of modernisation and tradition, which enabled them to be accepted by both television’s emerging young audience and more traditional adult viewers.

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If in the late 1950s the media attempted to rebuild youth’s bad reputation by merging the American-inspired image of delinquent youth with elements of Italian musical tradition, in the early 1960s they tended to draw a line between criminal youth and ordinary young people: after 1961–62, youth delinquency and youth culture evolved separately and autonomously … Youth culture was certainly acquiring a more distinct profile all through the 1960s and some behaviour previously seen as transgressive and hooligan was eventually legitimized by being absorbed into the political challenge of the young to the rest of society. (Piccone Stella, 1994: 158)

In particular, the media tried to profile the main traits of the newborn Italian youth culture, and attempted to explain to their audiences who ‘young people’ were, by offering elements of identification for this social group. Instead of addressing young people as teppisti, like in the late 1950s, in the early 1960s young people were defined by referring to their consumption habits and leisure activities. For example, entertainment television programmes such as Alta pressione (Trapani, 1962) (High Pressure) invited the audience to ‘scoprire i giovani d’oggi’3 through the display of Italian young people’s leisure practices, such as dance and music (Alta pressione, episode 1, 16/09/1962). Furthermore, in the 1964 Corriere della Sera column ‘Il tempo dei giovani’ (The Time of Youth), journalists tended to project the potential dangerousness of young people onto their foreign counterparts, such as the British Teddy boys (Grispigni, 1993: 36). Youth was a subject still in the process of definition: this is why media depictions and sociological research tended to assign other generations’ attributes to the current generation of young people. For example, the sociological enquiry I giovani degli anni Sessanta (1960s youth) by Ugoberto Alfassio-Grimaldi and Italo Bertoni portrayed young people – mostly young men – as adults in development, whose main goals were summarised by the three Ms: macchina, moglie, mestiere (car, wife, job). The results of this study showed that young people are making more choices independently of their parents … The interviewees seemed more secure, more able to make rational judgements, and all looked forward to owning a car … The interviewees seemed themselves to have no perceptions of a teenage subculture in formation, though what look like some hastily added footnotes wax indignant about the advent of ‘a new decadent mass culture’ (not a specifically teenage one). (Marwick, 2011: par. 3.315)

In contrast, representations of young people in mainstream media – and especially of young women – often referenced behaviours and attributes associated with childhood, which reaffirmed both young people’s innocence

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and young women’s sexual purity. Exemplary in this sense is the case of Gigliola Cinquetti, a sixteen-year-old singer who in 1964 won both the Sanremo festival and the Eurovision song contest with a song entitled ‘Non ho l’età (per amarti)’ (Nisa, Panzeri & Colonnello, 1964) (I Am Not Old Enough (to Love You)).4 This love song was a declaration of purity from a young woman to her boyfriend, as she sings ‘lascia ch’io viva un amore romantico / nell’attesa che venga quel giorno … ma ora no’,5 the ‘day’ she refers to being the day she loses her virginity. Most frequently, however, the media tended to define youth through a conflation of children’s and adult practices, as it appears in media performances of singer Rita Pavone, one of the most successful young stars at the time. In the 1964 essay ‘La canzone di consumo’ (The Consumerist Song), Umberto Eco analysed the ways in which Pavone functioned as a ‘modello di comportamento’6 for her peers. At the time, she already featured in several RAI programmes such as Alta pressione and Studio uno (Brioni, 2017). Eco defines Pavone as ‘la prima diva della canzone che non fosse donna; ma non era neppure bambina’ (1999: 290).7 Indeed, Pavone was represented in the media as a subject ‘in between’ childhood and adulthood, by referring to a contrasting combination of children’s and adult practices. For example, in the singer’s first ever television performance in the programme Alta pressione (episode 2, 23/09/1962), Pavone sings ‘La partita di pallone’ (Vianello & Rossi, 1963) (The Football Match). The song’s lyrics tell the story of a woman in a committed relationship who is not sure if her boyfriend is going to see the football match or another woman instead: ‘Ma un giorno ti seguirò perché / ho dei dubbi che non mi fan dormire / e se scoprire potrò che mi vuoi imbrogliar / da mamma ritornerò’.8 The song lyrics thus express the point of view of an adult woman who is living with her partner, and this image contrasts with the television performance, where Pavone is lifted from a giant crib by singer Gianni Morandi, thereby mimicking a newborn baby. Eco reads the discordance in Pavone’s star persona as a way to start representing the sex appeal of puberty: ‘in Rita Pavone per la prima volta, di fronte ad una intera comunità nazionale, la pubertà si faceva balletto e acquistava pieni diritti nell’enciclopedia dell’erotismo’ (Eco, 1999: 291).9 Eco’s interpretation, however, overlooks the fact that Pavone’s songs probably conformed to the sentimental repertoire of other female singers such as Mina and Ornella Vanoni in the early 1960s, while if we look at Pavone’s performances in mainstream television, they tend to refer much more to childhood than to a stage ‘in between’. For example, one of Pavone’s most successful roles in Italian television was her interpretation of male rascal Gian Burrasca in a televisual adaptation of Vamba’s book Il giornalino di Gian Burrasca (Wertmüller, 1964) (Gian Burrasca’s diary). The choice of Pavone for interpreting a male role was not seen as problematic in Italian

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media, perhaps because of Pavone’s petite body, which was extremely different from that of the Italian maggiorate. In other words, her subversive appearance and androgyny were seen more as a child’s game than as a practice threatening her femininity. The constant representation of Pavone as a child confirms how, in the early 1960s, youth as an emergent social category was still not established in Italian society. Despite the increasing pervasiveness of media representations of leisurely and childlike youth in this period, Italian young people’s political activism gave rise to renewed preoccupations about youth. Unlike the figure of the urlatori, which both domesticated and exploited references to youth delinquency for entertainment reasons, in the early 1960s representations of political youth were strictly separated from those of ‘youth-as-fun’: while television entertainment programmes featured young people singing, dancing and buying goods, news reports and newspapers presented with concern episodes of political activism by youth, such as a large anti-fascist demonstration in Genoa in 1960, and the 1962 clashes between factory workers and the police in Piazza Statuto in Milan. In both cases, young people were described by their style: for example, journalists named the young anti-fascists of the Genoa demonstrations ‘i giovani con le magliette a strisce’ (Ghione, 1998: 115–17).10 The emergence of political youth in the early 1960s signals a shift in the practices perceived as ‘troubling’ for Italian youth, from acts of delinquency to political activism. The subsequent sections will analyse how images connected to the perception of ‘youth-as-trouble’ in the late 1950s and of ‘youth-as-fun’ in the early 1960s were represented in the earliest forms of youth-oriented popular media, namely urlatori in Musicarelli films and amici in the magazine Ciao amici, respectively.

Urlatori, 1958–62 Musicarelli films offer many examples of the attempts to domesticate the Italian youth culture of the late 1950s outlined in the previous section: Capussotti explains that ‘i film che impegnavano sullo schermo cantanti “urlatori” e “urlatrici”, rappresentavano … una novità poiché il loro successo era dovuto al fatto di rivolgersi al gruppo più consistente di consumatori di musica e spettacolo cinematografico: i giovani’ (2004: 247).11 Youth-oriented cinema ‘tended to tame and homogenize indigenous Italian rock singers’ (Marwick, 2011: par. 3.314), and early Musicarelli functioned to deprive ‘Italian rock … of organic links to its original base and integrate [it] into mainstream culture’ (Gundle, 2006: 376). In this section I analyse three early Musicarelli films starring urlatori singers, namely Lucio Fulci’s

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I ragazzi del juke-box (1959) and Urlatori alla sbarra (1960) and Piero Vivarelli’s Io bacio … tu baci (1961) (I Kiss … You Kiss), in order to show how these films moderated the generational conflict in post-war Italian society, without completely eradicating the perception of i giovani as ‘youth-astrouble’. These Musicarelli films projected onto young people either a desire for, or a critique of, the country’s modernisation and capitalism. The plots of the three films analysed here are based on the opposition between a group of young urlatori and a commercial or political institution trying to stop giovani singers from recording their music, appearing on television or having a meeting space. These institutions are the recording industry in I ragazzi del juke-box, national television in Urlatori alla sbarra and the building construction industry in Io bacio … tu baci, which represent the three major sectors of change and growth in Italy in the late 1950s – when the recording industry was expanding, national television had emerged and there was widespread urban development in big Italian cities as a result of the economic boom. These themes were not uncommon in other Musicarelli of the period: for example, I teddy boys della canzone (Paolella, 1960) (The Teddy Boys of Music) and Sanremo – La grande sfida (Vivarelli, 1960) (Sanremo – The Big Challenge) also criticised national television and the music festival system, respectively (Bisoni, 2020: par. 3.7). I ragazzi del juke-box is centred on a clash between traditional Italian music and the music of the urlatori. Traditional music is represented by Commander Cesari (Mario Carotenuto), head of the Cesari Recording Company, who hates modern and American-inspired music, and by his client Appio Claudio (a parody of the very successful Italian singer Claudio Villa), who sings sentimental songs about emigration, longing and the family. Modern music is represented by a group of young urlatori led by singer Adriano Celentano, who are defined as ‘la truppa di sbarco dell’esercito dei nemici di Appio Claudio’.12 Capussotti points out that the film features the recurrent use of language of conflict, which emphasises the contrast between old and new music and between generations (2004: 151). Cesari’s daughter, Giulia (Elke Sommer), works in her father’s recording company, but despite her image as a dutiful daughter, she secretly frequents the dancing club La Fogna (The Sewer), owned by her boyfriend, Paolo (Antonio de Teffè), and Fred (Fred Buscaglione), an older singer who is fascinated with American culture. Despite initial economic difficulties, the club becomes increasingly popular, thanks to the celebrity of resident urlatori singers Tony Bellaria (Tony Dallara) and Betty Doris (Betty Curtis). After Cesari’s many attempts to undermine the urlatori’s success, at the end of the film Cesari decides to produce the urlatori because he realises that their music is economically more profitable than Appio Claudio’s music.

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Urlatori alla sbarra, instead, displays the opposition between two institutions: the Italian government – represented by the government-controlled national television company – and global capitalism – embodied by a multinational blue jeans company. The film begins with a scene set at the alleged ‘Congresso nazionale della rieducazione della gioventù’,13 where politicians suggest that ‘per risolvere la piaga dei teddy boys, si mettano al bando definitivamente i cantanti urlatori’.14 The ‘Blue Jeans Company’ object to this proposal because blue jeans are often connected to the urlatori, and contact a group of them requesting that they travel through the city doing good deeds, in order to redeem their reputations. The urlatori help an old man, Senator Bucci (Turi Pandolfini), a member of the party in power (although unnamed, it mirrors the Italian Democrazia Cristiana) who likes modern music. The senator introduces the group to Giulia (Elke Sommer), his granddaughter, and her female friends, and the two groups of young people unite. Giulia is also the daughter of a national television executive, Professor Giammarelli (Mario Carotenuto), who, in line with the Conference, has banned urlatori from appearing on TV. In response to this ban, the urlatori, assisted by the senator, organise a series of successful concerts in cities throughout Italy; as a result the urlatori are allowed back on television. Io bacio … tu baci has a similar structure with the focus on urban development and building speculation in early 1960s Italian cities. The plot revolves around a tavern owned by Don Leopoldo (Carlo Pisacane), an old man who allegedly was a garibaldino (as people fighting with Giuseppe Garibaldi during the unification of Italy were called). Commander Adolfo Cocchi (Mario Carotenuto) is the head of Immobiledile, a construction company that wants to build a new housing development where the tavern currently stands, but the old man refuses to sell his property. The Commander’s daughter and co-worker, Marcella (Mina), decides to help Don Leopoldo and the tavern after meeting a group of young urlatori that regularly gather there. Using her entrepreneurial spirit, she suggests that the young urlatori transform the old tavern into a club for young people. The club, named Io bacio … tu baci, quickly becomes successful, and Marcella organises a fundraising event to save Don Leopoldo’s club from her father’s plans for demolition. Many famous urlatori decide to participate, demonstrating their solidarity with the old man. In the end, the biggest donor will be Cocchi himself, who becomes convinced by Don Leopoldo’s claim that ‘a me questa musica mi fa sentire sempre giovane … anche lei qui ritroverà i suoi anni verdi!’.15 At the end of the film, Cocchi accepts Marcella’s relationship with urlatore Paolo (Umberto Orsini) and asks them to make him a grandfather within a year. In the end, as Cocchi says, those who he thought were dangerous Teddy boys are ‘tutti dei bravi ragazzi’.16

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In terms of the characterisation of the group of urlatori, all three films mirror and domesticate the three main aspects identified by Piccone Stella in media representations of Italian teppisti: a group dimension; the ‘spontaneous, gratuitous and fun’ nature of their delinquent acts ‘without a cause’; and exhibitionism, namely their shouting and dancing in the street and their distinctive ways of dressing and moving (1994: 166–74). The groups of friends in I ragazzi del juke-box, Urlatori alla sbarra and Io bacio … tu baci comprise both young men and women who are brought together by their interest in making music and loudly singing and dancing together. Although they are ultimately presented as good-natured characters, in these films the urlatori perform acts considered as immoral or minor delinquency: for example, in I ragazzi del juke-box, club owner Paolo forces naïve wannabe singer Tony Bellaria to give him money in order to help him start his career as a singer; in all three films, the groups of young people engage in fights and sometimes even end up in prison, as in Io bacio … tu baci. These actions are not presented as problematic, but rather as funny obstacles to the main storyline, and they are solved rather easily. The presentation of the urlatori as giovani who are imperfect, but ultimately good-hearted, seems to contrast with the contemporary societal perception of Italian youth cultures as delinquent and potentially dangerous. In addition, the urlatori share a similar Americanised style, which Capussotti summarises as follows: ‘i ragazzi indossano blue jeans, pullover e camicie, magliette a quadrettoni e a strisce orizzontali; le ragazze indossano blue jeans e pantaloni neri tipo fuseaux, entrambi molto attillati, così come attillate sono le magliette, mentre i capelli sono soprattutto molto corti’ (2004: 251).17 Style is presented as a fundamental element in the visibility of Italian urlatori; however, it is also the feature that most differentiates them from other giovani in the film. This distinction suggests that urlatori did not represent i giovani as a whole, but were rather a subgroup that other young people tended to take inspiration from, or were fascinated with. This is particularly visible in the encounter between the urlatori and Giulia’s group of female friends in Urlatori alla sbarra. When the group of urlatori enter Senator Bucci’s house, Giulia screams, ‘i teddy boys!’ (‘the Teddy boys!’), thus immediately conflating the urlatori with delinquent youth, only from the way they are dressed. Indeed, there is a clear difference between the two groups: while the urlatori’s style recalls that described by Capussotti above, the young women are wearing circle skirts, shirts and pullovers and have long hair. At first, Giulia is not happy with meeting the group, and especially Joe il rosso (Joe Sentieri), whom she labels ‘l’animale tipo della gioventù bruciata, il perfetto eroe in blue jeans’,18 while Joe calls Giulia, ‘l’animaletto da cocktail party’.19​

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Figure 1.1  First encounter between the urlatori and the group of Giulia’s friends in Urlatori alla sbarra (1960). The two groups’ difference is marked by their style.

However, despite their initial prejudice, when the two groups start talking, they discover they have many common interests: Giulia falls in love with Joe, and her other female friends start dating members of the group of urlatori. As the film progresses, the young women begin dressing in the urlatori’s style when they go out with them. The differentiation in i giovani’s style presented in the film suggests that during this period a uniform media

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construction of i giovani did not yet exist. Nonetheless, the representation of a generational group that, despite their differences in style, had shared experiences, values and interests, can be seen as a first step in the construction of i giovani’s collective identity in popular media. Moreover, the group of urlatori is defined through reference to various stereotypes connected with American culture and music, which is not limited to rock ’n’ roll culture, but borrows from different time periods and different subcultures, including Italian American and Native American stereotypes. In I ragazzi del juke-box, the co-owner of the club La Fogna is played by Fred Buscaglione, an Italian singer whose star persona was based on a parody of Italian-American 1930s gangster culture, and whose songs talked about mafia, guns and women. Urlatori alla sbarra, instead, pays homage to American jazz culture, as it stars ‘the American exponent of cool jazz Chet Baker … (as a member of the band who is always trying to grab some sleep)’, and ‘the house where the band lives has a shrine dedicated to Louis Armstrong’ (Gundle, 2006: 376). The group of friends includes Joe il rosso, whose foreign-sounding first name recalls the name of an Italian-American mafia uncle in Raffaello Matarazzo’s film Joe il rosso (1936). Other members are the aforementioned ‘l’americano’ (Chet Baker); Comanche (Renato Mambor), who wears elements borrowed from Native American stereotypes, such as a war bonnet, and often says ‘Augh!’; Jesse and James (Lars Bloch and Vincenzo Bizzotto), who are dressed as cowboys; and Marlone (Giuliano Mancini), a Marlon Brando lookalike. In Io bacio … tu baci, the group of urlatori is extremely fascinated by the fact that Marcella did her studies in the United States, and they ask her whether she has met Marlon Brando or the Platters there. The multitude of references to various American stereotypes reveals American popular culture’s impact in Italy, which came from a variety of media sources, especially Hollywood films, and may suggest an attempt at defusing American culture as uniquely connected to delinquent youth. By referring to stereotypes well-known by young people and adults alike, Musicarelli films broadened the meaning of ‘America’ to encompass a fictional world populated by figures of different origins and different time periods, in this way reducing the perceived threat of the United States’ influence on Italian youth. In addition, all three films display the ongoing changes in the traditional conceptualisation of gender roles and in the relationship between the sexes in Italian society. Unlike the Musicarelli of the mid-1960s, in which love stories are central to the storyline, but are rather cautious in terms of displaying physical closeness between lovers, in the Musicarelli of the late 1950s and early 1960s, love stories are secondary elements; they do not affect the plot’s advancement. Nonetheless, relationships between young men and women are frequent and explicit in these films; i giovani are not afraid of

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romantic relationships; they kiss and dance very closely. Bisoni points out how ‘il bacio, il ballo, il gesto’20 in these films were an expression of desentimentalised ‘erotismo e sessualità’ (2020: par. 5.10).21 These films display and promote a more modern view of relationships between the sexes, where physical contact is normalised. Perhaps most importantly, Musicarelli films during this period featured strong female characters and protagonists. Despite their appearance as Teddy boys, male characters do not make the independent decisions that bring victory for the group of young urlatori at the end of the story. In contrast, Elke Sommer’s and Mina’s characters in the three films are smart and resourceful young women; they offer ideas that prove to be fundamental in solving the problems encountered by the group, and at the end of the films also manage to gain their fathers’ approval of their romantic partners. They are not afraid to experiment with love and sexuality, as they fall in love and are open about their sexual experiences: for example, in Io bacio … tu baci, Marcella pretends to be pregnant to convince her father to meet her boyfriend. It needs to be pointed out, however, that these young women’s fundamental role in the story is dependent upon their class, and the position of power they hold within their fathers’ companies. For example, in I ragazzi del juke-box, it is Giulia who secretly starts producing the urlatori after Cesari falls ill, so that she can then demonstrate their commercial viability to him. Moreover, in Io bacio … tu baci, Marcella is presented as an educated young woman who studied at the ‘Baltimora School of Public Relations’: studying abroad was an option unavailable to most Italian young women in the 1960s, and one which emphasises Marcella’s class privilege. By working in their fathers’ companies, the female protagonists are also presented as dependent on their fathers and their wealth: at work they are required to dress in knee-length skirts and with tied-back hair, and they frequently ask their fathers for favours, which are crucial to the film’s happy endings. Despite being emancipated figures in 1950s Italian society, then, these characters reproduce two stereotypes connected to young women: the importance of one’s social class in acquiring professional success, and a dependency on older men, in this case family members. Young people’s inability to act independently is also reaffirmed by the fact that, in all three films, the group of urlatori needs extra help from an adult, usually belonging to the generation previous to that of their fathers. Fred in I ragazzi del juke-box, Senator Bucci in Urlatori alla sbarra and Don Leopoldo in Io bacio … tu baci are fundamental figures in the development of the plot, because they offer the urlatori either the space or the motivation to pursue their aspirations. What distinguishes them from other adult figures is their love for young people’s music: for example, Senator

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Bucci explains that ‘a me piace la musica urlata perché sono sordo! Ragazze, urlate, divertitevi!’.22 His endorsement of the urlatori also includes their distinctive style – in one scene we see him in blue jeans. Most importantly, he is a source of inspiration for the group of giovani, and incites them to act against repressive institutions. For example, after the urlatori are banned from television, Senator Bucci organises the ‘resistenza’ (resistance) by making a ‘comizio dell’urlo’23 to the young singers, saying: ‘nel nostro paese, come diceva Giolitti, ha ragione chi urla di più. Urlavano i nostri padri? … E allora urlate le vostre canzoni! Urlate da farle sentire in tutta Italia!’.24 The senator’s reference to Giovanni Giolitti, one of the most powerful politicians in Italy between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, gives legitimises the urlatori’s argument, and dignifies it. In Io bacio … tu baci, Don Leopoldo’s endorsement of the urlatori, whom he likes because he never feels lonely around them, can also be read as facilitating young people’s acceptance, considering his authority as a garibaldino and therefore as an influential figure in Italian history. The presence of older helpers in the films has a dual and contradictory function: on the one hand, it endorses a social acceptance of the urlatori, by connecting these young people with respectable figures like Giolitti and Garibaldi, not only in terms of age, but also of political status. On the other hand, it reduces the threat that young people present to underscore their dependency on older people and lack of autonomy. Despite the presence of older helpers, these films are nonetheless based on a generational conflict, which also reflects a criticism of either Italy’s traditionalist society, or its modernisation. Indeed, the films’ villains – Commander Cesari, Professor Giammarelli and Commander Cocchi, all played by comedian Mario Carotenuto – are all fathers as well as ruthless entrepreneurs. While in later Musicarelli there are strong mother figures, who usually assist the young characters, in these films mothers are absent. Parents, then, are uniquely identified as powerful male entrepreneurs who can only accept i giovani, including their own daughters, at the end of the story, when they realise that youth cultures can be commercially profitable. Moreover, despite holding a position of power, in all three films fathers are presented as weak, contradictory and vicious. An example of the incongruity in these characters’ behaviour appears in their alleged personal and professional duty to preserve women’s morality while at the same time objectifying women’s bodies. For example, Cesari, Giammarelli and Cocchi are all very protective of their daughters’ and other young women’s sexual purity, but they each also have personal secretaries that they verbally and sexually harass. In Urlatori alla sbarra, this behaviour is further exemplified in a scene where we see models in bathing suits rehearsing in a television studio in front of many executives, including Giammarelli,

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who compliment the young women on their bodies. After the rehearsal, Giammarelli explains that it is the television company’s policy for the models to appear more demure during the actual show, and we see him literally counting the number of underskirts worn by these models and covering their neckline with roses, so that no parts of their bodies are shown in the television programme. As explained earlier in the Introduction, the Democrazia Cristiana used to strictly supervise women’s bodies and representations of their sexuality on television; this scene thus parodies the ruling elite’s hypocrisy. The political satire in the films is not only reserved for the Democrazia Cristiana’s management of television, but it also involves an overall criticism of the Italian political situation. For example, in Urlatori alla sbarra, although the blue jeans company seems to initially support i giovani, near the end of the film the company’s board laments the fact that ‘purtroppo oggi i jeans sono considerati simbolo della sinistra’, because they are worn by rebellious youth.25 In the final scenes, it is implied that the readmission of urlatori in Italian television was influenced by the blue jeans company, which convinced the Italian government to help them overcome the identification between young people and left-wing political positions. With this ending, the film suggests that the blue jeans company’s economic power is greater than that of Italian politicians. The readmission of i giovani in television then, far from being a victory for young people, is really about capitalism’s power over national politics. The fact that these films are so overtly political, even through the use of parody, shows that Musicarelli films of the time were being produced for young people, but with subjects that could also attract an adult audience. Unlike in later Musicarelli, young people do not escape criticism in these films. For example, I ragazzi del juke-box’s final scene shows that urlatori Tony Bellaria and Betty Dorys have embraced their status as commercial stars, by appropriating practices that they used to criticise in singers like Appio Claudio. Indeed, during Tony and Betty’s final press conference, the voice-over notes that the two singers ‘offrono sorrisi stereotipati … no no no, non possono essere loro … La Fogna è diventata di moda come voleva Fred. Si, hanno vinto. Persino Adriano indossa il suo peggior nemico, lo smoking’.26 Although the narrator allegedly celebrates the urlatori’s victory, the film features an underlying critique to these singers’ easy acceptance of the commercial music system controlled by adults, as if it was impossible to escape conforming to the system in capitalist societies. To summarise, representations of i giovani in Musicarelli films tended to domesticate the image of ‘youth-as-trouble’ circulating in Italian media in the period 1958–62, and addressed societal concern about the emergence of teppismo in Italian cities. As Capussotti puts it,

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Fashioning Italian youth in un periodo di diffuso allarme sulla gioventù, il compito [dei Musicarelli] è di diffondere un messaggio rassicurante … Tra il 1957 e l’inizio degli anni Sessanta i mass media mettono in scena contemporaneamente l’allarme verso una gioventù ribelle e incomprensibile e il suo recupero, in quanto mito di riferimento collettivo e soggetto sociale protagonista del nuovo consumo di massa. (2004: 260)27

The underlying message in Musicarelli films is that, just as the urlatori’s music cannot be excluded from Italian television and the recording industry, one must come to terms with youth as a social subject in Italy, as young people were becoming a social, and above all an economic force that needed to be reckoned with. I giovani represented in early Musicarelli films appropriated several aspects of representations of teppisti that were circulating in other media, but recuperated them in order to lower the social preoccupation towards Italian youth: in the films, i giovani are ultimately presented as good-hearted characters who are not completely able to act independently. Similarly, the broadening of references to American culture beyond the image of youths as ‘rebels without a cause’ in these films can be seen as lowering the anxieties connected with American influences on Italian young people. Moreover, it is important to underline that i giovani in these films are mainly used as a metaphor for the modernisation of Italian society. Indeed, other than a generational struggle, these Musicarelli display a struggle between traditional values – those endorsed by the Italian government, the family and traditional media – and capitalist values, represented here by the commercialisation of young people’s music and style. This narrative could be better understood by an audience of adults, rather than young people: indeed, because of the presence of harsh political satire, both I ragazzi del juke-box and Urlatori alla sbarra were officially classified as suitable only for adults (Capussotti, 2004: 256). More than addressing young people, then, these films used young people as either a positive or a negative metaphor for the modernisation of post-economic miracle Italian society. Ultimately, urlatori were not a media representation of ordinary young people, but rather of a group of privileged young stars and singers, who were able to adopt a specific style and display their difference from adults because this was part of their star persona. In Musicarelli films, most of the young people approached by the urlatori are middle-class giovani, who belong to rich families and are well-dressed and educated. For them, becoming friends with the ‘Italian Teddy boys’ is a whim, rather than a life choice. The films do not portray working-class young people, who were probably most affected by the stereotypes and prejudices linked to delinquent youth in post-war Italian society. In other words, in popular media representations of the time, being giovani was a class privilege reserved for a wealthy

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or successful portion of Italian youth. This seems to back up Piccone Stella’s claim that, although in the late 1950s popular media began to represent a proper ‘condizione giovanile’,28 young people themselves did not identify collectively (1993: 9–11). This was also because there was still a lack of platforms for young people to interact and discuss common interests. Capussotti points out that ‘i “musicarelli” sottolineano … una discordanza significativa nel sistema dei media: mentre il cinema e la musica stavano producendo merci destinate esclusivamente ai giovani, solo nel 1963 la carta stampata inizierà la pubblicazione di riviste per questa porzione di lettori e lettrici’ (2004: 255).29 Indeed, the emergence of Italian youth-oriented magazines in 1963 was fundamental in favouring the communication among Italian young people and the homogenisation of youth in media representations. This process will be discussed in the next section.

Amici, 1963–65 To understand the process through which youth started to be understood as a collective identity in Italy in the early 1960s, it is necessary to look at the French context, as the image of the Italian amici was – literally – a translation of that of the French copains (friends). Briggs has analysed the emergence of copains as an identity that, just like the urlatori, was inspired by the arrival of American rock ’n’ roll in Europe. However, unlike the urlatori, representations of the copains did not refer to the delinquent side of youth, or to youth as a problem to solve: Youth in the postwar period had not been defined in terms of cultural consumption, but rather in more sociological ones. Anxieties about delinquency fostered a desire for adults to attempt to control and define youth culture in an effort to buttress society during the changes of the 1950s. In the early 1960s, copains were equated with the people connected to yé-yé music, its performers and listeners. (Briggs, 2015: 22)

In other words, like the urlatori, the copains were a reaction to late 1950s representations of ‘youth-as-trouble’, but unlike them, they epitomised an appropriation of American rock ’n’ roll culture that tended to detach the image of youth from that of delinquency, by concentrating uniquely on the other most visible aspect of the emergence of youth in Western societies, namely the mass consumption of youth-oriented popular music. The emergence of the copains in France was tied to the circulation of youth-oriented media, in particular the radio programme Salut les copains (Hello, Friends) from 1959, and the magazine of the same name from 1962. Behind the creation of these two media products was Daniel Filipacchi, a

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photographer and radio host who saw in the emergent American-inspired French music – renamed yé-yé by sociologist Edgar Morin, referring to the sound of the English words ‘yeah-yeah’ frequently employed in these songs (2020: 397–8) – a fruitful commercial opportunity. Indeed, in the post-war period France experienced a population boom, and by the early 1960s young people made up a significant portion of French society, and ‘a vital segment of consumers … The language of marketing during the 1960s reveals how the world of the copain could be joined through the consumption of goods, particularly those endorsed by pop stars’ (Briggs, 2015: 16–17). Besides being a commercial endeavour, youth-oriented media also aimed to create a community of young people with homogenised values. As Briggs puts it: The copains and their music … symbolized a new kind of community beyond a national one, one at once open to global influences and ideas and inclusive of different classes, races, and genders. Strongly associated with youth, the permeability of the copains allowed for the idea to become a more fluid concept of community built around the consumption of yé-yé. The word copain implied the realization of a naturally friendly relationship among all young people. (2015: 15)

Unlike urlatori, then, ‘copain’ was a word used not only for a small group of young stars that could influence ordinary young people; it aimed to include all young people without distinctions of class, gender and above all, nationality. Both the radio programme and the magazine Salut les copains were very successful, and their popularity became evident in June 1963, when an estimated 100,000 copains gathered in Place de la Nation in Paris for a concert organised by the magazine (Briggs, 2015: 15). A few days after the concert, Morin wrote an article about the phenomenon of the copains, which he explained as an effect of French society’s increasing capitalism. He identified several features shared by the copains, most of which were connected to commercial elements: first, a ‘common uniform’ that was a common style; second, what he defined as ‘a certain kind of feminine make-up’, namely separate ideals of beauty and seduction that were perceived as stereotypically feminine; third, the ‘initiation into teenage consumer goods’; fourth, a ‘common dialect’, namely a language punctuated by superlatives; fifth, ‘common ceremonies’ and places of gathering, like the concert at Place de la Nation; and sixth, their ‘heroes’, namely stars (Morin, 2020: 397). These elements will prove fundamental in the media construction of youth in Italy in this and the following periods analysed in this monograph. The emergent French youth culture of the copains was easily appropriated by Italian youth, in terms of both music consumption and media production. From the early 1960s, French copain singers, in particular Johnny

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Hallyday, Sylvie Vartan and Françoise Hardy, were extremely successful in Italy; moreover, in December 1963 the first issue of the monthly magazine Ciao amici, a literal translation of Salut les copains, was published. Just like its French inspiration, the magazine mostly profiled young people’s music and music stars, but it also discussed young people’s fashion and beauty. A significant amount of page space was given to foreign stars, who were not limited to yé-yé singers and French copains, but also included British, American and Russian singers and bands. In terms of Italian stars, the most profiled were former urlatori singers Mina and Adriano Celentano, emergent yé-yé Italian singers like Rita Pavone and Catherine Spaak, and actors and actresses like the young Stefania Sandrelli. Most importantly, the magazine aimed to facilitate virtual and face-toface interaction among Italian young people and between these youths and their favourite singers. For example, Ciao amici’s first issue’s editorial shows a clear aim to build a community of Italian young people: Ciao amici, scusate se vi do del tu, ma sapete bene che nel nostro ambiente si usa così, e del resto, a me seccherebbe molto trattare quelli della mia età con il ‘lei’ o con il ‘rag.’, ‘dott.’, ecc. … Devo presentarvi ‘Ciao amici’ ed è in fondo un compito facilissimo: è la rivista per voi. Non è presunzione la mia, credetemi, lo dico perché è anche la rivista per me, fatta da noi con la vostra collaborazione … fatta perché in Italia non esisteva, fatta perché in Francia esiste ‘Salut les copains’, in Germania ‘Bravo’, in Inghilterra ‘The Melody Maker’ … Una rivista per gli amici, per i ‘copains’ o come preferite. Non ci conosciamo, è vero, eppure siamo amici, perché abbiamo gli stessi gusti. A qualcuno tra voi piace Rita Pavone, ad altri Mina o Françoise Hardy o Catherine Spaak; Celentano o … Morandi … ma in fondo è la stessa cosa: ci piacciono i bravi cantanti, le belle canzoni, gli spettacoli migliori … Scrivetemi, mi fa molto piacere, ve lo assicuro. E scrivete anche ai vostri beniamini; vi risponderanno personalmente o da queste pagine ed anche loro accetteranno i vostri consigli, perché siete voi che ascoltate le loro canzoni, voi che comperate i loro dischi, proprio voi siete i loro migliori amici. (Giacotto, 1963: 8–9)30

From the start, the journalist addresses the readers as ‘amici’; this term not only normalises informal relationships between peers, but also conveys intimacy and kinship. The amici are collectively defined by an interest in the same singers, the same songs, the same music performances, both Italian and foreign, commonalities that suggest a community based on music interests and without national borders. The article also reaffirms the transnationalism of the community of i giovani by the mention of several European youth-oriented magazines, which connect Italian young people’s desire to gather to that of their peers in France, Germany and the United Kingdom. Another aspect that clearly emerges from the editorial is the active role that the magazine expects from its readers: they are asked to collaborate in

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writing the magazine and to advise their favourite stars. Young stars, then, are not presented as unapproachable, but rather as part of the community of the amici. Each issue of the magazine began with a letter from a different singer which featured their autograph, thus giving the illusion that there was direct contact between stars and their audiences. The idea of the amici as a homogeneous community is also reiterated in a survey published in the magazine’s first issue asking several Italian young people ‘è vero che voi giovani vi sentite tutti amici, tra voi, indipendentemente dalla nazionalità, dal lavoro e dalla condizione sociale?’31 The rather rhetorical question seems to indicate a response in the affirmative, which is indeed confirmed by most interviewees: – Credo di sì. Noi ragazzi fin dalla prima volta ci diamo del tu … – È vero. Noi giovani ci sentiamo amici anche senza conoscerci … – Si, dai quindici ai diciannove anni siamo tutti uguali e sappiamo tutto l’uno dell’altro …   I giovani sono uniti dagli stessi interessi e dagli stessi problemi. (‘Inchiesta: I giovani sono tutti amici’, 1963: 43)32

The community of amici was centred on the commercial consumption of several youth-oriented goods, which were all connected to music, such as records, musical instruments, concert tickets and, to a smaller extent during this phase, fashion. For example, in 1964 the magazine started to sell Ciao amici t-shirts, which identified people as belonging to the community: a magazine article, which was also an advertisement for the garment, states that ‘tutti gli “amici di Ciao amici” le avranno: sono un distintivo. Chi ha la maglia è un amico. Infatti, confermiamo che non saranno vendute nei negozi. Potrete averle soltanto tramite “Ciao amici”’ (‘Le maglie vanno a ruba’, 1964: 70–1).33 The fact that these t-shirts were sold only through the magazine, and not available in stores, helped create a feeling of exclusivity amongst the community of young people buying the magazine. Moreover, in line with the mainstream media’s attempt to uncouple i giovani from their ‘youth-as-trouble’ image, the magazine represented amici as apolitical: a 1964 article states that politics is something young people will discuss ‘in a few years’, meaning not until they are adults (Giachetti, 2002: 99). This aspect seems to confirm the magazine’s tendency to conceal any worrying aspects regarding young people in their construction of Italian amici. Just like in the case of Salut les copains, one of the most significant aspects of Ciao amici’s giovani readers was their desire to meet in person: after the successful 1963 concert organised by Salut les copains in Place de la Nation, Ciao amici organised a similar event in 1964, which is recounted in the magazine as follows:

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Ciao amici, come in Francia esistono i ‘copains’, così in Italia, finalmente, esistono gli ‘amici’. E gli amici sono nati in un luogo e in un giorno ben precisi: Milano, Palazzetto dello Sport, undici aprile 1964. L’occasione? Lo spettacolo per l’assegnazione del DISCO D’ORO DI CIAO AMICI. Perché, vi chiederete, possiamo essere così precisi? È molto semplice: è stata questa la prima volta in cui si sono trovate riunite circa settemila persone che hanno gli stessi gusti, gli stessi interessi, la stessa età. Settemila persone che parlano lo stesso linguaggio, che hanno gli stessi problemi, le stesse aspirazioni. Settemila amici, appunto. Prima, non era mai successo. (Editoriale, 1964a: 9)34

The very precise account of the ‘birth’ of the amici aims to emphasise the novelty of, as well as the imposing number of participants to, this event. As to why meeting in person was so important to them, a 1964 Ciao amici editorial, recounting another gathering in Genoa, provides a clue: Perché, potrete chiedervi, il giornale organizza queste manifestazioni? La risposta è abbastanza semplice. Oltre al piacere di incontrarci … vogliamo fare in modo che gli industriali discografici si rendano conto della nostra forza e della fondamentale importanza che gli amici hanno nel mercato della musica leggera. È quindi necessario che ci venga offerta la possibilità di intervenire attivamente … nella produzione di questa industria che ci interessa così da vicino.35 (Editoriale, 1964b: 17)

From this quotation it is very clear that the community of amici is invited not only to become a community of friends, but also to acknowledge their own role as consumers. This ultimately suggests the role of consumerism in giving youth visibility and representation, as well as an illusion of authority and power. In short, then, the amici were constructed as a transnational community of peers with a shared interest in music. This interest was embodied by commercial goods, and young people’s role as consumers was presented in the magazine as giving them authority and power over adults. This representation differs from that of the urlatori, who as stars had power over the recording industry, but were ultimately presented as needing the help of older figures to achieve their objectives. During 1964, Ciao amici also introduced two themes that will become prevalent in youth-oriented popular media from the mid-1960s onwards, namely the fundamental influence of foreign youth cultures over Italian youth, and young people’s perceived challenge to traditional gender roles and identities in Italian society. In terms of the relationship between Italian amici and young people from other countries, many articles on Ciao amici tended to introduce foreign youth cultures to the young Italian audience. For example, a 1964 article introduced the British subcultures of the mods and rockers by discussing their distinctive styles: mods had long hairstyles, wore pink shirts and powdered their skin to make it whiter, while rockers were

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characterised by their biker jackets, tight trousers and dirty hair (Conte, 1964: 28–33). While the mods and rockers (as well as the infamous Teddy boys) were presented as rather dangerous subcultures, the United Kingdom was said to have overcome the problem of youth delinquency on the whole, as discussed in this 1964 reportage from London: Ora, i rapporti della polizia di Londra non sono più tanto allarmanti: in fondo, il tempo ha fatto il suo dovere, ha setacciato quelle compagnie, quei locali, i quartieri. Gli eredi dei teddy-boys, oggi, mettono annunci nei giornali ‘per discutere problemi della loro età’ oppure sono in galera … Il ragazzo britannico, studente, operaio, contadino, ha un livello culturale elevato rispetto a quello continentale. Legge molto … I giovani che frequentano [le biblioteche] sono i giovani che vediamo ballare il twist e l’hully gully nei club del Tamigi, le ragazze sono belle e giovani, spesso indossano dei pantaloni e portano capelli lunghi raccolti sulla nuca. Sono anche essi, probabilmente, eredi diretti dei teddy-boys di ieri. (Movilia, 1964: 18–19)36

Here, British young people are presented as having left their delinquent past behind, and having embraced an amici lifestyle, based on attending clubs and libraries, and writing to magazines to meet new friends. If, as outlined earlier, mainstream print media tended to externalise delinquency in youth by projecting it onto foreign subcultures like the Teddy boys, youth-oriented media tended to rehabilitate youth as a transnational category, by attributing delinquency only to small subcultural groups and showing that young people had overall abandoned their ‘rebel without a cause’ lifestyle. Similarly, France was widely covered in the magazine, for being a country where ‘il 74 per cento dei giovani preferisce il clan degli amici al focolare domestico. Il concetto della banda … è alla base della nuova comunità giovanile’ (‘Passatevi sul corpo la mano di Johnny’, 1964: 25).37 A 1964 article described in detail the emergence of the yé-yé music genre, its main features, and the most famous yé-yé stars, like Johnny Hallyday. It explained that la canzone degli ‘yé-yé’ … tratta oggetti d’amore, quasi sempre con lieto fine. Talora tratta del servizio militare, del bowling, del problema del sabato sera. Sempre meno numerose sono le canzoni limitate ad un rosario di suoni onomatopeici … Il centinaio di migliaia [di dischi] è l’unità di misura dell’attuale ‘era dello yé-yé’, che sta sconvolgendo la psiche dei francesi antichi e le prospettive di vendita dei grandi magazzini. (‘Passatevi sul corpo la mano di Johnny’, 1964: 19)38

This quotation seems to delineate a shift in yé-yé songs from an imitation of anglicised sounds to lyrics in French, which addressed young people through reference to practices and problems proper to the youth condition, such as love stories and military service. This change suggests an increasing nationalisation and definition of discourses around youth, which did

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not replicate the American rock ’n’ roll culture any more, and tended to delineate practices that were proper to young people as a collective identity. The article goes on to highlight the commercial success of the yé-yé genre in France, by describing all the related merchandise sold to the young French audience: 500,000 guitars, 1,700 pairs of jeans ‘marca Johnny’ (Johnny brand) featuring Hallyday’s portrait in the belt area, and even a soap shaped like Hallyday’s hand. This description underlines the oftenoutrageous commercialisation of French yé-yé music and stars. In particular, the aforementioned article features a criticism of excesses like the soap shaped as Halliday’s hand, which was seen as a potential threat to young women’s purity. Indeed, Italian society was starting to worry about the changing gender dynamics young people seemed to provoke. Their concern was not only with sexual emancipation, as was the case with the urlatori, but also with the blurring of the strict division between genders and gender roles that had characterised Italian society up until the post-war period. In other words, i giovani were not just presented as an identity in between childhood and adulthood, but they were also starting to be perceived as in between masculinity and femininity. In a 1963 article on singer Catherine Spaak, for example, she is described as follows: Catherine Spaak appare agli occhi dei suoi numerosi adepti come un’eroina della fronda minorile. Una ‘self made girl’ che fin dalla prima adolescenza ha combattuto contro i divieti familiari per farsi una posizione indipendente … Un altro aspetto del simbolismo di Catherine Spaak è legato all’emancipazione femminile rispetto a quella maschile. Siamo di fronte ad uno dei più importanti fenomeni del nostro tempo: l’affievolirsi dei caratteri che differenziano i due sessi. L’uomo da un lato attenua il suo accento mascolino, ambisce ad essere bello … ha pretese di eleganza, si raffina, si addolcisce, non disdegna la manicure. Da parte femminile notiamo [che] oggi le giovani si pettinano con le mani, camminano scalze, preferiscono i blue jeans agli abiti da cocktail, disprezzano il trucco … Catherine Spaak è l’incarnazione di questo tipo di gioventù … Le sue forme sono quasi più da efebo che da donna nel senso italiano … il gusto sta cambiando e Catherine lo incarna perfettamente, si sente a suo agio in una umanità comune dai caratteri sessuali sfumati. (L.S., 1963: 42–5)39

The article clearly expresses a preoccupation with the ‘blurred’ gender features of contemporary youth. Catherine Spaak is presented as an independent woman, and her independence is connected to a transformation in gender identities; men are appropriating traditionally female practices and women’s physicality is deemed not ‘womanly’, as it does not reflect traditional ideas of Italian femininity. Here, it is interesting to point out that these preoccupations over gender were projected onto a foreign singer, rather than onto Italian stars, like tomboy Rita Pavone. Chapter 2 shows

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that these preoccupations will increase with the emergence of the beat trend, when several Italian female stars with an androgynous physicality started to threaten traditional ideas about gender. This brief overview of the first issues of the magazine Ciao amici demonstrated that youth-oriented media had a fundamental role in the creation of a homogeneous community of i giovani in Italy in the early 1960s. The amici addressed in the magazine were inspired by foreign youth cultures, especially the French copains and yé-yé music. As such, they were defined by the consumption of goods, particularly those connected with live or recorded music. In this endeavour, young people were not only passive consumers; thanks to youth-oriented media, they were asked to actively influence the goods produced for them: consumption was thus redefined as an empowering practice. Two other aspects emerging from the analysis of Ciao amici which will be fundamental to the definition of the giovane identity in the second half of the 1960s are: the relationship with foreign youth cultures, which will become increasingly ambiguous, and the perception of i giovani as endangering the stereotypical division between genders in Italian society.

Conclusion The emergence of youth as a social subject went hand in hand with the development and increasing circulation of popular media in post-war Western societies. On the one hand, the media were fundamental in making young people into a transnational community of peers with common interests, values and problems. On the other hand, youth in the media became a projection of the ‘angoscia sociale, sessuale e politica provata da una generazione adulta’40 towards modernisation and the changes that Western societies underwent in this period (Capussotti, 2004: 21). This chapter has outlined how the emergence of youth-oriented popular media interacted with these two processes. In Italy, worry about an Americanised and allegedly delinquent youth was moderated through the figure of the urlatori. Representations of these young singers helped domesticate the perceived dangerousness of young people and the generational struggle happening in Italian society. From the early 1960s, youth-oriented media attempted to uncouple the image of ordinary youth from that of delinquent youth through the amici, a collective identity strongly defined by mass consumption and leisure activities. The construction of both the urlatori and the amici highlights several elements of Italian youth cultures that would become prevalent in the following decade, when youth-oriented media proliferated and became more integrated into a media ecosystem. First, this chapter has focused on the

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rather clear-cut distinction in media representations of ‘youth-as-trouble’ and ‘youth-as-fun’ in this period. Although the urlatori provided a domestication of the Italian teppisti for the Italian audience, their construction maintained some aspects that mirrored that of delinquent youth in the media. The construction of the amici as ‘youth-as-fun’ also functioned to diminish preoccupations with youth, but it was inextricably linked to young people as a category of consumers, and ultimately promoted young people’s consumption. Although the categories of ‘youth-as-trouble’ and ‘youth-asfun’ remained fundamental in the definition of i giovani in the following decade, representations became increasingly nuanced, and the perception of youth as dangerous shifted from the delinquent image of teppisti to the political youth that, from the early 1960s, started to participate in, and then to organise their own, demonstrations and protests. Second, the period from the late 1950s to the early 1960s was characterised by a gradual homogenisation of youth, that was facilitated by the emergence of youth-oriented magazines like Ciao amici. The urlatori were presented as a privileged group of Americanised young singers that had a strong influence over ordinary young people. The amici, instead, were a projection of the increasing desire to define youth as a category. While this definition worked in mainstream media by referring to other generations’, and particularly children’s, practices, Ciao amici presented i giovani as a homogeneous community of young people with no distinction in nationality, gender, class and ethnicity. This seemingly monolithic representation of i giovani will characterise the entire decade of the 1960s and will start to fragment at the beginning of the 1970s. In particular, two aspects emerging from Ciao amici will often return in this monograph: the transnational inspiration of the community of i giovani, and references to foreign youths as either positive or negative examples for their Italian peers, and the construction of i giovani as in between not only generations, but also genders, and the media’s many attempts to allay anxieties over changing gender roles and sexual emancipation in Italian society of the 1960s. With both the urlatori and the amici, style trends and bodily practices started to be elemental in depicting the differences between generations. The urlatori’s style was borrowed from the imaginary of American rock ’n’ roll culture, and functioned to distinguish these musical idols from other youths. The amici, instead, were invited to appropriate specific mass-produced garments to increase their sense of belonging to a community of peers. In 1965, youth-oriented magazines announced the ‘birth’ of giovane fashion: this declaration emphasises the increasing importance of style in the media construction of young people. This will be the object of the next chapter, dedicated to the emergence of the beat trend.

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Notes 1 (openness and resistance, optimism and fear, frequently, conflicting interests.) 2 (the most used label [for young people] is that of ‘lost youth’, followed by ‘wasted youth’: both referred to young men, of an undefined age, who were either delinquents or nonconformists.) 3 (discover today’s youth.) 4 On Gigliola Cinquetti, see Calanca (2008). Calanca analyses letters young fans wrote to Cinquetti, in order to understand Italian young people’s lifestyles, values and cultural models during the 1960s. 5 (let me experience a romantic love / while waiting for that day to come … but not today.) 6 (model of good behaviour.) 7 (the first music diva who was neither a woman, nor a child.) 8 (But one day I’ll follow you because / I’ve got doubts that don’t let me sleep / If I find out that you’re trying to cheat on me / I’ll go back to mum.) 9 (in Rita Pavone, for the first time, vis-á-vis an entire national community, puberty was becoming a spectacle, acquiring full rights in the encyclopaedia of eroticism.) 10 (young people with striped t-shirts.) 11 (films featuring male and female urlatori singers were innovative because they addressed the largest consumer group for music and film: young people.) 12 (the landing troop of Appio Claudio’s enemy army.) 13 (National Conference for the Rehabilitation of Youth.) 14 (to solve the problem of Teddy boys, let’s ban urlatori singers.) 15 (this music always makes me feel young … here, you too will feel young again!) 16 (all good boys.) 17 (boys wear blue jeans, pullovers and button-down shirts, checkered or horizontally striped t-shirts; girls wear blue jeans or black leggings, both very tight, and equally tight are their t-shirts; their hairstyles are mostly short.) 18 (the typical ‘animal without a cause’, the hero in blue jeans.) 19 (the cocktail party pet.) 20 (the kiss, the dance, the gesture.) 21 (eroticism and sexuality.) 22 (I like screamed music because I am deaf! Girls, you should scream, have fun!) 23 (speech on screaming.) 24 (Giolitti used to say that in our country the more someone screams, the more right they are. Did our fathers scream? … So then, scream your songs! Scream them so that everyone in Italy can hear!) 25 (unfortunately, today blue jeans are considered a left-wing symbol.) 26 (offer stereotyped smiles … no no no, it can’t be them … La Fogna became a trendy club, just like Fred wanted. Yes, they won. Even Adriano wears his worst enemy, the tuxedo.) 27 (in a period of widespread alarm about youth, [Musicarelli films] broadcast a reassuring message … Between 1957 and the beginning of the 1960s, mass

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media simultaneously sounded the alarm about the rebellious and unintelligible youth and its recuperation, presenting youth as a collective point of reference and as a social subject central to the new mass consumption.) 28 (youth condition.) 29 (the Musicarelli highlight a dissonance in the media system: while cinema and music were producing goods aimed exclusively at young people, only in 1963 did print media start producing magazines directed at young male and female readers.) 30 (Hi friends, sorry if I’m so informal addressing you with ‘tu’, but you all know this is what we do in our environment; besides, I don’t want to use the formal address for my own peers … I have to introduce you to Ciao amici, and it’s a very easy task: this is the magazine for you. I’m not being pretentious here, believe me, I say so because it’s also the magazine for me, made by us with your help … it was created because it didn’t exist in Italy, it was created because in France there is ‘Salut les copains’, in Germany ‘Bravo’, in England ‘The Melody Maker’ … a magazine for the amici, or the copains, as you like. We don’t know each other, this is true; nonetheless, we are friends, because we like the same things. Some of you like Rita Pavone, some like Mina or Françoise Hardy or Catherine Spaak; Celentano or … Morandi … but after all it is the same thing: we like good singers, good songs, the best performances … Please do write to me, I would be very happy if you would. And please write to your idols; they will reply to you either personally or in the magazine, and they welcome your advice, because it is you who listen to their songs, who buy their records; in other words, you are their best friends.) 31 (is it true that you feel like you are all friends, regardless of your nationality, your job, and your social status?) 32 (– I believe we are. Since our first meeting, we are on a first name basis. – It is true. Young people feel like they are friends even without knowing each other. – Yes, from fifteen to nineteen years old we are all similar and we know everything about each other. – Young people are united by the same interests and by the same problems.) 33 (every ‘Friend of Ciao amici’ will own one: they are a badge. Whoever owns the t-shirt is an amico. Indeed, these t-shirts will not be sold in shops. You will only be able to get one from Ciao amici.) 34 (Hi friends, just like France has the copains, so in Italy, finally, we have the amici. And the amici were born in a very precise time and place: Milan, Sports Hall, 11 April 1964. The occasion? The ceremony for the award of Ciao amici’s Golden Record. How, you wonder, can we be so precise? It’s very simple: this was the first time in which seven thousand people gathered, people with the same tastes, the same interests, who are the same age. Seven thousand people who speak the same language, have the same problems, the same aspirations. Indeed, seven thousand amici. It had never happened before.) 35 (Why, you wonder, does the magazine organise these gatherings? It is rather simple. Beyond the pleasure of meeting up … we want the recording industry to realise how strong and important the amici are in the popular music market.

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It is therefore necessary that we actively intervene … in the production of an industry that is so close to us.) 36 (Now the London police reports are not that alarming: after all, time has passed, it has scoured the groups, clubs, neighbourhoods. The Teddy boys’ heirs, today, either put adverts in magazines ‘to discuss the problems of their age group’, or are in jail … The British young people, be they students, workers, farmers, have a higher cultural level than the Europeans. Youths visiting [libraries] are the young people that we see dancing the twist and the hullygully in the Thames’ clubs, women are young and beautiful, they often wear pants and their hair tied back. They, too, probably, are direct heirs of yesterday’s Teddy boys.) 37 (74% of young people prefer their group of friends to their families. The concept of group … is fundamental in the new youth community.) 38 (the yé-yé songs … tell love stories, always with happy endings. Sometimes, they discuss the military service, bowling, the problem of Saturday night. There are less and less songs limited to a series of onomatopoeic sounds … The hundred thousand [records] is the measurement unit of the ‘yé-yé era’, that is upsetting the mind of ‘ancient’ French people and the shopping malls’ sales prospects.) 39 (Catherine Spaak seems to her fans as a she-hero of young people. A ‘self-made girl’ who since her early teenage years fought her family to become independent … Another aspect symbolised by Catherine Spaak is connected to female emancipation from men. We are facing one of the most important phenomena of our times: the features differentiating the two sexes are fading. Men, on the one hand, soften their masculine accent, and aim to be handsome … they want elegance, to become more refined, sweeter; they do not mind manicures. On the other hand, we see young women combing their hair with their hands, walking barefoot, preferring blue jeans to cocktail dresses, disdaining make-up … Catherine Spaak is the embodiment of this youth … Her curves are more similar to an ephebe than to a woman in the Italian sense … Beauty standards are changing, and Catherine embodies that perfectly, she feels at ease in a common humanity with blurred sexual features.) 40 (adult generation’s social, sexual and political anxieties.)

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2 Beats, 1965–67

From 1965, building on the success of early Musicarelli and the magazine Ciao amici, a proliferation of media aimed at an audience of young people took place in Italy: youth-oriented magazines and television programmes started to be increasingly published and broadcast, and the Musicarello genre became prevalent in Italian box-office sales (Bisoni, 2020: par. 2.177). The interconnection between these youth-oriented popular media enhanced the process of increasing definition and homogenisation of Italian giovani that had started at the beginning of the 1960s and was described in Chapter 1. This worked in particular through the growing success of several young stars, such as singers and actors Gianni Morandi, Rita Pavone, Caterina Caselli and Shel Shapiro, who became the representatives of i giovani both on-screen and in magazines. In addition, in this period magazines started to present style as a primary form of expression for i giovani, reflecting common values and behaviours, and as a main outlet for expressing opposition to adults. These aspects emerge in the wider discussion of the beat1 trend as it develops in this chapter. In the period 1965–67, beat was the umbrella term used to define anything related to i giovani: ‘Beat’ … was employed as an adjective and applied to anything new and supposedly young: ‘musica beat, disco beat, moda beat, ragazza beat, ballo beat’ (beat music, beat record, beat fashion, beat girl, beat dance). Furthermore, the term often overlapped with ‘beatnik’, and was accordingly connected to the Beat Generation. (Tomatis, 2014: 27)

Who were the beats? I consider three main definitions for this term as constructed in popular media. First, I address the countercultural meaning of beat, referring to the ‘beat di strada’,2 a social movement that developed in Milan and Rome during the mid-1960s (De Angelis, 1998). The first section of this chapter examines how the emerging Italian beat subculture was domesticated in media descriptions of the beat style, and introduces its main features. The section also discusses representations of i giovani in Musicarelli films, where the adoption of the beat style was often represented

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as a performance. Second, I consider the transnational meaning of beat, as in popular media this term referred both to English beat music and to the American beatnik movement. The second section investigates how youth-oriented media in Italy translated the foreign inspiration of the beats through ‘mirroring’ or ‘othering’ language and practices coming from other countries. The third aspect taken into consideration is the impact of the beat style in redefining young people’s standards of attractiveness: the last section of this chapter examines how elements of the beat style, such as long hair for young men and an androgynous appearance for young women, were stripped of their subversive connotations, namely gender ambiguity and sexual emancipation.

Beats and the ‘birth’ of the giovane style In his essay on the Italian beat movement, Roberto De Angelis underscores the distinction between the ‘beat che divenne costume, moda, musica di protesta e un beat “di strada”, che costituirà la prima vera rivolta giovanile’ (1998: 75).3 De Angelis describes the beat di strada as one of the first examples of Italian post-war youth rebellion, whose influence inspired the Italian Sessantotto movement. Popular media representations of young people domesticated the beat di strada through the construction of what De Angeli calls ‘beat mediatizzato’,4 which ‘rappresentava in maniera rassicurante i luoghi comuni sulla protesta giovanile definiti beat’ (1998: 75).5 This section discusses the main features of the beat mediatizzato in relation to style as they emerged in Italian popular media, and the main strategies through which the conflicts between the beats and adults were made to seem less threatening in representations of that generational struggle. A beat movement developed in Milan and Rome between 1965 and 1967, with substantial differences between the two contexts. In Milan, the beats were an organised group, meeting in a building called La cava (the Cave), where they also self-published an underground magazine, Mondo Beat (Beat World).6 The themes discussed in the magazine are summarised in its first editorial, which was also a manifesto: ‘basta con l’autorità, la famiglia, la repressione sessuale, l’economia di consumo, la guerra, i poliziotti, i preti, la cultura, i pedagoghi e i demagoghi’ (Mondo Beat cited in De Angelis, 1998: 76).7 Here we see how the group was inspired by the American beatnik movement’s main claims: a rebellion against consumerism, the promotion of sexual freedom and a critique of the family’s, the school’s and the Church’s authority.8 In 1967, the Milanese beats also set up a commune, which journalists derogatorily dubbed Barbonia (Trampland), that was soon after dismantled by the police. In contrast to the Milanese beats, the movement in

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Rome was less organised, and the group would meet in public spaces such as Piazza di Spagna, where young Italian and foreign beats used to organise sit-ins. In 1965, on multiple occasions, the police dispersed the gatherings there. The mainstream media repeatedly dismissed the Italian beats’ social activism; they were accused of merely promoting drug consumption and sexual misbehaviour (Castellani, 1998: 176). In contrast to mainstream media, which completely failed to speak to the beats, youth-oriented media took inspiration from these newly established Italian youth cultures. During the period 1965–67, they commonly used the word beat to refer to everything related to i giovani. Maurizio Vandelli, leader of the Italian beat band Equipe 84, recalled that in the early 1960s: Quella che oggi definiamo pop si chiamava musica beat. Ma con questo termine (in inglese significa ‘battere’) si parafrasavano cose o persone. Erano beat le magliette, le scarpe, le cravatte, i pantaloni. Chi si faceva crescere i capelli era considerato beat. (Vandelli, 1972: 40)9

Vandelli’s assessment highlights how the word ‘beat’ was used to define both music and fashion items. First, Vandelli refers to the beat, or bitt as Franco Fabbri defines it, musical genre (2014: 41). This specifically Italian music genre, inspired by the English beat scene, was characterised by the emergence of bands singing Italian covers of English songs. Second, the term beat was used to define commercial goods intended to appeal to a young audience. Advertising, for instance, made widespread use of the adjective ‘beat’: magazines sold ‘distintivi beat’10 and ‘anelli beat’11 (‘Nuovo stupendo pacco regalo!’, 1967: 3), or lipsticks ‘bikini beat’ (Cutex, 1966: 24). In youth-oriented popular culture, then, the term beat was applied to items of consumption, in contrast to the original anti-consumerist claims of the beat di strada. Vandelli’s quotation does not take into account the political meaning of the term beat; however, youth-oriented popular culture incorporated some of the political themes that the beats di strada were disseminating. In 1966, the magazine Ciao amici defined who its audience was: la parte migliore di noi. I giovani che cantano e ballano, quelli che impazziscono per i Beatles e quelli che lavorano e studiano, quelli che ci seguono tutte le settimane e che sono sempre stati in prima linea nelle nostre battaglie per la Zanzara, per l’integrazione razziale, per la pace, per la libertà di ogni individuo, sono dalla nostra parte. Libertà di parola e di pensiero, ma anche libertà di capigliatura, di calzoni, di minigonne, di canzoni, di chitarre, è il loro motto. (‘In prima linea’, 1966: 49)12

Unlike Ciao amici’s first editorial presented in Chapter 1, where amici were uniquely identified through reference to free-time activities, in the article above i giovani are characterised by a conflation of leisure and political

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aspects. They are presented as singing and dancing, listening to the Beatles, and wanting the freedom to wear trousers and miniskirts as they choose. At the same time, they are assumed to be interested in both international (the struggles for racial integration, for instance, which reference the American civil rights movement) and national social issues (such as La Zanzara case, which will be explained later in this chapter). In addition, several themes that were present in Mondo Beat’s editorial discussed above – namely anti-authoritarianism, sexual freedom and pacifism – are, in Ciao amici’s editorial, converted into a generalised desire for freedom both from the adults’ authority and to express oneself through consumer goods. Singer Rita Pavone adopts a very similar approach in describing young people’s, and her own, subjugation in an article that appeared in Big in 1965: No no, l’emancipazione dei giovani esiste solo in piccolissima parte, ma per quella maggiore non esiste. Guardate me: io sono libera solo … di cantare! Non posso firmare contratti, non posso votare, non posso andare a ballare da sola, non potrei sposarmi, se volessi, senza il consenso dei genitori, non posso andare all’estero senza l’autorizzazione, non posso, talvolta, vestirmi come mi piace … Insomma, una vera frana. (Pavone, 1965: 25)13

Pavone explains that although she is an international star, she still faces the same difficulties her readers face. Again, the narration combines requests for freedom in leisure-time activities with social issues, like acknowledging how legal restrictions underpin young people’s social limitations. These two quotations summarise the way in which the giovane identity was formulated in popular media in the period 1965–67: the beat mediatizzato turned the beats di strada’s anti-authoritarian claims into a general desire for freedom from adults. This freedom could be obtained through the consumption of youth-oriented commercial goods, particularly music and style, which could clearly differentiate the two generational groups. Style in particular emerged as a fundamental feature in the media construction of i giovani in 1965. In 1966, in an article summarising the achievements of i giovani in the previous year, the magazine Big celebrated the ‘birth’ of giovane fashion: Quest’anno … è nata la moda giovane. Fino a oggi esisteva, soprattutto da noi in Italia, una moda per bambini e una moda per adulti. Adesso i giovani hanno cominciato a scegliersi dei capi più pratici e comodi e meno costosi, forse un poco più vivaci magari di quelli di una volta … Un poco alla volta si è creato, forse procedendo a tentoni, uno stile. (‘Chi è senza miti scagli la prima pietra’, 1966: 10)14

Here, the term ‘birth’ implies that the giovane style was something completely new and not seen before. In this way, the article seems to suggest that i giovani are actively making their own space within a generational

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discourse that formerly recognised only adults and children. The participation of young people is presented as a fundamental aspect of the giovane fashion: young people are said to deliberately choose their own garments and create their own style. However, the ‘birth’ officiated by the magazine in the article is not the emergence of self-created young people’s fashion, but rather the emergence of a commercial, mass-produced and youth-oriented fashion. The media presented the giovane fashion’s large-scale production as a way of allowing every Italian young person to become giovane. For example, in 1966 Big launched the ‘Big Pipermarket’ initiative, enabling ‘i ragazzi e le ragazze che non vivono a Roma’15 to mail-order garments and accessories from the Pipermarket boutique in Rome, a boutique specialised in youth-oriented fashion (G.S., 1966: 44). In this way, young people living outside major cities could feel part of the ‘imagined community’ of young people, by buying and wearing the same products as those living in Rome. An essential feature of the giovane fashion, then, was its mass production, which paradoxically was said to allow the originality of the giovane style. An article that appeared in Big points out, with reference to young women from the U.S.S.R., how in this country ‘manca una produzione di massa … che consenta alle ragazze di essere carine e originali’ (Dessy, 1967a: 39).16​ In addition, magazines tended to suggest that the adoption of massproduced fashion items revealed a unity of thought: in other words, that i giovani wearing the same style also had the same ideals. A 1966 article appearing in Big claimed that ciò che ‘unisce’ i ragazzi di oggi è il loro particolare modo di vestire. Vedendosi vestiti alla ‘loro’ maniera, essi si riconoscono subito, capiscono di trovarsi in presenza di qualcuno che la pensa come loro e fraternizzano senza bisogno di convenevoli e presentazioni. (‘Chi è senza miti scagli la prima pietra’, 1966: 10)17

In the article, style is thus said to contribute to a sense of community. The values reflected in the giovane style are delineated, for example, in a 1967 advertisement for a fashion brand, appearing in Big: Se siete davvero giovani vestitevi così! … Se siete davvero di quelli che fanno quello che pensano, e vi va sia uno smoking a colori che un paio di pantaloni a vita bassissima, se vi fa orrore la cravatta del padre, e non avete complessi: questo è il vostro stile! (SanRemo, 1967:41)18

This advertisement highlights how, through their style, i giovani could express both the freedom to express themselves and their contrast to adults, represented here by the patriarchal image of the ‘father’.

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Figure 2.1  The ‘Big-Pipermarket’ initiative allowed young people from all over the country to receive youth-oriented fashion by mail.

Indeed, the main features of the giovane fashion tended to accentuate the difference between young people’s and adults’ appearance. For example, according to Big, in contrast to the clothes worn by adults, ‘tutti eguali nei colori e nelle linee … tristi e squallidi’ (‘Quello che si è detto’, 1966: 10),19 the beat fashion was colourful: ‘i nostri colori … sono decisamente il verde-pistacchio, l’arancione, il viola-melanzana, il giallo e il rosa’ (Fischer, 1966a: 36).20 Beat garments featured ‘colori violentissimi’ that ‘con i loro contrasti stridenti e dinamici, tipo illuminazione al neon nelle città di notte, esprimano tutta la nostra gioia di vivere’ (Fischer, 1966a: 37).21 This quote connects the brightness of garments with young people’s enthusiasm, therefore connoting the giovane style with the ability to say something about young people’s personality. Similarly, in an article from Ciao amici, a tailor asserts: ‘dimenticati di tutto quello che ti hanno insegnato in fatto di colori: come la foggia degli abiti anche i colori sono l’espressione di un modo di vedere la vita, di uno stato d’animo’ (Pencill, 1967: 60).22 The use of colours in beat fashion was also beneficial to avoid the anonymity of middle-class working city life, which was instead associated with adults. An article published in Ciao amici, which describes British youth fashion, explains how

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fino a ieri, si diceva che un uomo è veramente elegante quando può mettersi sotto la statua di Nelson, in Piccadilly Circus … senza che nessuno si accorga di lui. Oggi è tutto diverso. Gli uomini, i giovani soprattutto, sentono la necessità di distinguersi, di affiorare dall’anonimato cui l’affollamento delle grandi città ci condanna. (Pencill, 1967: 60)23

The quotation above seems to suggest a critique of the bourgeois way of life, which is uniquely associated with adults and their subdued style. The use of colour in beat fashion, instead, is said to allow young people to stand out and be seen. However, if bright colours conveyed the ideal of a free and joyful giovane, they also suggested a lack of social and economic power, as workwear and power have been historically associated with dark fabrics. John Harvey has analysed the ‘empowerment of black’ in fashion throughout modern history, by showing that in time this colour became increasingly connected with power and masculinity (1997: 10). For the first time, 1960s’ male giovane fashion appropriated a range of shades that went far beyond dark colours (Castellani, 2010: 38). By eschewing dark colours, i giovani were unable to wear appropriate business attire. The representation of young beats wearing bright colours, then, expressed the idea of young people only thinking about leisure, and not working or earning a living. Beat fashion did not only stand out with bright colours, it also conveyed meaning through written words: garments were frequently decorated with ‘slogans, cifre, sigle’ (Fischer, 1966a: 36).24 For example, badges with written messages became a trend: this fashion confirms the importance of style in visually displaying i giovani’s values, and reproduces the conflation between commercial and political that I retraced in Ciao amici’s 1966 editorial above. The messages were either in Italian, in English, or in made-up jargon, for example: ‘Fate l’amore, la guerra no’, ‘I am a genius’, ‘Vengo da Marte’, ‘balli?!’, ‘I love everybody’, ‘Ecquequà!’, ‘No’, ‘Si doomanii’ (Ecco i favolosi Pat-Beat, 1967: 66).25 Benedict Anderson highlights how language makes ‘imagined communities’ accessible to everyone, as by learning the language anyone can access the national community (2006: 146). Similarly, written decorations on clothing and badges helped to create and promote a new vocabulary for i giovani, and allowed every young person to become giovane by adopting it.​ English words were commonly used to label or describe not only i giovani’s consumption goods, but also their dances, stars, and values. However, journalist and Musicarelli director Piero Vivarelli claims that during the 1960s, ‘some English words were used without fully know[ing] their meaning’ (cited in Tomatis, 2014: 27). For example, an article in Big reports that the acronym VIP ‘significa “Very Important Person” … ma voi potete darle un altro qualsiasi significato; per esempio “Vivere In Pace”’ (Fischer, 1966b:

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Figure 2.2  The fashion trend of badges featuring written messages or depicting giovani stars.

35).26 English terms, far from being translated literally, mainly functioned to emphasise the incommunicability between i giovani and adults: in speaking different languages, the two groups were unable to communicate effectively. The same effect was produced by the inclusion in young people’s language of created jargon that could make sense only within the community of i giovani itself, such as geghegè, adapted from the title of a famous song sung by Rita Pavone (‘Il geghegè’, Canfora & Wertmüller, 1967).27 In

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an interview published in Giovani, Pavone tries to explain the meaning of this expression to the adult journalist:



– Ma cos’è, dunque, questo ‘geghe, geghe, geghe, gè’? – Uffa, ma non l’hai ancora capito? È un nostro modo di parlare, un modo di noi giovani. Uno ci chiede ‘Cosa fai oggi?’. Se non si sa esattamente cosa si fa, si risponde ‘geghe, geghe, geghe, gè’. Ecco tutto. – E il ‘rif’? – Il ‘rif’ vuol dire tutto: che si sta bene, che si è innamorati, che si ama la vita, che si ha voglia di cantare. Capito? (Liverani, 1966: 39)28

The quotation shows Pavone’s difficulties in communicating the meaning of certain words to people outside the community of i giovani, such as the journalist in this case. The singer explains the English-language derived word ‘rif’ – ‘riff’ becomes ‘rif’ here – as well as the made-up phrase ‘geghe, geghe, geghe, gè’. Interestingly, Pavone defines them in extremely vague terms: they can mean ‘everything’. This example, again, shows that this invented language was not meant to convey specific meanings, but rather to emphasise the difference between i giovani and adults. Popular media’s use of the giovane language can also be understood in consumerist terms: when this vocabulary was used in advertisements, i giovani could immediately connect the product to the giovane identity. This is why advertisements made substantial use of expressions that only had meaning for a younger audience. For example, the Aquiletta Bianchi becomes ‘una moda che spacca’ (Bianchi, 1966),29 the Amaro Ramazzotti is shortened in ‘vecchio Rama’ (Ramazzotti, 1966).30 In addition, terms used to describe youth cultures were employed to advertise youth-oriented products, as is the case with the moped ‘Ducati yé-yé’ (Ducati, 1966). The audience was also involved in creating slogans for adverts: for instance, in 1966, the cosmetic brand Miners launched a contest to choose a new slogan. The winner was Anna Santambrogio, from Agrate, Milan, as the advert tells us. Her slogan was: ‘la linea bomba per le ragazze in gamba’ (Miners, 1966).31 Here, again, the use of words such as bomba as an adjective and the phrase in gamba replicated the way young people spoke, which differed from previous advertising vernacular. The fashion brand Brick invented the verb ‘brickizzarvi’ to describe the act of young people selecting their clothes, which represented ‘libertà, colore, vita’ (Brick, 1967).32​ Style was not the only feature that distinguished i giovani from adults. As a young man affirmed in an interview about the meaning of being giovane, in fact, ‘sei giovane se ti muovi e balli, se canti e salti, se giochi, se ruzzoli’ (Luciano, 1967: 26).33 In contrast to traditional dances, which had strict routines, young people’s dancing was said to be characterised by a complete freedom of movement. An article describing the Shake, the most

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Figure 2.3  Youth-oriented advertisement: the moped ‘Ducati yé-yé’, colourful and ‘urlato’ (yelled).

popular dance at the time, explains that ‘[basta] incollare i piedi saldamente al terreno e poi, seguendo scrupolosamente il ritmo, muovere a volontà capo, busto, braccia, mani, anche, gambe’ to dance it (‘Come si balla oggi’, 1966: 43).34 Many Musicarelli films emphasise the involvement of various body parts in giovani dances: for example, the club featured in Rita la zanzara (Wertmüller, 1966) (Rita the Mosquito) is extremely dark; spotlights

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illuminate discrete body parts moving to the beat. The use of close-ups also emphasises a type of dancing that seems not to need any specific choreographed routine. Although young people’s dances were presented as spontaneous, they did not leave much room for improvisation, and were in fact as regimented as traditional dances. In television programmes and films, young stars explained the dances to the audience so they could do them, thereby including more young people in the ‘imagined community’ of youth. For example, the lyrics for Rita Pavone’s song ‘Il plip’ (Mantovani, Meccia & Migliacci, 1965), performed in the Musicarello Rita la figlia americana (Vivarelli, 1965) (Rita the American Daughter), explains how the dance of the same name is executed. The lyrics are as follows: ‘Tocca il pollice con il mignolo di quell’altra mano tua, poi col mignolo l’altro pollice e continua a far così. Con un tacco tocca l’altra punta della scarpa poi riporta l’altra punta l’altro tacco ritoccar’.35 By instructing the audience in the dance, popular media were also providing anyone with the opportunity to ‘become’ giovane, including adults, thus confirming that being giovane is not necessarily a matter of age. Indeed, in the Musicarello Non stuzzicate la zanzara (Wertmüller, 1967) (Do Not Tease the Mosquito), Rita Pavone teaches her mother in the film (Giulietta Masina) how to dance the Shake.36 The mother is presented as a hybrid character, adult in body but not in spirit, who is not hostile to her daughter like the father and three aunts who live with the family, whom Rita judges as boring. She admires her daughter’s secret career as a beat singer, and she enthusiastically accepts Rita’s offer to teach her how to dance. The mother tries to dance the Shake but at first she dances it following styles she is familiar with, like the Tango and the Charleston, and she justifies herself by saying ‘sono Matusa e non ballo yé-yé’.37 However, she eventually understands how to dance the Shake thanks to her daughter’s advice: ‘lasciati andare ed è subito shake’;38 ‘su dagli dentro con tutto il tuo beat’.39 Pavone seems to affirm that the shake is not made up of predefined moves, like traditional dances; rather, she claims that people have complete freedom of movement, and they only have to ‘follow the beat’. By literally teaching her mother how to become giovane while dancing, however, she demonstrates that young people’s dances had their own rules and regulations to follow.​ The dances performed by young people also tended to redefine gender relations, given that unlike more traditional dances, i giovani were said to not dance in couples. A 1966 article that appeared in Big explains why: Certo i giovani ballano ‘staccati’. ‘Non apprezzano nemmeno il piacere di stringersi tra loro’, si dice. Certo, perché il loro modo di ballare è fatto di amore per la musica, di ritmo, di movimento. È un lasciarsi trascinare, è uno sfogo e nello stesso tempo, e non è un paradosso, un relax. (‘Chi è senza miti scagli la prima pietra’, 1966: 10)40

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Figure 2.4  Rita teaching her mother how to dance the Shake in Non stuzzicate la zanzara (1967).

Young people’s dances included some couple dynamics, but dancing in couples did not presume romantic relationships. For example, in 1966 magazines featured advertisements for the Grab, a bracelet with a small heart that could be clasped to someone else’s Grab if a couple decided to dance together: ‘Il Grab è il distintivo della giovinezza, un mezzo visibile, per i giovani, di distinguersi dal mondo dei grandi. Inoltre, il fatto stesso di portare questo braccialetto e di agganciare due cuori rossi, rende possibile un’intesa immediata tra un ragazzo e una ragazza’ (R.S., 1966: 60).41 In 1966, the ‘Grab Decalogue’ was published in Ciao amici, and several rules emphasised the role of the Grab as ‘passport of friendship’: ‘4. Il “Grab” non è un feticcio da usare per conquistare un ragazzo, ma è solo il passaporto dell’amicizia … 9. Col “Grab” sono vietate le scene di gelosia. Se il vostro ragazzo vuol ballare con più ragazze, guardatevi dal rimproverarlo’ (R.S., 1966: 60).42 Interestingly, these commandments are directed at women, and therefore place them in an active role in the couple. However, young women in this dance are not supposed to be seductive: the Grab thus seems to discourage romantic relationships between young people and to maintain giovani women’s sexual innocence.43 Another significant aspect of media representations of beats is space, as from 1965 to 1967 clubs intended specifically for a giovane audience started to appear in Italian cities. The first of these clubs was the Piper, which opened in Rome in 1965. Soon after that, another Piper Club was created in Milan, and Coca-Cola, in an advertisement, offered a ‘guida al Piper Club di Milano’.44 Clubs were spaces where young people could meet and listen and dance to music, and most importantly were allegedly youthonly spaces. Rita Pavone wrote in Giovani in 1967: ‘sono stata al Piper Club, l’altra sera … Uno sfacelo. Nessun giovane, ma tutti “grandi”, tutti

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quarantenni. Non è una contraddizione, questa? Era o non era un locale fatto e inventato apposta per i giovani?’ (Pavone, 1967: 21).45 The fact that two years after its opening the Piper Club had become famous and was therefore also frequented by adults shocked the young singer, who in her statement reclaimed the club for i giovani. Interestingly, most visual representations of young people in film and television in 1965–67 are set in a club, or in a club-like space. The club was a recurrent setting in Musicarelli films, and it was often the space in which struggles between i giovani and adults started.46 Moreover, youthoriented television programmes tended to recreate a space where only i giovani were allowed. In the television show Diamoci del tu, hosted by Caterina Caselli and Giorgio Gaber, the space reserved for the audience becomes part of the stage itself, as the singers perform amongst the audience members. The stage is round and the audience sits around it: even though the camera moves around during the performances, a portion of the audience is always in shot. The opening theme, which is addressed to the audience, asserts: Salve amici, ciao ragazzi, forza dai, scendiamo in pista! Se ci dicon che siam pazzi, chi li sente, alé ragazzi! Qui siam tutti a casa nostra, qui parliamo solo noi, qui cantiamo solo noi, qui balliamo solo noi. Balleremo Shake, parleremo dei beat. (Diamoci del tu, episode 1, 27/03/1967)47

The lyrics of the opening theme song define the show as a space that is intended only for i giovani, on stage and at home. The 1965 programme Stasera Rita also reproduces the dynamics of a club in which i giovani can dance together, without the supervision of adults. In this depiction, the host, Rita Pavone, constantly dances with her corps de ballet, the Collettoni (big collars, masculine) and the Collettine (small collars, feminine), and adults (mostly comedians) are only allowed on the show to be ridiculed. Sometimes the spaces dedicated exclusively to i giovani were not enclosed, as is the case with Corso Europa in Milan, described in an article in the magazine Marie-Claire Giovani: Quella strada, dove ci riuniamo, si chiama Corso Europa, ma ormai tutti la indicano come la ‘via dei giovani’ perché è il luogo fisso dei nostri quotidiani appuntamenti … il posto insomma dove possiamo stare insieme per parlare liberamente dei nostri problemi, e anche per divertirci … Qui in Corso Europa ci sono i ‘nostri locali’: il Copacabana, che funziona tutto il giorno … il Paip’s dove andiamo di solito alla sera a ballare … Nella nostra via di giovani ce ne sono sempre. A qualsiasi ora ci andiamo troviamo sempre qualcuno con cui fare quattro chiacchiere e uno shake. (Bonazzoli, 1966: 8)48

Although a public space, Corso Europa is described in the article as the place where every activity constructive to the community of i giovani, such

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as dancing, listening to music and talking about their problems, can be carried out. The media’s strategy of constantly representing i giovani in a dedicated space signals a discriminatory attitude towards the space occupied by young people in Italian society. The limitation of i giovani’s freedom to leisure activities, such as music and style, and the spatial constraint to specific places, such as clubs, functioned to reduce the subversive potential of the beats. While the beats were free to express their opposition to adults in dedicated spaces such as clubs, young people occupying central squares of Italian cities, like the beats meeting in Piazza di Spagna, became ‘space invaders’, to borrow the term used by Nirmal Puwar to describe women and racialised minorities who occupy political and social spaces from which they have been historically or conceptually excluded (2004). In other words, when the beats expressed their difference to adults in public spaces, such as the beats di strada, they were critiqued by the media, because they were occupying a communal space not designated specifically for them.49 Conversely, the beats were free to express their difference in spaces designed for them. De Angelis observes that the manager of the Piper Club often ‘permetteva, nel ‘66, l’entrata gratuita al proletariato giovanile di piazza di Spagna per fare colore, dato il loro abbigliamento’ (1998: 82)50: even the beats di strada could be accepted if they entered the space of the club. The mediatisation of the beat style thus trivialised and undercut the beat di strada’s original claims. In sum, in the period 1965–67 style became a vehicle for young people not only to distinguish themselves from adults, but also to gather as a collective identity. The media presented style as an expression of i giovani’s values, circulated a new language that only i giovani could understand and popularised youth-only spaces where i giovani could meet. This process contributed to the homogenisation of Italian youth and influenced its evolution throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Moreover, by creating an alternate version of the Italian beat, that was overtly commercial and connected to leisure-time activities, popular media were neutralising a potentially troubling identity like the beats in the conservative context of Italian society of the 1960s. Another strategy of popular media for reducing the beat style’s subversive potential was to present its adoption as a performance. In order to understand the relevance of this strategy, we need to first distinguish between the meaning of ‘performative’ and that of ‘performance’ when talking about identities. In this book, the giovane identity is understood as performative, as it was constructed through the reiteration of several practices in popular media. However, since the formulation of the concept of performativity, Judith Butler has insisted on distinguishing it from theatrical performance

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(Salih, 2002: 10–11).51 According to Butler, performativity does not presuppose that a subject will consciously ‘perform’ a certain gender identity. There are occasions, however, where gender can be consciously performed, often in a parodic way. For example, in drag ‘the disjunction between the body of the performer and the gender that is being performed … effectively reveal[s] the imitative nature of all gender identities’ (Salih, 2002: 65). In other words, for Butler, the performance of gender identity is not only possible, but it can also be potentially subversive: the act of drag, which disrupts the fictional unity between sex and gender, reveals how gender is performative in its ‘imitative structure’ (1999: 175). However, a self-conscious performance of gender identity is not inherently subversive: for example, some examples of cross-dressing in popular culture do not function to reveal the inner fictionality of gender identities, but rather reinforce the gender divide (Butler, 1999: 176–7). I apply Butler’s theory to interrogate the meanings behind what I see as the parodic representation of ‘becoming’ beat as a performance, both on-stage and off-stage, which can be found in popular media, and especially in Musicarelli films. In most of the Musicarelli films produced during the period 1965–67, the audience directly assists in the (young) characters’ act of ‘becoming’ giovane – a process in which the characters adopt a colourful, eccentric, beat style, as detailed earlier. This recurrent strategy shows the importance of style in the construction of the giovane identity, and it emphasises the difference between being young and being giovane. However, it also suggests a certain tendency in popular media to present the giovane identity as fictional, because it was based on the act of costuming. Wearing a costume can also be seen as a leisure activity, thus reinforcing the idea of i giovani being disengaged. In viewing disguise as ‘a discursive strategy – one that indicates the degree of identification with, or distance from, certain social performances one enacts’ (Tseëlon, 2001: 153), it is possible to identify different meanings within Musicarelli films’ representation of becoming giovane. First, the use of disguise indicates that the giovane identity was not based on age, as youthoriented style could be appropriated by adults too. For instance, in Rita la figlia americana, Italian actor Antonio de Curtis (Totò) plays Rita Pavone’s stepfather, an unsuccessful orchestra conductor who hates modern music. At the end of the film, he understands that he can become popular by turning into a beat musician. To win over the crowd, he dons a wig and a giovane outfit, and thanks to this disguise, he is accepted by i giovani in the club. The adoption of a giovane style, in Totò’s case, makes him become giovane, as if his disguise were enough to express his belonging to the community of i giovani. The same parodic performance is used to show the transition from being young to being giovane. In Io non protesto, io amo (Baldi, 1967) (I Do Not

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Demonstrate, I Love), Caterina (Caselli) is a young teacher who is experimenting with new teaching methods: she performs songs to teach her students history. Her antagonist is an impoverished count who cannot stand the young teacher’s innovative methods. Everything changes when, in conversation with an Italian-American cousin, the count understands that giovane music is profitable, and so he devises a plan, together with Caterina, to introduce her as a beat singer to his cousin so that she can be hired by his recording label and they can both become rich. To pass as beat, she literally dresses up. We see her completely changing her style by wearing a leather jacket and trousers, riding a motorcycle, and speaking in an Italianised English: ‘You American? I Italian. Just moment.’ For Caselli too, it seems enough to adopt a specific style to become giovane. Both examples present the giovane identity as commercially profitable, in that both Totò’s and Caselli’s characters decide to become giovani to be successful in the music industry, and to do so, they use mass-produced goods, such as wigs and garments. In the representation of Toto’s and Caselli’s becoming giovani, then, commercial products play a substantial role both in influencing the transformation of the main character and in allowing this transformation. The use of performance reveals the significant role of the industry in the process of becoming giovane, and the adoption of commercial products is presented as inescapable for young people to become part of the ‘imagined community’ of youth.​ The industry’s substantial role in defining the giovane identity is also evident in the film L’immensità (De Fina, 1967) (Immensity). In this film, Dario (Don Backy)52 is a young classical music player and is in love with Monica (Giunj Marchesi), who loves beat music and wears beat fashion. Dario and Monica continuously fight about their differences; nonetheless, they love each other. At the end of the film, Dario decides to become a beat singer, but before doing so, he goes into a shop to buy clothes that will make him appear giovane. Again, style is connected to music, as it shows that, to be successful, young musicians have to become beats. Moreover, for Dario, adopting a beat style is also for personal reasons, as he has to conform to the standards of giovane male attractiveness in order to continue to be with his girlfriend. The representation of becoming beat as a performance in Musicarelli films thus reveals the performative construction of youth: it is possible to ‘become’ giovane by appropriating commercial and youthoriented styles, regardless of people’s actual age. Conforming to i giovani’s style standards was significant for young people to be recognised by the community of their peers, and to have romantic relationships or friendships. A similar attitude in presenting the giovane identity as the result of a performance can be found in accounts of giovani stars’ public and private lives in teen magazines. For example, in an interview published in Big, the female

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Figure 2.5  Caterina Caselli becoming a beat singer by adopting a giovane style in Io non protesto, io amo (1967). In the first screenshot, she sings to her students; in the second screenshot, she performs with her beat band.

members of Rita Pavone’s corps de ballet, the Collettine, seem to make a distinction between their role as performers on television and their ‘real’ life: Le ‘collettine’ e i ‘collettoni’ hanno, invece, imparato [a ballare] da soli: con i quattro salti in famiglia, le festicciole da ballo in casa di amici e, solo per qualcuno, il Piper … ‘Ci piace divertirci un po’ … ma non è detto che stiamo tutto il giorno a pensare al ballo. Andiamo qualche volta al Piper, ma poi non tanto … Per il resto siamo ragazze normali, pensiamo al lavoro, alla famiglia … E, alla fine, se troviamo un ragazzo sincero che ci vuole veramente bene, creda a me, mettiamo da parte quella maschera di cinismo e di folle spregiudicatezza, e ce lo sposiamo di corsa. (‘Dietro le quinte di Studio Uno: il colpaccio di Rita’, 1966: 29)53

Here, the Collettine present their on-screen selves as a disguise: even if they seem giovani on TV, when they are off-stage they do not perform giovani

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rituals, such as going to the Piper Club. Moreover, they declare themselves ready to abandon their giovane identity, to ‘grow up’, by following the traditional societal norms for women, such as getting married. In emphasising the difference between on-stage and off-stage behaviour, then, their statement suggests that the giovane identity is not only easily appropriated, but also easily abandoned. Butler notes that the display of subversive identities is perceived differently on- and off-stage. As an example, she refers to the presence of a cross-dresser on a theatrical stage, or sitting next to us on a bus. She claims that, while the audience can ‘de-realize’, and thus more easily accept, the theatrical act, when the same act is performed on the streets, or on a bus, it is perceived as more dangerous for the audience because ‘there are no theatrical conventions to delimit the purely imaginary character of the act’ (1988: 527). Similarly, the fact that this interview restricted the Collettine’s giovane identity to on-stage performances seems to reduce the potential dangerousness of young people’s difference by de-realising it. Conversely, magazines presented ordinary young people’s act of disguising off-stage as an empowering practice. For example, an article in Big describes young women from Palermo dressing up as giovani every time they go to a club: Le ragazze palermitane arrivano all’Open Gate, quartier generale della gioventù beat locale, con le minigonne nascoste nella borsetta. Poi, nel guardaroba del ritrovo, le indossano, trasformandosi in perfette ‘piperine’. Sono costrette a questa clandestinità, perché l’opinione pubblica non accetta ancora la moda giovane, ormai in voga in tutto il mondo. Qui i capelloni portano la parrucca. Le minigonne viaggiano in borsetta. (Pietrucci, 1966: 9)54

According to the magazine, disguising oneself as giovane becomes a political act in the conservative context of southern Italy. The article in which this quote appears is entitled ‘I carbonari dello Shake’ and compares southern giovani to the Carbonari, the members of the secret society Carboneria, which, during the nineteenth century, promoted the idea of a united Italy. Thus, just like the Carbonari were secretly fighting for the unification of Italy, i giovani are said to secretly adopt the beat style to defend their freedom to be giovani. The use of disguises like wigs and miniskirts is said to be particularly subversive in southern cities, where young people’s difference is still not accepted by society (‘Risponde il direttore’, 1967a: 3). However, the significance of this ‘political’ act is still reduced, given that it happens in the safe space of the club, where the beat style is permitted. In the period 1965–67, the media construction of the giovane identity was influenced by the increasing circulation of commercial goods specifically aimed at young people. These goods were often named after the beat

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trend, and were said to distinguish i giovani from adults and to give them more freedom. Moreover, the adoption of a distinctive style was presented as unavoidable to belong to the community of i giovani, and was said to express young people’s joy and happiness. The frequent representation of becoming giovane as a disguise in Musicarelli films and magazines, however, tended to circumscribe the emerging visibility of Italian young people to onstage performances. This limitation gave the giovane identity an allure of fictionality, which was beneficial in dispelling anxieties regarding the potential ‘difference’ of Italian youth.

Translating the beat: ‘mirroring’ and ‘othering’ Arthur Marwick defines the ‘High Sixties’ (1964–69) as the era of the ‘British Invasion’ of the United States, France and Italy (2011: par. 3.309). According to Marwick, during the mid-1960s, British pop music (and most notably the Beatles) and fashion (the miniskirt invented by Mary Quant) became two global icons for young people. The following letter from a young woman writing to the editor of Big illustrates how youth cultures coming from other Western countries became a model for Italian young people: Caro Direttore, sono una ragazza 18enne ultramoderna, frequento il primo anno dell’università, mi pettino come Sandie Shaw, mi vesto Courrèges, porto quattro anelli alle dita, adoro George Harrison e so ballare lo Shake come pochi altri. Sono giunta ad una conclusione: noi italiani siamo degli arretrati. Ciò dipende innanzitutto dalla mentalità gretta e conservatrice dell’italiano medio … Io che sono abbonata ai giornali inglesi americani tedeschi e francesi so bene che in quelle nazioni la ‘beat generation’ detta legge e le vecchie generazioni si piegano volentieri alle sue regole che rappresentano il futuro, il progresso … Ma perché non ci svegliamo ragazzi, perché non ci scrolliamo di dosso quella patina di polvere e di muffa accumulatasi sui nostri padri e trasferitasi su di noi e che invece a partire da vent’anni fa i nostri coetanei degli altri paesi hanno già spolverato via? (‘Risponde il direttore’, 1966a: 3)55

The young woman here describes her giovane identity by referring uniquely to foreign goods and stars. In her words, foreign countries model emancipation for Italian giovani. For the author of this letter, identification with foreign cultures makes her both veer away from and criticise the backwardness of Italian society. From 1965, youth-oriented popular media increasingly featured discussions about foreign countries and cultures, as represented by the letter above, and capitalised on young people’s growing passion for the foreign: the magazine Big, for instance, started to organise trips to London for its readers

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(‘Viaggiate Big! Tutti a Londra’, 1966: 12–13). For those who could not afford to travel abroad, these media became the instrument through which young people could get information on foreign trends, especially music and fashion. However, the British style, language and music needed translation before being used by Italian popular media, as most Italian young people did not speak English and did not have direct experience of the atmosphere of ‘Swinging London’. The word ‘translation’ here not only refers to language but also to the translation of cultural practices, music and fashion. Popular media presented the trends coming from abroad in a way that could be intelligible to an Italian audience; at the same time, this translation work had normative potential that could be used to create a distinction between Italian and foreign young people. According to Lawrence Venuti, translation is a cultural practice that does not merely consist of a linguistic conversion, but also involves a ‘creative reproduction of values’ (1998: 1). When working on a text, the translator makes discursive choices which can reproduce, or contrast, stereotypical views about the ‘Other’. In other words, translators construct foreign cultural identities in their work, and they can contribute to either naturalising or opposing ideas about a foreign culture. The reproduction of stereotypes is often a result of the ‘rewriting [of] the foreign text in domestic cultural terms’ (Venuti, 1998: 82): by associating foreign concepts with ideas that are familiar to the domestic audience, translators often risk losing the original meaning. Venuti’s remarks are useful when applied to the popular media appropriation of foreign cultures, as media descriptions of the foreign ‘Other’ were based on the definition of ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ models. The popular media construction of the beat style in Italy was largely dependent upon two very distinct foreign models: on the one hand, the British beat musical scene and ‘Swinging London’ fashion described above; on the other hand, the artistic and social movement of the American beatniks, which was the inspiration for the beat di strada and for similar protest movements that emerged in Europe during the 1960s. Like in the period 1958–64, in 1965–67 youth-oriented popular media offered their audience an almost literal translation of foreign cultural trends. This strategy of translation recalls Venuti’s definition of the process of ‘mirroring’, namely the appropriation of a foreign text in which the reader recognises domestic values (1998: 76). Youth-oriented media constructed an ‘Italian version’ of, for example, British trends, through which Italian young people could feel part of a global process while still consuming Italian commercial products. A simultaneous process, however, tended to ‘other’ aspects that were considered ‘dangerous’ for Italian youth, such as ‘gender bending’ and political participation. The ‘othering’ of certain

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features of foreign youth cultures established a set of behaviours that were not to be appropriated by the Italian young audience. Indeed, Venuti underlines that ‘translations … position readers in domestic intelligibilities that are also ideological positions, ensembles of values, beliefs, and representations’ (1998: 78). This section examines in detail the strategies of ‘mirroring’ and ‘othering’ in the popular media translation of foreign beats in the period 1965–67. The ‘British Invasion’ followed the enormous success of the Beatles and the worldwide tour that brought the ‘Fab Four’ to Italy in March 1966. The Beatles and their music played a substantial role in the media construction of i giovani. Marwick points out that ‘BIG … presented the Beatles as the symbol of the struggle of young people against the older generation’ (2011: par. 10.31). Not only did the British band have many young Italian fans, but, as Fabbri points out, the success of the Beatles’ hits on the Italian record market in 1963–64 influenced the formation of the first Italian beat complessi (2014: 41–56).56 The Italian beat music scene, in fact, was populated by many more bands than individual singers (who were, however, the main visible representatives of i giovani in mainstream media such as television and cinema). By literally being a group, the complessi clearly fit into the common conception of the young as a community. The idea of a homogeneous community was also rendered through the trend (borrowed from the Beatles, too) that required every member of a band to dress alike: ‘the public image of the bands … offered a social model of participation and friendship: band members wore the same outfits, shared the same microphone, did everything together and supported each other’ (Tomatis, 2014: 32). A few bands composed of foreign young people were extremely successful in Italy during this period. Fabbri highlights how these British bands’ careers ‘took place almost exclusively in Italy, and all their songs (with very few exceptions) were sung in Italian’ (2014: 42). The success of the Motowns and, most notably, the Rokes was not only in their foreign-ness, but also in the way in which they symbolised an Italian imitation of British bands. The case of the Rokes is particularly interesting: the band, formed by Shel Shapiro, Bobby Poster, Johnny Charlton and Mike Shepstone, started their career in Italy in 1963 (Della Casa & Manera, 2011: 104). This is how, some years later, the band’s arrival in Italy was described in the magazine Giovani: Il 12 maggio 1963 alle dodici in punto l’Orient Express entrò sferragliando alla stazione di Milano. Da una carrozza di seconda classe scesero uno dopo l’altro quattro ragazzi, quattro giovani inglesi con i capelli lunghi, i calzoni a tubo di stufa, gli stivaletti con il mezzo tacco. Quattro eccentrici sconosciuti che la gente si fermò a guardare a bocca aperta come se si trattasse di marziani. (Isa Bella, 1967: 24)57

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The article goes on to introduce the band, but this depiction of four young men, with long hair and a giovane style, arriving at Milan station, could easily be the preface to an article on the Beatles. Moreover, the use of the term marziano in the quotation tends to emphasise the foreign-ness of the Rokes. The Rokes’ style was clearly inspired by the ‘Fab Four’; thus, when Ciao amici published an interview with the Beatles’ tailor in 1967, the photographs in the article were of the Rokes, even if the Rokes are only mentioned in the subtitle and final section. The tailor in fact is said to dress both bands (Pencill, 1967: 57; ‘Tutti dal sarto dei Beatles!’, 1967: 34–45).​ The Rokes’ association with the Beatles was not only thanks to their similar style, but also to some distinctive practices that contributed to the celebrity of the British band. For example, ‘[the Rokes’] rivalry with Equipe 84 provided Italian audiences with the kind of spice that also propelled the careers of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones’ (Fabbri, 2014: 52). The Rokes’ Italian success was in part due to their manager, Teddy Reno, who was also Rita Pavone’s manager, and who turned them into film and television personalities. They were featured in television advertisements for Algida ice-creams and participated in the Musicarello Rita la figlia americana. Their trademark, Fabbri notes, was the ‘mixture of British look and Italian sound’ (2014: 52); on the one hand, the Rokes looked like the Beatles, but on the other hand, they spoke and performed almost exclusively in Italian, with a strong British accent. Just like the Italian dubbing of Laurel

Figure 2.6  British band the Rokes’ association with the Beatles: here, the band is depicted in an article discussing the Beatles’ tailor.

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and Hardy sketches, in which the English accent with the Italian language works as a comic device, the Rokes’ anglicised way of speaking Italian was used to produce a comic effect. Comedy here functioned not only to ‘Italianise’ the Rokes, but also to minimise the band’s potential ‘Otherness’. The Rokes represented the Italian version of the Beatles, and a blend of Italian and British cultures: they portrayed the British style, but at the same time they used the Italian language that was understandable to the audience. A similar popular media appropriation occurred with British fashion. In youth-oriented magazines, Italian giovane fashion was said to be ‘di diretta derivazione anglosassone, come la musica … La teen-ager è nata proprio con la valorizzazione della moda giovane, importata dall’Inghilterra. Lo stile francese e, peggio ancora, quello italiano, sono roba “out”, da femmine sopra ai venti’ (D’Amico, 1967: 39).58 It was London that ‘stabilisce la lunghezza delle gonne e delle chiome mascoline della “beat generation”’ (Lo Pinto, 1966b: 26).59 However, when British fashion was imported to Italy, there was a tendency to ‘Italianise’ it: to explain this point, the case of the twinning of Carnaby Street in London with Via Margutta in Rome in 1966 is particularly significant. Via Margutta, situated just off Piazza del Popolo in Rome, was supposed to become the Italian Carnaby Street, when Mary Quant and other British designers decided to open their shops here. The commercial enterprise was accompanied by an extensive media advertising campaign that presented this operation as a cultural twinning, and as a step towards the modernisation of Italian society. Soon after the declaration of the ‘twinning’ of the two streets, a point of order was raised by two Democrazia Cristiana members of parliament, for whom the creation of a space for young people right in the centre of the capital was problematic. The parliamentary debate was discussed in an article that appeared in Big, in which it was explained how the two politicians, concludendo l’interrogazione, chiedono di sapere se ‘non si reputi utile, anche da un punto di vista di costume e di ordine pubblico, che via Margutta e le zone adiacenti evitino di trasformarsi in un permanente luogo di incontro tra gli appassionati di una moda discutibile, ecc., ecc., ecc.’. La nobile mozione termina con i soliti attacchi contro la moda che piace ai giovani e con i soliti appelli al buon costume, alla pubblica quiete e via discorrendo. (‘Sveglia, ragazzi! Onorevole ci dica: come ci dobbiamo vestire?’, 1967: 5)60

In the article, the journalist seems to support Italian young people’s appropriation of foreign youth cultures as a form of self-expression, against the politicians’ attitude of saving Italian youth from other countries’ influences. Concurrently, there were magazine articles promoting the creation of a specifically Italian giovane fashion. An article in Ciao amici written in

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collaboration with the Italian fashion brand Valstar endorsed a made-inItaly giovane fashion: Basta con l’imbottimento del cervello a suon di op[tical], pop, beat, tutta roba che viene dall’estero, per un certo tipo di fisico che magari è tutto l’opposto del nostro! Una moda giovane, italiana, dettata dai giovani, questo è quanto abbiamo deciso di darvi e per questo abbiamo bisogno della vostra collaborazione. (Renata, 1966: 49)61

The article had a promotional function; however, it also signals a nationalistic narrative that, although not prevalent in teen magazines, recalls the Fascist imperative to ‘dress Italianly’ (De Grazia, 1992: 225). One of the aims established by the Fascist regime during the 1930s was the complete economic autonomy of the Italian state: to achieve this, the regime promoted the purchase of Italian products, including fashion. Women’s magazines discouraged their readership from adopting foreign trends, and emphasised one’s moral duty to buy Italian fashion. However, this strategy only worked on the surface, as Italian fashion houses continued taking inspiration from French fashion and reproducing similar outfits to those presented on the Parisian catwalks (Gnoli, 2005: 89). Similarly, even if the beat fashion was dependent on British models, magazines sometimes introduced a hidden narrative that insisted on the prevalence of Italian fashion over other European countries. This narrative is sustained in the quotation above through discourses such as the physical difference between Italian and British bodies. Moreover, in the same article, in summarising the results of a survey, the article points out how Italian young people: 5. … giudica negativamente la moda beat, le minigonne e gli eccessi in genere. 6. Il popolo più elegante è l’italiano, vengono poi gli inglesi, i francesi. È opinione comune che gli americani vestano in modo orribile. (Renata, 1966: 50)62

A supposed superiority of Italian citizens with regard to elegance is underlined here, and this notion of elegance clearly does not include the beat fashion, which is judged as ‘excessive’ by Italian youth, the article claims. The presence of this narrative shows how, despite the generalised presentation of i giovani as a transnational community, where inspirations from other countries were recognised as forms of identification for Italian giovani, some boundaries were drawn between Italian and foreign fashion trends. The permanence of autarchic discourses, celebrating the quality of the ‘Italian product’ over products coming from other countries, also reflects the longevity

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of Fascist-reminiscent discourses on the supposed supremacy of the Italian population over racial and national ‘Others’, which celebrated the moderation of Italian style against foreign excesses. The contradictory position on beat fashion outlined earlier shows how some aspects of foreign cultures were not easily appropriated in Italian youth-oriented media: British-inspired commercial fashion was accepted by magazines, but a distinctively Italian giovane fashion was still desirable. Nonetheless, British beat music and fashion were easily ‘mirrored’ in Italian culture because they emphasised the leisure aspect of youth cultures: popular media translated them to promote an Italian youth culture based on consumer goods. Other aspects, such as the politicisation of youth and the androgyny promoted by the beat style, were not as easily accepted in Italy. In popular media, these two aspects were distanced from Italian giovani by uniquely associating them with foreign youth. In other words, in translating these attitudes, popular media operated an ‘othering’, in which foreign young people were accused of promoting bad behaviour and influencing Italian giovani. Youth-oriented magazines often structured articles concerning foreign news in the form of reportage. For example, an article that appeared in Big defines a trip to London as the ‘caccia al beat’ (‘Londra: caccia al Beat’, 1965: 48),63 recalling the language used in ethnographic and anthropologic accounts. The aim of the reporters’ trips was to describe the latest foreign trends to the Italian audience. Using this approach, journalists positioned themselves outside of the scene, describing an ‘alien’ world made up of the most eclectic styles, where young women’s style appeared ‘marziano: gonne cortissime sopra il ginocchio, e non solo di sera’ (Boncompagni, 1966: 13)64 and young men had long hair or wore wigs: ‘fa fortuna di questi tempi un negozio che vende parrucche con capelli lunghissimi per uomo’ (‘Londra: caccia al Beat’, 1965: 50).65 The geographical and cultural distance expressed in reportages functioned to externalise specific aspects that were not easily absorbable into Italian culture and project them exclusively into foreign youth.​ For example, youth-oriented magazines disassociated their Italian audience from fashion trends that implied ‘gender bending’. The British ‘unisex’ style overturned traditionally gendered looks, for example by establishing long hair for young men and short hair for young women, and thus challenged the division between ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ style. In other words, ‘lo stile androgino [della metà degli anni Sessanta] propone[va] non tanto una donna vestita da uomo o un uomo poco virile, ma l’immagine di un giovane che gioca con il suo doppio: i ragazzi e le ragazze si inseguono nel paradigma dell’assimilazione’ (Castellani, 2010: 38).66 British young

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Figure 2.7  Journalist Gianni Boncompagni’s first reportage from London.

women were described as follows in a reportage from London that appeared in Big in 1965: hanno lo stesso stile, nell’abbigliamento e nei capelli, dei loro ragazzi … Entrando in una delle solite cantine adattate a ritrovo dei giovani londinesi sono rimasto meravigliato nel vedere con quanta difficoltà, nella penombra del locale, era difficile distinguere i maschi dalle femmine. (‘Londra: caccia al Beat’, 1965: 52)67

The journalist’s ‘surprise’ is not necessarily a judgement on the androgynous British style: the way in which British young people are presented, in fact, seems to reinforce the idea of a homogeneous community of young people, rather than discussing the potential gender trouble contained in this image. Two years later, Big announced that even in Italy ‘ragazzi e ragazze vestiranno tutti con lo stesso stile’,68 celebrating ‘l’era del mono-sesso’:69 ‘questo infatti è il momento … dello stile androgino, dei pantaloni per ragazze, di camicie di velo fiorito per i ragazzi, di robette asessuate nate da un dialogo puro, eclettico, privo di orchestrazioni, fatto di giovani ambosesso che vivono la stessa vita’ (Lo Pinto, 1966a: 32–3).70 Thus, magazines tended to describe unisex fashion positively, when it reaffirmed the homogeneous construction of i giovani. However, the unisex features of the giovane style were presented in a way that did not call gender roles into question. When this happened, magazines tended to disapprove of the gender role reversal a unisex style implied:

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No, no e poi no, mille volte no. No a quel sarto parigino che ha pensato di cambiare l’ordine dei fattori mandando in giro due creature, un uomo e una donna, lei con i pantaloni, lui con la sottana … Mi chiedo … dove può portare un simile eccesso … Non voglio che la mia ragazza passi domani da mia madre per domandare la mia mano. (Fulvio, 1966: 46)71

Interestingly, in this quote, the redefinition of gender roles is projected upon the foreign ‘Other’ (a Parisian tailor), distancing Italian giovani from these potentially subversive discourses and quelling anxiety at home. The same ‘foreignising’ attitude can be found when the term beat was equated with the beatnik subculture. In magazine reportages, beatniks living in the United Kingdom were described as vagabonds and criminals: essi si spostano, in bande, arrestandosi dove capita, accampandosi … in edifici diroccati fino a quando non vengono cacciati. Vivono di espedienti … come l’elemosinare, il ricattare, il rubacchiare e qualsiasi altra cosa … Lungi da una nobile esistenza bohémienne di ribellione e di stenti, il beatnikismo è una squallida vergogna. (Cianfanelli, 1966: 28)72

The beatniks’ lifestyle is described as a sequence of criminal offences, and the journalist questions the social and political commitment of the beatniks, by saying that behind their claims stands delinquency. Beatniks are also seen as having no work ethic. In the same article, a former beatnik tells a Ciao amici journalist: Mi sono trovato un impiego statale … Con i beatniks non ha funzionato. Stare sempre nell’ozio, con la sola protesta sociale come programma, non dava senso alla mia vita. Niente rimpianti ora. Mi accorgo però che ho perso un sacco di tempo. (Cianfanelli, 1966: 29)73

In the quotation, the young man’s new job is presented as a positive change from his previous lifestyle. The journalist’s endorsement of the young man’s new life seems particularly striking, especially if one considers that the construction of the Italian beat was based on practices referring to leisure activities. This example shows the contradictory media construction of the beats in popular culture: young people’s disengagement was celebrated insofar as it promoted young people’s consumption, but it was dismissed if it was the sign of a rebellion against modern capitalist society. The constant representation of the ‘beatnik’ as a foreigner is particularly significant, given the Italian beat di strada movements. Even during social and political demonstrations in Italy, youth-oriented media often still represented young people’s engagement as a foreign phenomenon, to perpetuate the representation of Italian giovani as more reassuring and disengaged. For example, when a journalist described the beats occupying Piazza di Spagna74 in Rome in an article for Big, he declared himself to be:

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Fashioning Italian youth preoccupato nel constatare la facilità con cui i primi beatniks hanno fatto seguaci tra i ragazzetti e le ragazzette del nostro paese che scappano da casa per unirsi a loro, votandosi all’accattonaggio in nome di una protesta, di cui non sanno dare neppure una spiegazione plausibile. (Steni, 1965: 53)75

The beatniks are defined as foreigners who negatively influence Italian young people and encourage them, for example, to run away from home – a practice that, according to teen magazines, was particularly common amongst Italian youth. In the article, a line is drawn between foreign and Italian young people demonstrating in the square: for example, a caption reminds readers that ‘l’italiano si distingue sempre per l’eleganza. Questo vale anche per i “capelloni” nostrani, che mostrano un abbigliamento più decente e un contegno meno anticonformista’ (Steni, 1965: 52).76 Furthermore, the reference to the body and, in particular, to the decency and cleanliness of bodies, can be seen as aiming to further differentiate Italian beats from foreign young people and to affirm a supposed superiority of Italians: ‘una cosa va detta di noi italiani: ribellione o no, ci laviamo il collo tutti i giorni’ (Pagani, 1966: 32).77 The advice for Italian young people, then, was to be careful about coopting potentially dangerous lifestyles coming from abroad. This narrative is also evident in the song ‘Serenata’ (Beretta, Del Prete & Celentano, 1966) (Serenade), sung by Don Backy in the film l’Immensità: Signori capelloni questa serenata voglio a voi cantar / smettete la polemica e fate qualche cosa per favor / la gente che vi guarda per le strade pensa solamente che / le vostre idee son corte quanto lunghe son le vostre chiome, ahimè / … cercate di creare qualche stile che nessuno ha fatto già / vedrete che sarete ancora i primi come nell’antichità / Inglesi, Francesi, Normanni, ci han dato qualcosa / capelli d’Italia, la musica è nata da noi / … smettiamo di seguire quelle impronte che non sono adatte a noi / tagliatevi i capelli e da seguaci diverrete primi voi.78

The song underscores the negative influence of foreign countries by reproducing a narrative of superiority that refers back to the Roman Empire (indeed, the lyrics refer to ‘antiquity’). By mentioning this narrative, ‘Serenata’ suggests that if Italian giovani stop imitating other countries’ peers and get a haircut, their nation can again be a leader. References to the foreign in Italian youth-oriented media during the period 1965–67 were often contradictory. It seems, however, that both the strategy of ‘mirroring’ foreign cultures and that of ‘othering’ some aspects of them served to differentiate Italian giovani from foreign young people. This distinction can be seen as reproducing nationalistic discourses that were circulating in Italian society not only during the Fascist period, but also after the Second World War. Moreover, these two strategies signal how

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Western anglophone countries were both viewed as a model of modernity and used as a negative example for young people. The foreignisation of the beatniks shows how Italian young people’s political and social activism was problematic for Italian society and therefore foreignised in popular media. Moreover, the ‘othering’ of the unisex style’s troubling implications, especially those suggesting a reversal or modification of gender roles, confirmed the societal anxieties that circulated around i giovani’s gender identity. The next section will further discuss and problematise discourses about unisex appearance and the appropriation of subversive gender features in the giovane style.

Capelloni and androgynous young women In the mid-1960s, two elements in particular became representative of new attitudes towards sexuality and gender for young people: long hair for young men and the emergence of discussions about young women’s sexuality. Long hair was fundamental to the male beat style, to the point where the word capellone became a synonym for ‘young man’ in this period.79 However, the male appropriation of a traditionally feminine beauty feature such as long hair problematised representations of giovani masculinities in popular media. In this period, moreover, discourses around young women’s sexuality started to emerge in youth-oriented media. From 1965 on, current affairs, namely the Franca Viola story in Sicily and the La Zanzara case in Milan, brought young women’s attitudes towards sexuality to the attention of mainstream media.80 At the same time, the miniskirt trend, in which a greater portion of women’s legs was visible, was said to increase the sexual attractiveness of young women. Whilst magazines encouraged long hairstyles for men and miniskirts for women, and defended those young people who were discriminated against for adopting them, discourses around these trends seem to suggest a cautious approach to female sexual liberation and to changes in the media construction of giovani masculinities and femininities in this period. During the period 1965–67, the adoption of long hair for young men was undoubtedly one of the features that contributed to a change in Italian male beauty standards. Indeed, in this period, ‘i capelli maschili diventano liberi, non irreggimentati dalla brillantina o da oli, tenuti in ordine ma più liberi rispetto al decennio precedente’ (Castellani, 2010: 40).81 The previous section has shown how, in 1965, popular media connected the capelloni to the beatniks, thereby criticising long hair as a sign of untidiness. However, while in mainstream media the nickname capellone mainly referred to politically active young people, in youth-oriented media this term was

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depoliticised and became one of the names with which giovani men were commonly defined. Indeed, from 1966 on, this hairstyle trend was increasingly adopted by Italian youth, being popularised by international (the Beatles) and Italian music stars. In the film Cuore matto (Corbucci, 1967) (Crazy Heart), for example, singer Little Tony (the stage name of Antonio Ciacci) performs for an audience composed solely of women who constantly wink at him, saying ‘quanto è bello con quel ciuffo!’.82 The quiff, celebrated in the song ‘Il ragazzo col ciuffo’ (The Boy with the Quiff), was Little Tony’s trademark: ‘Mi han detto che ti piacciono i ragazzi col ciuffo / … ed io mi sono fatto crescere i capelli / per farmi guardare da te’ (Cassia, Ciacci & Minardi, 1962).83 Little Tony was known to the Italian audience for being the Italian equivalent of Elvis Presley: his hairstyle, recalling that of Presley, became a sign of attractiveness, which was flaunted and constantly remarked upon in films and television appearances. Long hairstyles thus circulated in teen magazines and were popularised by young men, to the point that an article in Big in 1967 declared that ‘il “bello” di oggi è l’uomo che fino a ieri era considerato … brutto’,84 and awarded the Rokes’ singer Shel Shapiro, with his long hair, ‘il più bello del mondo’85 (Paola, 1967b: 42). Most importantly, for most young men, long hair became an essential part of their giovane identity. For example, French singer Michel Polnareff, who was often featured in Italian magazines at the time, confirmed the importance of hair as an expression of identity by saying that without his long hair ‘avrei l’impressione di essere nudo’ (‘Il capello in crisi-Michel Polnareff diventerà calvo?’, 1967: 44).86 However, young men’s long hairstyles clashed with some of the obligations many young people were subjected to and which required short hairstyles, such as compulsory military service. For example, in a letter to the editor of Big a former capellone declared that his long hair was a fundamental part of his way of being giovane: Caro Marcello, sono un ragazzo che ha da poco compiuto i vent’anni. Il mio stato d’animo è a terra: a casa ero un piccolo idolo, le ragazze mi venivano appresso a frotte, ma come per incanto la mia vita è cambiata. Mi hanno tagliato i capelli e ho un senso d’inferiorità che non riesco neppure a descriverti. Ti prego, aiuta tutti gli ex capelloni sotto le armi. Fai un appello a tutte le ragazze d’Italia che ci tengano più in considerazione. Un’altra cosa … ho sentito dire che vendono parrucche alla Beatles. Come fare per procurarmene un paio? (‘Risponde il direttore’, 1966b: 3)87

In the letter, the young man doing his military service feels inferior for not being able to express his giovane identity through his hair any more. He also uses the magazine to address young women on this matter and ask for their understanding and consideration: the suggestion shows the insecurity of the

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young man towards women who are here connoted as actively choosing their partner.88 Other letters also testified to the unhappiness haircuts caused: Ero felice, sino a pochi giorni fa. Ma alcune persone a cui non andava a genio la mia zazzera lunga, mi hanno insultato e a viva forza hanno reciso la mia bella chioma. Non mi crederai, ma in me si è verificato questo: ho perso la felicità. Soffro di un complesso inspiegabile e non sopporto più la compagnia di nessuno e tantomeno la mia ragazza. Io le voglio bene ma non desidero che mi veda finché non mi ricrescerà la cara chioma. (Paola, 1967a: 10)89

In both the above letters, long hair becomes an element on which the power of adults, represented by the army or an undefined crowd, subordinates i giovani, and mirrors the power structure in which young people were subjected to adult authority. Moreover, both letters show that former capelloni were preoccupied with being seen by other giovani without a long hairstyle. The Sardinian young man in the letter above cannot stand the idea of his girlfriend or his friends seeing him without his long hair; indeed, he feels insecure, to the point that he declares he has lost his ‘happiness’. Not only has the young man lost his attractiveness, but he has also lost an element of identification with, and of belonging to, the community of i giovani. The letter above also introduces a recurrent topic that appeared in many letters written to youth-oriented magazines, namely street attacks by the police, or by an undefined crowd, during which the capelloni’s hair was cut off for no apparent reason.90 There were two main meanings ascribed to long hairstyles that created anxieties in Italian society: first, the capelloni’s identification with the political, and mainly foreign, beatniks, and second, these hairstyles’ potential threat to the definition of Italian masculinities and maleness. Young people themselves tended to dismiss adults’ critiques of the unmasculine nature, or effeminacy, of their hairstyle. For example, the members of the Renegades, a British band who participated in the Sanremo Festival in 1966, used Big to specify that come da certificato di nascita risulta che il nostro solista KIM BROWN è nato a Birmingham il 2 maggio 1945 e secondo gli accertamenti del chirurgo, dell’assistente e di un paio di infermiere, è risultato di sesso maschile … Questo per chiarire sempre ad alcuni i seri dubbi che avevano circa il sesso di Kim. Cose da pazzi! Domandatelo alle amiche di Kim se è uomo o donna e ne sentirete delle belle. (‘Renegades: siamo uomini, ci laviamo’, 1966: 12)91

The arrogant display of masculinity in this quotation, and especially the machismo expressed in the final comment, shows that young people were ill at ease with accusations of homosexuality made by journalists. Although long hair was, in the mid-1960s, a fundamental part of the giovane male

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identity, popular media representations tended to downplay its subversive connotations and reaffirm a normative image of male heterosexuality. Starting in 1967, young people began questioning the long hair trend, and in letters written to magazines, debated the extent to which long hair was still an emancipatory symbol. In their letters to the editor section, Big hosted a debate between those young people who, given that long hair had become fashionable, wondered whether it was time for young men to cut their hair and start to enter into dialogue with adults, and those who thought that long hair continued to have political connotations and giving it up would be proof that it was only just a trend (‘Risponde il direttore’, 1967b: 3–4). The debate demonstrates that young people were conscious of the commercialisation of politically motivated style choices, and interested in discussing its effects. This debate anticipates the increasing politicisation of young people’s style in the period from late 1967 to 1970. Alongside the figure of the capelloni, other, more reassuring images of male giovani were constructed in popular media, in the guise of young stars. Gene Guglielmi, a young Italian singer and television personality, played the role of the capellone in the television quiz show Giochi in famiglia (Moretti, 1966–67) (Family Games), hosted by Mike Bongiorno. Despite being a capellone, he was said to be accepted by his entire family: ‘mamma è d’accordo, babbo lo stesso, la nonna dice che a lui i capelli lunghi donano, “e poi se li tiene bene, li lava tre volte alla settimana”’ (Ardini, 1966: 64).92 Despite his long hair, in this article Guglielmi is introduced by his relatives: the generational struggle here is completely absent. Moreover, Guglielmi’s cleanliness is emphasised, reproducing the stereotype of Italian capelloni as cleaner and more elegant than foreign beatniks. The construction of the acceptable capellone, as represented by Gene Guglielmi, shows the attempts to recoup the potentially subversive image of i capelloni, especially in family-oriented television programmes that were watched by both a young and an adult audience. Most notably, singer and actor Gianni Morandi represents the compromise between i giovani and adults in the period 1965–67. Unlike the capelloni and members of the complessi, Morandi did not have long hair, nor did he wear colourful clothing. Moreover, both his Musicarelli film roles and the off-stage accounts of his life relayed by magazines created a consistent image of the ‘boy next door’, who never contradicted adults and was accepted by them in return. This effect was also enhanced by the fact that in Morandi’s Musicarelli trilogy, Non son degno di te (Fizzarotti, 1964) (I Don’t Deserve You), In ginocchio da te (Fizzarotti, 1965) (Kneeling by You) and Se non avessi più te (Fizzarotti, 1965) (If I Lose You), Morandi’s partner was played by his actual fiancée, Laura Efrikian, whom he married in 1966, a love story that was widely recounted by teen magazines. Morandi’s character in

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the trilogy, Gianni Traimonti, is a young man who moves from the Emilia Romagna countryside to Naples for his compulsory military service. His love of music is what defines his being giovane; however, his provincialism dictates attachment to traditions, namely respect for family roles and the value of marriage. Morandi’s star persona seems to contradict most of the features of the beats, especially those that constructed il giovane in opposition to adults. However, in popular media, he is identified as a representative for i giovani, like his foreign and more subversive peers. His presence in Italian youth-oriented media shows that, despite an apparently homogeneous construction, images of i giovani were actually diverse, with some tending to domesticate youth with a more reassuring representation. Morandi’s celebrity also highlights how the construction of i giovani in these popular media still aimed to give a normative representation of young people which could please not only young people, but also their parents. During the 1960s, young people also started to question and then challenge traditional notions of morality on a global scale in their desire to overcome the ‘chaos of unknowing’ that surrounded everything relating to sex (Weeks, 2007: 58). From 1965 on, Italian youth-oriented magazines in the form of both articles and readers’ letters to the editor relayed increasing requests for sex education in schools and displayed new attitudes towards premarital and teenage sexuality. However, discourses around young people’s sexuality tended to exclude young women. In other words, in the 1960s ‘sexual liberation … was somewhat too much of a male monopoly’ (Marwick, 2011: par. 10.17). For example, although Gianni Morandi was the ‘boy next door’ in Italian popular media, in the film In ginocchio da te he is represented as cheating on his girlfriend by having a three-day love affair with another woman while on a trip. His affair does not damage his reputation as a good young man as he is ultimately forgiven by his girlfriend, and although she disapproves of his behaviour, she does not completely condemn it. The idea of young men having premarital sex was not a moral problem in Italian society. The same sexual freedom did not extend to young women, who were expected to be monogamous and to maintain their virginity until their wedding day. By the mid-1960s, two events had put the sexuality of Italian young women at the forefront of media interest. In 1965, Franca Viola’s story signalled a change in the unquestioning acceptance of traditional norms of female respectability in Italian society. Franca Viola was a young Sicilian woman who, after being kidnapped and raped by her ex-boyfriend, had refused the matrimonio riparatore93 and reported him to the police (Crainz, 2003: 186). One year later, in February 1966, Parini high school in Milan published a report in their school magazine, La Zanzara, called ‘Cosa pensano le ragazze d’oggi?’.94 This survey concerned the role of women in contemporary society

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and demonstrated that young female students were approving of premarital sex and birth control. Following this report’s publication, several Catholic associations decided to sue its editors, because the survey was, in their opinion, an ‘offesa recata alla sensibilità e al costume morale comune’.95 The editors were eventually acquitted, but the case engendered considerable debate in magazines and television programmes about the taboo of sex and different generational perspectives on it (Crainz, 2003: 205–6). The discussion around these two cases signalled a change in Italian young women’s attitudes towards sexuality in the mid-1960s: as Alessandra Castellani points out, in La Zanzara sexuality was discussed from the point of view of young women who, up until that point, had never been interrogated on matters concerning sex (1998: 172). Similarly, not only did the case of Franca Viola represent a rebellion against traditional mores, but it also opened up the possibility for women to have more than one sexual partner in their lifetime. That said, Italian young women in mid-1960s Italy were far from sexually emancipated. The documentary Comizi d’amore (Pasolini, 1965)96 (Speeches on Love) interrogated how sex as a topic was perceived in different areas of the peninsula, and by people of different social backgrounds. This is clear from the names of the sections into which the film is divided, for example: ‘Comizi sulle spiagge milanesi o il sesso come hobby’97 and ‘Comizi sulle spiagge meridionali o il sesso come onore’.98 While in the larger cities of the north, and in the upper social classes, female sexual emancipation was more accepted, the documentary shows that in the south female sexuality was still experienced, and discussed, as illegitimate. In these cases, female sexuality was socially not permitted outside of marriage, and families still controlled relationships between unmarried women and potential male partners. Meanwhile, female beauty standards were also changing during the 1960s: media representations show the absence ‘of some of the exterior and behavioural indicators of the Mediterranean woman’, such as the curvy body shape of the maggiorate (Gundle, 2007: 179). During the 1960s, Italian popular media portrayed multiple female beauty standards: even if the ‘maternal and consolatory’ image of the Italian woman, reminiscent of Fascist ideals, persisted, a giovane femininity started appearing (Gundle, 2007: 171). This new standard was inspired by foreign models: the popularity in Italy of Twiggy (Grissino) and Jean Shrimpton (Gamberetto) signalled the emergence of a new type of youth and fashion-oriented beauty that was associated with the swinging London … The ubiquity on billboards and in media of slim young women with a Northern European air heralded a decisive shift in canons of beauty. (Gundle, 2007: 179)

The new standards envisaged an androgynous woman, slender with short hair; these features contrasted sharply with what were previously considered to be sexually appealing feminine features in Italy, such as long hair

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and curvy bodies. Youth-oriented popular media domesticated the image of giovani beat women by constructing young female stars, like Rita Pavone and Caterina Caselli, that could embody the new standards of female beauty, without referring to sexual emancipation. These two singers were extremely popular with both the adult and the young audience, because of (and despite) their British-inspired androgynous style. Chapter 1 discussed how Rita Pavone’s star persona was constructed in the early 1960s mostly by referring to children’s practices, like playing, and appearances, like an emphasis on her pubescent and androgynous physique. The emergence of the beat trend in 1965 clearly impacted Pavone’s star persona: for example, in my analysis of Pavone’s participation in the Saturday night show Studio uno, I argue that the most noticeable change in Pavone’s persona from her appearances in the 1962–63 series of Studio Uno to Studio Uno 1966 is … her style … It does not recall children’s fashion as in 1963, but it is characterised by low-heeled boots and optical miniskirts … Pavone’s costumes tended to stress the absence of curves and the singer’s thin physique. Moreover, her androgynous appearance was accentuated by a short haircut and the apparent absence of make-up. (Brioni, 2017: 422)

Despite a change in fashion, her previous role as rascal Gian Burrasca influenced the casting decisions for her most popular Musicarelli films in this period, which still referred to childhood: in Rita la zanzara and the sequel Non stuzzicate la zanzara, Pavone plays an undisciplined schoolgirl. Paolo (Giancarlo Giannini), Rita’s music teacher and lover in both films, repeatedly tells her ‘Non fare la bambina!’99 The plot of Rita la zanzara is particularly useful to illustrate the domestication of female sexuality in Italian popular media. The film title clearly refers to the La Zanzara case: in the film, however, the school magazine, also called La Zanzara, which is written by Rita and her colleagues, talks about beauty secrets, such as night beauty masks, instead of dealing with sexual liberation. The film, then, refers to La Zanzara, but there is no reference to the actual current news, and every reference to female sexuality removed.100 Pavone’s thin physique, which had facilitated her identification with a child in 1962–63, in this period was mostly connected with androgyny. The singer’s adoption of a unisex beat fashion made her appearance even more distanced from standards of traditional Italian femininity; for example, in the magazine Giovani, she declares that: Sono convinta che la moda Courrèges sia l’unica portabile. Detesto i vestiti da donna: i vestiti Courrèges non sono vestiti che ti fanno sentire addobbata. Sono abiti funzionali, divertenti, comodi, nuovi. (Pavone, 1966: 25)101

By saying that she hates women’s fashion, Pavone here seems to declare her discomfort towards what is expected from women’s appearance in Italy:

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indeed, she likes foreign fashion, like the French fashion designer Courrèges. Some magazines also pointed out that women’s outfits did not suit Pavone’s androgynous body: Quelle sue pellicce costose e piuttosto eleganti mal si addicono a quel faccino giovanile e sbarazzino. Piace invece quando si veste per uscire a comprare le sigarette al padre: camicie americane con bottoni e pantaloni a zampa di elefante, che lei indossa volentieri, perché la rendono più disinvolta. (Modugno, 1967: 34)102

Youth-oriented magazines too seemed to identify Pavone’s ‘true’ self with an androgynous style, made up of shirts and trousers. The indeterminacy of Pavone’s gender identity that emerges from descriptions of her style is also represented in Musicarelli films through the use of disguise. Throughout the film Rita la zanzara, Rita constantly wonders what kind of woman Paolo would like, and expresses her inadequacy in conforming to traditional beauty standards by daydreaming of being disguised as female icons like Marilyn Monroe, Carmen Miranda and Mina, again questioning her own femininity. Just like the strategy of representing becoming giovane as a performance outlined before, here the fact that Pavone dreams of being a woman and the act of dressing up as such emphasises this representation’s fictionality: ‘la cornice del sogno, letterale o a occhi aperti, è un espediente per combinare in un impossibile altrove la sensualità che la protagonista potrebbe incarnare … L’esibizione di una marcata femminilità finisce per esserne una presa di distanza’ (Toschi, 2011: 82).103 Moreover, the popular media construction of Pavone as an androgynous giovane, and the frequent references to childlike behaviours in her representation, distanced her star persona from an active sexuality. Although Pavone is represented as having romantic affairs, any form of physical contact with men is erased in her Musicarelli films. For example, unlike with other couples in Musicarelli films, the audience never actually sees Rita Pavone kissing her partners. In Rita la figlia americana, when Pavone is kissing her boyfriend Fabrizio (Fabrizio Carli), the camera moves away from their faces to film the couple’s feet. Again, in Rita la zanzara, when Paolo and Rita kiss at the end of the film, the camera quickly moves away from the couple ending in a long shot. At the beginning of the sequel Non stuzzicate la zanzara, Paolo and Rita hide their kissing faces with an umbrella, and the audience does not see them kiss until the end of the film. Italian giovani stars such as Pavone appropriated the androgynous beauty standards coming from the United Kingdom; however, the ambiguous gender identity suggested by these fashion trends inhibited these young stars’ representation as romantic and sexual partners.​

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Figure 2.8  Rita Pavone’s concealed sexuality: Rita and Paolo’s kiss behind the umbrella.

Singer Caterina Caselli also represented a challenge to traditional standards of Italian femininity and at the same time a negation of giovane female sexuality. Her most famous songs from the period 1965–67 depicted her as an independent, sexually emancipated giovane. In ‘L’uomo d’oro’ (Guatelli, Panzeri & Pace, 1966) (The Golden Man) she declares her freedom to choose her partner, and the possibility of having more than one relationship: ‘quell’uomo d’oro forse sei tu, ma non so / Mi guardo un poco in giro e poi ti dirò’.104 The famous ‘Nessuno mi può giudicare’ (Beretta, Del Prete, Pace & Panzeri, 1966) (No One Can Judge Me) is an admission of infidelity: ‘la verità ti fa male, lo sai / Nessuno mi può giudicare nemmeno

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tu / … Se sono tornata a te, ti basta sapere che / ho visto la differenza tra lui e te ed ho scelto te’.105 Popular media connected Caselli’s independence with a masculinisation of her persona: ‘the blonde Caterina Caselli … was a tomboy who broke all the accepted canons of femininity’ (Gundle, 2007: 178). Caselli’s unique hairstyle, a short blonde bob (often a wig) that inspired her nickname Casco d’oro (Golden Helmet), had an androgynous allure and became her trademark. It was not only Caselli’s tomboy style that contributed to her perceived masculinisation, as her career in the music industry also helped her identification with traditionally masculine roles. In an era in which female singers were mainly soloists, and bands were mainly male, Caterina performed with a complesso, called Gli amici (The Friends). Moreover, Caselli was a musician and played the bass. In this way, she distanced herself from the divas of the Italian canzone like Mina, Ornella Vanoni and Rita Pavone, who only performed songs, and entered the masculine world of musicians and bands. Indeed, an article appeared in Big underlined that ‘una ragazza che sa suonare la chitarra elettrica e la batteria, fa sempre un certo effetto’ (Caterina Caselli sotto esame, 1967: 35).106 Caselli’s gender blurring was also confirmed by the absence of ‘private’ love stories in magazines. Giachetti explains how il cruccio dei giornalisti … è che non riescono a trovarle un fidanzato. Sono insistenti con lei, probabilmente perché è donna, più che con i giovani cantanti uomini … Lei si difende dicendo che è troppo impegnata col lavoro per coltivare relazioni affettive serie, che vadano oltre la semplice e intensa amicizia cameratesca. (2006: 83)107

The military term cameratesco usually refers to relationships exclusively between men, reinforcing Caselli’s construction as part of the young men’s group, and suggesting a possible anxiety on the part of the journalists over her sexuality. Caselli’s subversive representation, however, was domesticated in popular media by referring to her style as inauthentic. For example, an article that appeared in Big discusses the singer’s style by saying that ‘i suoi capelli, per qualità e colore, sono di gran lunga migliori delle parrucche che si ostina a portare. Il vero casco d’oro è il suo … Gli altri, i posticci, dovrebbe usarli solo quando esce di casa per andare a far compere’ (Caterina Caselli sotto Esame, 1967: 33).108 This critique also applied to her manner of performance, and the way in which she moved her body: Solo da poco tempo ha smesso di roteare le mani in quella assurda e ridicola gesticolazione dello shake stilizzato. Questa sembrava una mossa studiata, a regìa … Ora non sa più che farsene delle mani … tanto che spesso, con queste, esprime tutto il contrario di quello che dice cantando. (Caterina Caselli sotto Esame, 1967: 34)109

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By denouncing the artificiality of Caselli’s body movements and style, magazines deemed her masculine style to be fictional, along with her posture of independence. In this way, the media nullified the potential preoccupation expressed by Caselli’s androgynous persona. Moreover, the singer’s performing self was said to contrast with her ‘private’ self, which was grounded in her rural origins: ‘il suo volto è genuino e forte come i prodotti della terra dove è nata. La sua vera bellezza sono i suoi vent’anni, la spensieratezza, l’entusiasmo, la voglia di vivere e la semplicità esteriore’ (Caterina Caselli sotto Esame, 1967: 34).110 In this quotation, references to the genuineness of the countryside, and to the beauty and enthusiasm of young people, recall the Fascist myth of youth, embodied by the Fascist songs ‘Giovinezza’ (Manni, Oxilia & Blanc, n.d.) (Youth) and ‘Reginella campagnola’ (Bruno and Di Lazzaro, 1938) (Countryside Queen).111 Caterina-tomboy, in contrast, is often defined by magazines as: Caterina è bella? Non so. È simpatica, questo si … Comunque è molto alta. Glielo dico. ‘Alta si, ma non basta. Voglio essere magrissima. Dimagrirò. Adoro Françoise Hardy soprattutto perché è magrissima, perché è tutta Courrèges. Se fossi un uomo, me la sposerei’, e giù in una fragorosa risata. (Isa Bella, 1966a: 46)112

This quotation again plays with Caselli’s masculinisation. Caselli is defined as fun, rather than beautiful, thus implying that her appearance makes her not so attractive to men. Moreover, she declares that if she were a man, she would marry Françoise Hardy; a statement which hints at the singer’s possible homosexuality. The construction of Caselli’s femininity also impacts her role as a sentimental and sexual partner in Musicarelli films; her alternative femininity seems to prevent the singer from having romantic relationships. In the two Musicarelli films starring Caselli as a main character, Nessuno mi può giudicare (Fizzarotti, 1966) (No One Can Judge Me) and Perdono (Fizzarotti, 1966) (Forgive Me), she does not play the protagonist of the love story, which is atypical for a Musicarello. Indeed, Caterina’s characters are more interested in pursuing a music career than in falling in love. In both films, the romantic story involves Caselli’s co-star, Laura Efrikian, who features in many Musicarelli films.113 Although Efrikian was a young actress, none of her characters possessed giovani features: they did not listen to music, never danced (except for slow dances) and did not dress in giovane style. Moreover, as in Perdono, her characters always followed their parents’ advice and dreamt of getting married and having children. Efrikian therefore represented a more respectable idea of femininity, which matched with the respectable masculinity embodied by her partner at that time, Gianni

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Morandi. In Perdono Caterina has an affair with Federico (Fabrizio Moroni), Laura’s fiancé, but it seems the affair is only there to justify the song that gives the film its name (‘Perdono’) which is about forgiving an affair. Indeed, the affair ends very quickly, when Federico reunites with Laura, choosing her over Caterina. For her part, Caterina does not seem interested in love and relationships, and when she is, she is passed over for a more reassuring feminine character. The media construction of subversive femininities such as those embodied by Pavone and Caselli well exemplifies the media domestication of giovane female sexuality in this period. Caselli and Pavone embraced, in their appearance and music production, the foreign-inspired standards of attractiveness which promoted an androgynous style and a greater sexual emancipation. Youth-oriented media tended to represent Pavone using references to childhood and to emphasise Caselli’s ‘masculine’ traits, in this way displaying anxieties about these singers’ purity and heterosexuality. Caselli’s and Pavone’s gender and sexual indeterminacy were recuperated in both Musicarelli films and in magazine’s accounts of their ‘private’ lives by erasing any sexual aspect in the two singers’ characters, and by separating these singers’ star persona and their ‘true’ self. These strategies functioned to both preserve these young women’s respectability and dispel anxieties connected with potential homosexuality. Media descriptions of the miniskirt as a sexually emancipatory garment also reveal Italian popular media’s cautious approach to the ongoing discussions on female sexuality. The miniskirt has been considered as a sign of both female sexual liberation in Italy and independence from paternal authority. Giachetti defines it as un vestito che in Italia si carica di un significato che va oltre l’esibizione delle gambe e che vuole segnalare ‘la disobbedienza’ … Per le ragazze degli anni Sessanta, quell’abito è un simbolo di liberazione ostentato con decisione e radicalità. È anche un modo per dire basta al sesso vissuto come un mistero, come capitale da nascondere e proteggere. (2006: 55)114

Another commentator affirms that ‘la minigonna è il messaggio con cui le donne affermano “Mi vesto come voglio”, è un gesto di grande portata politica, una rivendicazione di libertà’ (Minetti cited in Giachetti, 2006: 55).115 Yet 1960s youth-oriented magazines demonstrate a dual attitude towards miniskirts. On the one hand, they promoted the miniskirt and encouraged young women to wear it. On the other hand, they were careful with the presentation of the miniskirt as a medium for female sexual liberation. Instead of a sign of freedom, in fact, discourses around the miniskirt presented it as a coercive garment, for which Italian society was still not ready.

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Teen magazines presented the miniskirt as one of the ‘messaggi prettamente giovanili’,116 a non-verbal sign of young women’s identity, and a garment that could be worn by any young woman (‘La minigonna sotto accusa. Undicesimo: non scoprire le ginocchia’, 1967: 54). This is how an article in Marie Claire giovani introduced the ginocchiometro (kneemeter) in 1966; according to the author, with some adjustments, any young girl could wear a miniskirt: Gonne corte? Si, gonne corte. Per tutte? Si, per tutte. La moda vuole così, e poi sembra fatta apposta per le giovanissime, per tutte voi quindi. Ma quanto devono essere corte? Ecco, questo è il vero problema. Per essere sicure di trovare la vostra soluzione vi consiglio di guardare bene la lunghezza delle vostre gambe. (Isa Bella, 1966b: 64)117

However, discourses around the miniskirt show several strategies to scale down its sexually emancipating potential. For example, talking about her invention, Mary Quant recalled in an interview in Big that ‘da piccola vedevo che le donne anziane portavano le gonne lunghe. Così, gradualmente, mi si formò la convinzione che la vecchiaia fosse una questione di lunghezza di gonne. Portandole corte, come quelle delle bambine, ho scoperto che ci si sente veramente giovani’ (‘In carne e Ossa: a tu per tu con Mary Quant’, 1967: 5).118 Quant connects the miniskirt not only to youth, but also to childhood, in this way desexualising it. Magazines also tended to downplay the effect of the miniskirt on adults: a Big journalist wondered in an article, whether ‘le gambe di una ragazza possono veramente offendere il pudore del privato cittadino o sconvolgergli la mente’,119 implicitly suggesting that the miniskirt did not have all this sexually alluring power (‘La minigonna sotto accusa. Undicesimo: non scoprire le ginocchia’, 1967: 57). At the same time, magazines reported that young women sometimes felt uneasy wearing a miniskirt, especially when in public places, due to their fear of being judged. The wearing of miniskirts questioned young women’s sense of modesty, especially given the prejudice that connected sexual emancipation to perceived sexual availability. A young woman wrote to Ciao Big’s editor in 1967: Ho un grosso guaio: pur essendo molto carina (mi guardo spesso allo specchio) non ho ancora il ragazzo … Le mie amiche dicono che è colpa delle mie minigonne: secondo loro sono troppo corte e per questo non mi invitano mai alle loro feste perché temono che la mia presenza le renda poco serie. (‘Gli amici di Luciano’, 1967: 10)120

Similarly, Ciao amici published a survey in which young women were asked whether ‘provate o non provate dell’imbarazzo quando andate in giro con la minigonna, specialmente se vi trovate in autobus, in tram, nel metro,

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quando state sedute e, necessariamente, la gonna si alza e mette in mostra le giarrettiere, per esempio?’ (Lania, 1966: 58).121 This very specific and rather rhetorical question shows how popular media discourse tended to emphasise the connection between immorality and the use of the miniskirt. In the survey, young women answer in various ways, but most of them say that wearing a miniskirt actually creates some embarrassment for them. The miniskirt was also accused of putting young girls in physical danger, for example by promoting rape: ‘diciotto ragazze sono state aggredite da altrettanti bruti in meno di un mese. La colpa, secondo la polizia francese, è delle minigonne. Per questo motivo la prefettura parigina ha invitato le ragazze a non tentare il diavolo’ (Dessy, 1967b: 12).122 It is interesting to underline how, instead of the rapists, it is the miniskirt that is blamed for putting women in danger here. Reference to the police and authorities seems to give legitimacy to the threats to young women posed by the miniskirt. According to the article, this garment needs to be worn with care, as it represents a display of sexual emancipation that was still not accepted in Western societies. The media construction of young masculinities and femininities during the period 1965–67 reveals some aspects that will be crucial for the discussion of i giovani’s gender identities in the following chapters. First, changes in standards of male attractiveness started to create anxieties about male homosexuality. In this period, these anxieties were dispelled through the construction of ‘reassuring’ masculinities, that were dissimilar to the widespread representations of i giovani as opposed to (and opposing) adults. Second, media representations of androgynous giovani femininities such as Rita Pavone and Caterina Caselli in this period negated these young women’s active sexuality, as did the discussion around the miniskirt. This restrained approach to sexuality helped preserve the ideal of the purity of giovani women and domesticate subversive femininities.

Conclusion During the period 1965–67, Italian youth-oriented popular media described a world in which ‘tutto era beat. La musica, le ragazze, i vestiti, la barba, gli occhiali, i raduni, i capelli. Sembrava veramente un mondo beat’ (Ceri & Pascale, 1993: 3).123 The image of the political youth who were starting to emerge in Italian society during the 1960s was recuperated in the media through the beat trend, which was defined predominantly by leisure activities, such as music and style. The beats portrayed in youth-oriented media were mostly consumers, and the ideals of freedom and opposition to adults, which also featured in the Italian beatniks’ claims, were used to market

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commercial products to young people. However, young people’s freedom was restricted to specific places and activities, like clubs and concerts for listening and dancing to modern music. When this desire went beyond these limitations, it was transferred to a foreign ‘Other’ in order not to trouble the Italian giovane identity. The ‘othering’ of some of the political meanings of ‘beat’, and the Italianisation of beat fashion’s more commercial elements, demonstrate the contradictory representation of i giovani’s Italian-ness. Despite acknowledging the importance of foreign influences in the definition of the modern giovane, popular media discourse revealed a preoccupation with the acceptance of foreign trends, as well as the permanence of a Fascist-reminiscent ideal of Italian superiority over other countries. Preoccupations also impacted the media construction of i giovani’s gendered identities, especially in terms of reinforcing stereotypes surrounding young women’s purity and young men’s virility. The definition of giovani masculinities and femininities during 1965–67 signalled two main anxieties connected to young people’s gender and sexuality, namely the sexual emancipation of women and the effeminisation of men. Female sexual emancipation and a change in traditional standards of masculinity, together with political participation, became even more problematic during the period 1967–70, when the hippy trend started to appear in youth-oriented popular media. The increasing homogenisation of youth through youth-oriented media impacted this period’s popular culture: for example, in 1967 a programme intended for a non-giovane audience appeared on national television, called Noi maggiorenni (Golletti, 1967) (We, over 21s). This programme, which broadcast popular songs and music from the 1920s to the 1940s, was intended for people who were young during that era. As the host explained at the beginning of the first episode: Ad un certo punto mi sono detto: ci sono tanti programmi per i giovani, tante rubriche musicali di musica yé-yé e contro le quali, a dire la verità, non abbiamo nulla di particolare … Però, in Italia, di maggiorenni ce ne sono tanti. Quindi perché non fare un programma dedicato a noi maggiorenni, fatto di affettuosi ricordi e di musica? … Ecco l’argomento della nostra trasmissione. (Noi maggiorenni, episode 1, 21/05/1967)124

In this programme, the audience was invited to retrospectively construct their giovane past via musical memories. However, the description also highlights how the programme sought to remind adults of only certain aspects of their youth, namely the music they listened to in the 1920s through 1940s. This nostalgic reappropriation of the past removed any references to potentially traumatic memories, such as those connected to the Fascist regime.

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The next chapter shows how a similar process of erasure influenced the 1968 appropriation of a 1930s-inspired trend. From 1967 on, teen magazines started to display an increasing connection between i giovani’s style and political claims. A convincing example of this is represented in the military uniform fashion trend, described in this 1967 article from Ciao amici: Se camminate per Londra, vedete un sacco di uniformi militari: sembra un controsenso; a una visione superficiale, la cosa potrebbe apparire come una specie di mania bellica … che fa pensare, almeno a noi italiani, a tempi non lontani, quando tutto il popolo era in divisa … Ma … questa moda delle uniformi antiche e colorate, nasconde invece il nocciolo di [una] protesta antimilitarista e pacifista … I ragazzi cercano nei magazzini le più antiche uniformi degli eserciti di mezzo mondo e poi le indossano proprio … per farsene un camuffamento clownesco: e se le uniformi ricordano truci precedenti, sul tipo di quelle naziste delle SS, è ancora meglio. (Tati, 1967: 20)125

The trend of wearing military uniforms became extremely popular among Italian giovani, especially for beat complessi. In this quotation, this new style is immediately recognised as a symbol of pacifism, and its political signification is not presented as dangerous or worrying like, for example, the trend of long hairstyles in 1965–67. This shift from the ‘commercial’ to the ‘political’ inspiration of giovane fashion will be further analysed in the following chapter, which discusses the politicisation of the giovane style during the period 1967–70.

Notes 1 I use this term in italics when referring to the Italian youth-oriented media appropriation of the global beat youth culture. 2 (street beat.) 3 (a beat which became a style, fashion, and type of music, and a ‘street beat’, which would constitute the first real youth rebellion.) 4 (a mediatised beat.) 5 (depicted, in a reassuring way, the stereotypes of the youth rebellion commonly known as beat.) 6 De Martino and Grispigni’s complete history of the magazine, I capelloni. Mondo beat, 1966–1967 storia, immagini, documenti, includes a reprint of all seven issues of Mondo Beat (1997). 7 (enough with authority, the family, sexual repression, the consumerist economy, the war, the police, the priests, culture, pedagogues and demagogues.) 8 On the origins and development of the American beatnik movement, see Brownell (2011).

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9 (What we now define as ‘pop’ was called ‘beat’ music. However, this term was used to define things and people. T-shirts, shoes, ties, trousers were beat. Whoever was growing his hair was beat.) 10 (beat badges.) 11 (beat rings.) 12 (the best part [of our society]. Young people who sing and dance, who are mad for the Beatles and who work and study, who are following us every week and who have always supported our battles for La Zanzara, for racial integration, for peace and freedom for everyone, they are on our side. They want freedom of speech and thought, but also freedom of hairstyles, trousers, miniskirts, songs, guitars: this is their motto.) 13 (No, no, young people’s emancipation only exists on the small scale – on a major scale, it doesn’t exist. Look at me: I am only free to … sing! I can’t sign contracts, I can’t go dancing by myself, I couldn’t even get married, if I wanted to, without my parents’ consent, I can’t travel abroad without permission; sometimes I can’t even wear what I want to … it’s a washout.) 14 (Last year … youth fashion was born. Children’s fashion and adult fashion had already existed. Now young people are starting to choose more practical, comfortable, and cheaper garments for themselves, maybe even a bit livelier than what they had before. Little by little, by groping around, a style has been created.) 15 (boys and girls not living in Rome.) 16 (a mass production which allows young girls to be cute and eccentric is missing.) 17 (what unites young people is their particular way of dressing. If they see other people dressed like them, they immediately understand they are with someone who thinks like them, and they can socialise without formalities.) 18 (If you really are young, you should wear this! If you really do what you think, and you would like to wear a colourful tuxedo, or low-waist trousers, if you despise your father’s tie, and you don’t have any hang-ups: this is your style!) 19 (all the same in colour and line, sad and boring.) 20 (our colours are definitely pistachio green, orange, aubergine-violet, yellow, pink.) 21 (extremely violent colours that, with their clashing colours and dynamic contrasts, like the city’s neon lights at night, express all your joy for life.) 22 (forget everything you knew about colours: as in the shape of garments, colour is also an expression of a way of experiencing life, of a mood.) 23 (people used to say that a man is really elegant when he can stand under Nelson’s statue in Piccadilly Circus without anyone acknowledging his presence. Today everything is different. Men, boys in particular, feel the need to distinguish themselves, to stand out from anonymous crowd created in big cities.) 24 (slogans, numbers, initials.) 25 (Make love not war, I am a genius, I come from Mars, Wanna dance?!, I love everybody, Here I am, No, Yes tomorroooow.) 26 (means Very Important Person, but you can give it another meaning, for example Living in Peace.)

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27 This song was also used as the theme song of the TV programme Studio uno in 1966. See Brioni (2017). 28 (– So what is the ‘geghe, geghe, geghe, gè’? – Uff, do you not get it? It’s our way of speaking, young people’s way of speaking. Someone asks us, ‘What are you doing today?’ If you don’t know what you’re going to do, you answer ‘geghe, geghe, geghe, gè’. That’s it. – And what about the ‘rif’? – The ‘rif’ means everything: that you are fine, that you are in love, that you love your life, that you want to sing. Got it?) 29 (a smashing trend.) 30 (old Rama.) 31 (the bomb brand for the cool girls.) 32 (freedom, colour, life.) 33 (you are young if you move and dance, if you sing and jump around, if you play, if you tumble.) 34 ([it is enough] to glue the feet onto the floor and then, following the rhythm, generously move the head, chest, arms, hands, hips and legs.) 35 (Touch the thumb with the pinkie of your other hand, then touch the other thumb with the other pinkie, and keep on doing this. With a heel touch your tiptoe, then bring the other tiptoe to touch the other heel.) 36 I am referring here to the performance of ‘Non è difficile fare lo shake’ (Wertmüller & Canfora, 1967) (It is not difficult to dance the shake). 37 (I am a Matusa and I do not dance yé-yé music.) The term ‘Matusa’, widely used in youth-oriented media, derives from name of the biblical figure Methuselah (Matusalemme) who was said to have lived almost a thousand years. The word ‘matusalemme’, commonly used during the 1960s to denote extremely old people, was shortened to ‘matusa’, and young people started using it derogatively to refer to their parents, or the previous generation. 38 (just lose control and immediately begin to shake.) 39 (come on, use your whole ‘beat’.) 40 (Sure, young people dance ‘separated’. ‘They do not even appreciate the pleasure of hugging’, people say. Of course. Their way of dancing is made up of the love for the music, of rhythm, of movement. It is a way of losing control, an outburst, but at the same time, and this is not a paradox, a way of relaxing.) 41 (The ‘grab’ is a badge for young people, a visible way for young people to differentiate themselves from the grown-ups’ world. Moreover, wearing this bracelet and clasping the two red hearts together make an understanding between a boy and girl possible.) 42 (4. You don’t have to use the ‘grab’ to seduce a boy, as the ‘grab’ is only a passport for friendship … The ‘grab’ forbids jealousy. If your boyfriend wants to dance with more than one girl, do not reproach him.) 43 The domestication of i giovani’s sexuality in popular media representations will be discussed in more depth in the last section of this chapter. 44 (guide to the Piper Club in Milan.) 45 (I was at the Piper the other night … It is completely ruined! There were no young people at all, only adults. This sounds contradictory, doesn’t it? Was it or was it not a club made and invented exclusively for young people?)

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46 Most of the Musicarelli feature giovani clubs. Chapter 1 has explored the fundamental role of clubs as spaces of conflict in early Musicarelli. In the period 1965–67, struggles over clubs are a substantial part of the plot in Rita la figlia americana, Rita la zanzara and I Ragazzi di Bandiera Gialla (Laurenti, 1967). 47 (Hi friends, hello guys, come on, let’s get on the dance floor! If they tell us that we’re crazy, we won’t listen to them – come on guys! Here we’re all at home, here we’re the only ones who will speak, sing, and dance. We’ll dance the Shake. We’ll talk about the beats.) 48 (The street where we usually meet is called Corso Europa, but now everyone calls it ‘young people’s street’ because it is the usual place for our meetups … the place where we can freely talk about our problems, or have fun … Our clubs are in Corso Europa … the Copacabana, which is always open … Paip’s where we usually go to dance in the evenings … On our street there are always young people. You can always find someone to chat or to dance the Shake with.) 49 For example, the magazines’ descriptions of i capelloni in Piazza di Spagna analysed in the next section. 50 (in 1966, allowed the proletarian beats of Piazza di Spagna to enter free, as they gave [the club] a touch of colour, given their style.) 51 A clarification of Butler’s conceptualisations of ‘performance’ and ‘performativity’ can be found in the debate between Seyla Benhabib and Butler herself, published in Benhabib et al. (1995). 52 Don Backy (the stage name of Aldo Caponi) started his career as part of Adriano Celentano’s Clan (Celentano’s band and then recording label), but during the 1960s he became famous for being a non-giovane singer, as he strongly criticised young people who were following a beat fashion (similar to, for example, Johnny Hallyday in France). He wrote an anti-capelloni song called ‘Serenata’ (Serenade), which I will discuss in the next section. 53 (The ‘collettine’ and the ‘collettoni’ are self-taught dancers: they learned how to dance at home, or at parties at friends’ houses, and, only for some of them, at the Piper. ‘We like to have fun, but we don’t think about dancing 24/7. We sometimes go to the Piper, but not too much. We are normal girls, we think about our jobs, our families. And, in the end, if we find a sincere guy who loves us, believe me, we set aside the mask of cynicism and unscrupulousness, and we marry him’.) 54 (The girls from Palermo arrive at the Open Gate, the local beat headquarters, with their miniskirts hidden in their handbags. They put on the miniskirts in the club’s coatroom, transforming themselves into perfect ‘piperine’ [girls who hang out at the Piper]. They have to be secretive, because public opinion still doesn’t accept youth-oriented fashion, now a global trend. Here, capelloni wear wigs. Miniskirts are carried in handbags.) 55 (Dear Director, I am an ultra-modern eighteen-year-old girl in my first year of university. I style my hair like Sandie Shaw, I dress in Courrèges’ fashion, I wear four rings on my fingers, I love George Harrison, and I know how to dance the Shake better than many others. I came to a conclusion: we Italians are backward-minded. This depends, first, on the conservative mentality of the

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average Italian citizen. I subscribe to British, American, German and French magazines, and I know how, in these countries, the ‘beat generation’ rules, and the old generations submit to its rules because they represent the future, progress. Why don’t we wake up, guys, why don’t we remove that coat of dust and mould that already covered our fathers and that, since twenty years ago, our foreign peers have already swept away?) 56 (beat bands.) 57 (On 12 May 1963, at 12 o’clock, the Orient Express entered Milan station. Four boys, four English boys, descended from a second-class carriage. They had long hair, wore palazzo pants and ankle boots with heels. They were four unknown eccentrics: astonished people stopped to look at them, as if they were Martians.) 58 (coming directly from the Anglo-Saxon world, as is the music. The teenager is born exactly with the increasing importance of English youth-oriented fashion. The French, and, worse, Italian styles are ‘out’, for the over-twenty woman.) 59 (sets the beat generation’s skirt length and hairstyles for men.) 60 (concluding the point of order, asked if ‘it would not be considered useful, also from the point of view of morality and public order, if Via Margutta and the surrounding areas avoided becoming a permanent meeting spot for lovers of questionable fashion, etc. etc.’ The order concludes with the usual attacks against the fashion loved by youth and the ordinary pleas for morality, noise ordinances and so on.) 61 (Let’s stop filling our brains with op[tical], pop, beat, all the stuff that comes from foreign countries for a certain kind of body shape that may be the opposite of ours! A youth-oriented, Italian fashion, chosen by young people, this is what we have decided to give you and this is why we need your collaboration.) 62 (5. … negatively view beat fashion, miniskirts and all that excess. 6. The most elegant community is the Italian community, and then comes the English, the French. It is commonly regarded that the Americans dress horribly.) 63 (hunt for beats.) 64 (Martian: very short skirts up the knee, and not only during the night.) 65 (a shop selling long-haired wigs is getting a lot of business.) 66 (the [mid-1960s] androgynous style d[id] not offer up a woman dressed like a man, or an effeminate man, but the image of a young person who plays with his/her double: boys and girls chase each other in the paradigm of assimilation.) 67 (they have the same style and hairstyle as their boyfriends … Entering one of the cellars reconfigured a hangout for young Londoners, I was surprised at how difficult it was, in dim lighting, to distinguish males from females.) 68 (girls and boys will all be dressed alike.) 69 (the unisex era.) 70 (this is the moment of unisex fashion, of the androgynous style, of trousers for girls and flower-patterned shirts for boys, of sexless stuff born from a pure, eclectic dialogue by both sexes of young people who live the same life.) 71 (No, no, a thousand times, no. No to the couturier from Paris who decided to reverse the natural order by presenting two creatures, a man and a woman, she

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wearing trousers, he wearing a skirt. I wonder where such an excess can bring us. I don’t want my girlfriend to have to ask permission from my mother to marry me.) 72 (they move in gangs, stopping randomly, to encamp in dilapidated buildings until they are thrown out. They live by their wits, through begging, extortion, shoplifting or anything else … Far from a noble, bohemian experience, made of rebellion and difficulties, beatnikism is a squalid disgrace.) 73 (I am now a State worker … It didn’t work out with the beatniks. They were always loafing, with social protest as their only goal; it couldn’t be the only aim of my life. I have no regrets now. But it was a huge waste of time.) 74 On the capelloni di Piazza di Spagna, see also Giachetti (2006: 70). 75 (worried about the ease with which the first beatniks have found followers amongst the boys and girls in our country, who leave their houses to join them, ending up begging money for a protest that they can’t even explain.) 76 (the Italian person is always characterised by elegance. This also applies to our capelloni, who show a more decent way of dressing and less nonconformist behaviour.) 77 (something has to be said about Italian youth: rebellion or not, we wash our necks every day.) 78 (Dear capelloni, this serenade I want to sing to you / please stop polemicising and do something / people looking at you in the streets only think that / your ideas are as short as your hair is long / try to create some style that no one has ever had before / if you do, you will see that we will be the most powerful ones, like in antiquity / English, French, Normans gave us something / Italian hair, music was born from us / we should stop following those tracks that do not suit us / cut your hair, and from being followers we will again lead.) 79 The image of the capellone to represent Italian giovani soon entered Italian popular culture: for example, in a 1967 episode of the well-known series of Caroselli Miralanza – the brand which introduced the famous black chick Calimero in Caroselli commercials – Calimero is visited by Teofilo, ‘il cugino capellone’ (the capellone cousin), a teenager characterised by a long hairstyle (Carosello Miralanza, 1967). 80 These two news stories will be explained later in the section. 81 (men’s hairstyles became free, not tamed by grease or hair oils, still orderly but freer when compared to the previous decade.) 82 (how beautiful he is, with that quiff!) 83 (Someone told me that you like boys with a quiff / … so I grew my hair / so that you will look at me.) 84 (today’s handsome men would have previously been considered ugly.) 85 (the world’s most handsome man.) 86 (I would feel naked.) 87 (Dear Marcello, I just turned twenty. I feel very sad: when I was at home, I was something of a star, girls used to chase me, but now my life has completely changed. My hair has been cut off, and I feel a sense of inferiority that I can’t even properly describe. Please, help all the ex-capelloni doing their military service. Tell all the Italian girls that they should look at us shaved men too. One

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more thing: I heard that it’s possible to buy wigs ‘à-la-Beatles’. Where can I buy a couple of them?) 88 The acknowledgement of young women’s sexuality will be discussed in the next section; however, this is a good example of how the active involvement of young women in romantic and sexual relationships starts to emerge in letters written by young men. 89 (I was happy up until a few days ago. But some people, who did not like my mop, insulted me and cut my beautiful hair. You won’t believe me, but after that, my happiness was gone. I’m now suffering from an inexplicable complex, and I cannot stand anyone’s company, including my girlfriend’s. I love her, but I don’t want her to see me before my hair grows out long again.) 90 For an in-depth discussion of these incidents, see Brioni (2020). 91 (as it states on his birth certificate, our singer KIM BROWN was born in Birmingham on 2 May 1945, and according to the doctor, his assistant and a couple of nurses, he is male … This is to clear up the doubt someone spread about Kim’s sex. That is crazy! Ask Kim’s female friends if he is male or female and the answer will blow your mind.) 92 (mom agrees, dad agrees as well, his grandmother says that his long hair becomes him, ‘and then he cares for it, he washes it three times a week’.) 93 (shotgun wedding.) 94 (What do today’s young women think?) 95 (offence to public sensibility and morals.) 96 The documentary showcases a series of interviews recorded by Pier Paolo Pasolini on Italian beaches with people from different social classes (middleclass intellectuals such as Oriana Fallaci, and working-class men and women) about the themes of sex and sexual liberation. 97 (Speeches on Milanese Beaches, or Sex as a Hobby.) 98 (Speeches on southern beaches, or Sex as Reputation.) 99 (Don’t act like a baby!) 100 For a detailed discussion of this film, see Brioni (2019). 101 (I think that Courrèges’ fashion is the only one you can actually wear. I hate women’s garments: Courrèges’ fashion does not make you feel adorned. They are functional, fun, comfortable, new.) 102 (Her expensive and somewhat elegant furs do not go with her childish face. We like what she wears when she goes out to buy cigarettes for her father: buttondown American dress shirts and flared trousers, which she likes, because these garments make her feel self-confident.) 103 (The device of the dream, be it literal or a daydream, combines, in an impossible elsewhere, the sexual attractiveness that the protagonist could embody … The display of a pronounced femininity ends up being an estrangement from femininity itself.) 104 (maybe you are the golden boy, but I’m not sure/I’ll look around for a while, and then I’ll tell you.) 105 (the truth is hurtful, you know / No one can judge me, not even you / … If I came back to you, it’s enough for you to know / that I saw the difference between him and you, and I chose you.)

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106 (a girl who can play the electric guitar and the drums always has an effect.) 107 (the journalists’ main preoccupation is that they can’t seem to find her a boyfriend. They are even harassing her, probably because she is a woman. She defends herself by saying that she is too busy with her job to cultivate serious romantic relationships that go beyond the simple and intense comradeship.) 108 (her hair, for quality and colour, is much better than the wigs that she insists on wearing. The true ‘golden helmet’ is her own … She should use her wigs only when she goes out shopping.) 109 (She recently stopped twirling her hands in that absurd and ridiculous manner of the stylised Shake. That seemed like an artificial, studied move … Now she does not know what to do with her hands … and often, they express the exact opposite of what she is singing.) 110 (her face is as genuine and strong as the products of the area in which she was born. Her true beauty is her twenty years, her liveliness and her exterior simplicity.) 111 The songs depict youth as the hope for the future Fascist Italy, connecting it with beauty, health and strength. 112 (Is Caterina beautiful? I don’t know. She is certainly fun. Anyway, she is very tall, I tell her. ‘Yes, I am tall, but this is not enough. I want to be skinny. I will lose weight. I adore Françoise Hardy because she is very skinny, she is all Courrèges. If I were a man, I’d marry her’. And she starts laughing out loud.) 113 For example, Una lacrima sul viso (Fizzarotti, 1964) (A Tear on Your Face); In ginocchio da te; Non son degno di te; Se non avessi più te; and Rita la zanzara. 114 (a garment that in Italy acquires a significance beyond that of exposed legs; it demonstrates disobedience … For Italian girls in the Sixties, it is a symbol of liberation worn with decisiveness and radicalism. It is also a way to express the refusal to experience sex as a mystery, as capital to hide and protect.) 115 (the miniskirt is the message with which women affirm: ‘I wear what I like’, it is a political gesture, a claim to freedom.) 116 (purely youth-oriented messages.) 117 (Miniskirt? Yes, miniskirt. For everyone? Yes, for everyone. That’s what is trendy, and they are perfect for young girls, for you. How short do they have to be? This is the real problem. To be sure you’ll find the right solution I suggest you look at your legs.) 118 (when I was little, I used to see old women wearing long skirts. So gradually I became convinced that old age is a question of skirt length. Wearing them short, like these young girls, I found out that one can really feel young.) 119 (a girl’s legs can really offend the morality of citizens and play with their minds.) 120 (I have a big problem: even if I am good looking (I look at myself in the mirror quite often) I still don’t have a boyfriend … My friends tell me that it’s my miniskirt’s fault: according to them, my miniskirts are too short and because of that my friends don’t invite me to parties. They think that I’ll make them look frivolous.) 121 (do you feel embarrassed or not when you go around in a miniskirt, especially if you are on a bus, a tram, the underground, when you are sitting and naturally the skirt rides up and shows the garter, for example?)

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122 (eighteen girls have been assaulted by as many brutes in less than a month. According to the French police, it is the miniskirt’s fault. For this reason the Parisian prefecture has asked girls not to tempt the devil.) 123 (everything was beat: the music, girls, clothes, beards, glasses, meetings, hairstyles. The world itself seemed to be beat.) 124 (I started wondering; there are so many television programmes for young people, so many musical segments about yé-yé music, which, honestly, we don’t oppose at all. But in Italy there are many people who are over eighteen. So why not create a programme for adults, composed of loving memories and music? This is the topic of our programme.) 125 (If you walk through London, you are going to see many military uniforms: it seems to be nonsense at first; it looks like a war trend … that makes us Italians think of not-so-far-off times, when everyone was in uniform … But … this trend of antiquated, colourful uniforms, is actually inspired by antimilitary and pacifist protests … Young people search warehouses for the oldest uniforms of armies from all over the world, and then they wear them … as a clownish disguise: and if the uniforms may bring up terrible associations, like those worn by the Nazi SS, it’s even better.)

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3 Hippies, 1967–70

Chapter 2 showed that from 1965 to 1967, youth-oriented popular culture constructed a beat identity which was mostly characterised by leisure activities, such as listening and dancing to and singing and playing giovane music. This construction effaced the political meaning of the term ‘beat’ and did not refer to the emerging Italian beat subculture. In 1967, criticism concerning the beats’ consumerism emerged in youth-oriented magazines, television programmes and films. Letters and articles in teen magazines started to highlight that, even if the beat style conveyed a generic message of freedom from adults, it was strongly influenced by the music and fashion industry, and therefore by capitalistic values. From the second half of 1967 on, a rejection of the commercialisation of the beat style became particularly evident in Italian popular media through the promotion of new trends such as vintage fashion and handmade products. These trends mirrored countercultural ideals that were endorsed by the American pacifist hippie movement and by the 1968–69 Italian student and worker movements, such as anti-authoritarianism and a rejection of consumerism. The first section of this chapter argues that the hippy style1 functioned to construct a normative representation of youth which was based on opposition to both adults and the beat as consumerist identity. It also discusses how, in the period 1967–70, commercialisation became a sign of inauthenticity in popular media, and (fabricated) authenticity was established as a significant feature in the definition of hippy stars. The second section looks at transnational and transhistorical references for the hippy style, which included not only contemporary Western youth cultures, but also ‘other’ eras, such as the 1930s, and ‘other’ ethnicities, such as the Afro style. The third section of the chapter looks at how the media construction of the hippy identity impacted the redefinition of giovani masculinities and femininities. The perceived increasing sexual freedom for young women enabled the emergence of sexually provocative stars such as Patty Pravo. Furthermore, the hippy style troubled giovani masculinities by adding

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stereotypically feminine aspects to young men’s style, which went beyond the mere topic of long hair.

Sessantottini and hippies: anti-consumerism and anti-authoritarianism During the second half of 1967, popular media increasingly featured criticism of the beat trend’s commercialisation. For instance, a letter to the editor that appeared in Big openly condemned young people who had adopted a beat style without participating in political demonstrations: Ma insomma, dove sono i ragazzi che dovrebbero cambiare il mondo? Non certo a Torino, quando … c’è stata la silenziosa marcia per la pace. Forse erano al Piper o al Club 84, non certo tra noi … A meno che questi capelloni di casa nostra non credano che per essere beat sia sufficiente non lavarsi, ballare gli ultimi balli, portare i capelli lunghi. (‘Risponde il direttore’, 1967b: 4)2

The letter criticises those ‘pseudo-beatniks’ (1967b: 4) who, despite appropriating giovani practices, do not endorse political ideals such as pacifism. The writer distinguishes between a ‘we’ – that of the ‘authentic’, political giovani – and an implicit ‘them’ – the inauthentic, commercial beats: in other words, this letter is symptomatic of emerging differences within the community of i giovani. Indeed, in 1967 a new identity started to appear in popular media representations which contrasted with the consumerist beats: the hippies. Unlike the beats, the construction of the hippies was not based on practices recalling consumption, but on the politicisation of young people’s leisure activities. This ‘politicisation’ did not mean that magazines were promoting the active political engagement of young people, but rather that current political claims increasingly influenced the ways in which style and music were recounted in popular media. Moreover, discourses around the hippy style revealed a persistent preoccupation with the increased politicisation of Italian young people, and their emerging role as agents of social change. In order to identify the hippy style’s multiple influences, a brief historical overview of the Sessantotto and its aftermath in Italy is necessary. The two-year period from 1968 to 1969 was marked by two significant waves of student and worker protests in Italy: the Sessantotto and the Autunno caldo (Hot Autumn) of 1969.3 The increasing participation of young people in protests that involved schools, universities and factories has been presented as the consequence of 1960s educational reforms. Thanks to these reforms, the number of students at all levels, including university, increased (Ginsborg, 1990: 298–9), and factory workers became more open

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to collaboration with students and more conscious of their own employment rights, as they were ‘more literate and more aware than the previous generations’ (Ginsborg, 1990: 310). Alberto De Bernardi and Marcello Flores explain that student protests and the occupation of Italian universities started in 1967, and that they were directed at the academic culture and the authority embodied by school headmasters and deans. In the following year, the protests evolved into a broader ‘rifiuto del capitalismo e dei suoi modelli culturali mercificati’ (2003: 220).4 The Italian beat had a twofold influence on the Sessantotto: on the one hand, the wave of unrest can be seen as a reaction to the consumerism of 1965–67 youth. On the other hand, the Sessantotto can be considered an extension of earlier demonstrations of beat movements that promoted alternative cultures, and of the student protests that started in Italian universities in 1966 (Ghione & Grispigni, 1998; De Angelis, 1998). The demonstrators participating in the Sessantotto protests adopted a specific style that distinguished them aesthetically from the non-protesting young people. While in 1967 students demonstrating and occupying universities wore suits and ties, for the demonstrators in 1968, the Cuban-style beard is in fashion, many men and women students are wearing blu-jeans (as they are known in Italian), men are not wearing jackets, unless they have a military look with cap to match. Some have red handkerchiefs tied around their neck, but the tie has been dispensed with … For demonstrations the movement developed its own sort of uniform. In winter, everyone wore khaki Eskimo jackets, trousers and long scarves. (Lumley, 1990: 71)

Some garments in particular, such as the Eskimo or the military jacket, became emblematic of the movement, as they were affordable and therefore available to young people of any socioeconomic background. This distinctive style appeared in television news and national newspaper articles dealing with the clashes between the police and students during demonstrations, such as the battaglia di Valle Giulia in Rome on 1 March 1968.5 However, the style presented by teen magazines in fashion reports from 1968 to 1970 did not reproduce the demonstrators’ style as described above. Instead, it was inspired by garments worn by the countercultural movement of hippies, which developed in California during the 1960s.6 American hippies endorsed a new lifestyle for young people, which questioned traditional social norms with practices such as the commune as an alternative to the conventional family structure,7 or ‘hitchhiking holidays’ instead of seaside summer holidays.8 In 1967, one of the first articles on American hippies from the magazine Big defines them as follows: ‘Hippy letteralmente significa ipocondriaco. La malinconia depressiva degli hippies si esprime con la rinuncia all’inserimento borghese nella società meccanizzata … Il loro

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simbolo sono i fiori, non la zazzera e la chitarra. Fiori, l’LSD, libero amore e libera vita, questa è la cura per gli ipocondriaci d’America’ (Olmi, 1967).9 In the quote, California hippies are described as drug addicts, sexually emancipated and against American consumerist society. As happened with the beatniks in 1965–67, however, over time popular media domesticated the image of the hippie, through the ‘mirroring’ of some aspects stereotypically associated with the hippie movement – such as style – and the ‘othering’ of some practices – such as drug consumption – that were not considered acceptable for Italian giovani. The reference to a foreign trend in the hippy style can be interpreted as an ‘othering’ strategy to distinguish i giovani from the Italian young people who participated in student and protest movements. Interestingly, although magazines tended to publish articles covering politics and society during 1968–70, much more attention was given to foreign politics than to domestic politics, in some ways suggesting an estrangement from the conflicts taking place in the Italian peninsula. For example, Big published posters of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, and their deaths were extensively covered in the magazine; furthermore, starting in June 1968, a section of Big, titled ‘La grande rivolta dei giovani in Europa’ (1968) (The Great Unrest Amongst Europe’s Youth) surveyed the political movements that were emerging in countries such as Germany, France, Spain, Yugoslavia and the United States. By contrast, the protests going on at Italian universities and factories were not extensively discussed in teen magazines: for instance, no mention of the battaglia di Valle Giulia was made in any of the magazine issues consulted. This does not mean, however, that social unrest did not enter Italian popular culture; for example, a reference to the Sessantottini’s demonstrations appears in the widespread use of discourses around protest in magazine advertisements. For example, in an advert for the ice cream Paiper, a group of smiling giovani are eating ice cream and carrying posters saying ‘vogliamo l’estate più lunga’ (Algida, 1969: 11).10 The image of young people demonstrating is stripped of its political context and used to advertise a commercial product; thus, the giovane identity is also depoliticised. An advertisement for the male underwear brand Jockey depicts a young man with long hair and a beard, wearing only a medal and his underwear, with the slogan, ‘Jockey … non si contesta’ (Jockey, 1970: 65).11 Again, the use of styles associated with the hippie movement, such as long hair and a beard, to characterise the model and the connection made between demonstrating and consumption seem to trivialise the meaning of protests. Popular culture’s domestication of protest themes shows how, in 1967–70, discourses around the giovane style were increasingly influenced by the ongoing politicisation of Italian youth.​

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Figure 3.1  Youth-oriented advertisement after 1968. The advert reproduces protest imagery: young people carry posters saying ‘We want a longer summer’.

The period 1967–70 was characterised by the emergence of a variety of trends, which in this chapter are grouped under the label ‘hippy style’. Indeed, all these trends were presented by referring to countercultural claims, namely pacifism, anti-consumerism and anti-authoritarianism. An early version of the hippy was the colourful, floral and India-inspired ‘flower-power’ trend that appeared in Italian teen magazines at the end of 1967 (‘La moda Big. Moderatamente flower’, 1967: 49). This trend was characterised by

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the use of floral patterns and flowers in hairstyles, shirts and trousers as emblems of pacifism. Like the military jacket trend, ‘flower-power’ fashion represented the commercial incorporation of the international wave of criticism from young people towards the Vietnam War. In 1968 and 1969, the hippy style began to mirror other themes emerging from countercultural movements. First, a rejection of mass-produced objects of consumption was reflected through the use of recycled or homemade materials that were not commercially produced. Teen magazines accepted and promoted this trend, by explaining how to make jewellery, clothes and accessories at home without spending money, thus creating a unique fashion.12 They also sponsored artisans who produced handmade creations: Francis è l’individuo più semplice e antisnob dell’universo. Chiama i suoi originalissimi gioielli ‘ornamenti’, e non realizzerebbe in oro una delle sue creazioni … per tutto l’oro del mondo: preferisce la rustica semplicità del ferro e del rame, all’oro e all’argento. Un’altra cosa che non piace a Francis (trent’anni, una moglie giovane giovane, un bimbo di dieci mesi che si chiama Igor) è il prodotto in serie. (Pady, 1967: 49)13

The journalist highlights the jeweller’s rejection of mass-produced objects: the hippy trend was in fact characterised by the adoption of cheap and unique garments. In particular, magazines promoted the use of handmade or vintage garments and accessories: homemade, second-hand or unconventional items could not be imitated, and were therefore unique. Stars promoted the idea of making one’s own clothes, as was the case with Julie Driscoll, an English singer who in an article claimed that non faccio acquisti in nessuna boutique: i miei vestiti li invento da sola. Non nel senso che li cucio con ago e filo. Vado al mercato di Chelsea, compro gli abiti vecchi, li accorcio o li allungo, faccio applicare il corpetto di uno sulla gonna di un altro ed ecco il modello in esclusiva che nessuno può copiare. (Driscoll, 1968: 13)14

Here, Driscoll explains her fascination with flea markets, where she buys garments that allow her to create her own original style. In hippy fashion, the flea market substituted for the beat Carnaby Street (or Via Margutta) shops by being the place where one could buy giovane fashion, as such stalls paradoxically sold ‘pezzi di antiquariato per una moda nuova’ (P.R., 1969: 18).15 An article in Ciao Big described the ‘eccentriche’ (eccentric) women going to the Fiera di Senigallia in Milan to look for second-hand clothes that, even if they were not perfect – ‘i merletti non sono sempre perfetti, le camicie, i vestiti, hanno perso il colore degli anni, qualcosa andrà rammendato, lavato, aggiustato’16 – guaranteed these women’s originality: ‘nessuno potrà vantare alle feste, ai cocktails, alle serate con gli amici un abbigliamento così

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eccezionalmente autentico, e con quel tocco che solo il tempo e la lavorazione originale di allora possono dare’ (Speranza, 1968: 63).17 Starting in 1969, however, the anti-consumerist hippy trend was appropriated by the fashion industry. The magazine Ciao 2001, for example, started to sell hippy dresses. The following quotation is taken from an advertisement for garments sold directly by the magazine: Scegliere uno stile e giocare ad immedesimarsi in esso e mescolarlo ad altri e inventarlo ogni volta … Per facilitare l’operazione acquisto degli abiti dai colori super-brillanti ‘CIAO 2001’ vi propone uno shopping vantaggiosissimo: basterà riempire il tagliando a pag. 66. Fate bene attenzione che si possono acquistare soltanto gli abiti in primo piano. Gli altri hanno una funzione esclusivamente decorativa ed indicativa, a cui potranno ispirarsi le più eccentriche. (Castagna, 1969b: 64)18

This example shows how, just like the beat style, the hippy trend became commercial. The advertisement invites readers to play at identifying with the hippies depicted in the magazine by buying garments: in other words, it gives readers the opportunity to become a hippy by adopting consumer goods. In this enterprise, then, teen magazines used anti-consumerist rhetoric to sell products, thus partially nullifying the political significance of the hippy trend. Another significant aspect of hippy fashion was its anti-authoritarian attitude, which mirrored countercultural ideas. As with young people protesting against teachers, headmasters and deans who exercised their authority in schools and universities, the challenge to mid-1960s beat fashion and to adults accused of being its creators was conveyed through a critique of designer and high fashion. In magazines, the hippy style was presented as not determined by designers such as Mary Quant or Courrèges, who had influenced the beat fashion; conversely, designers were trying to appropriate the hippy style from ‘real’ hippies. For instance, an article in Ciao 2001 describes designer Jean Bouquin’s fashion as follows: Il grande sacerdote di quel nuovo tipo di moda che si ispira molto da vicino ai costumi degli hippies è Jean Bouquin … I materiali con i quali Jean Bouquin confeziona i suoi modelli, sono la chiave del successo che in cinque anni lo ha reso enormemente ricco e famoso. Jean infatti usa solamente tessuti che lui stesso o qualche suo collaboratore vanno scovando nelle vecchie madie delle case di campagna, nelle soffitte di antichi palazzetti di provincia e a volte anche nelle gallerie di qualche castello. Sono quindi abiti che sono confezionati con tessuti che hanno almeno cent’anni e che ‘emanano’ un fascino particolare, un po’ di mistero, delle suggestioni … Ma in tutto questo c’è un neo … gli abiti di Jean Bouquin infatti costano molto cari e nessun hippy potrebbe mai acquistarne uno. (Nassi, 1970b: 63)19

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Jean Bouquin is said to create high fashion from vintage fabrics, just like i giovani who were going to flea markets. The quotation seems to suggest that the true creators of the hippy fashion are i giovani themselves, while instead of attracting i giovani, the fashion industry is creating ‘vestiti hippy ma non per gli hippy’ (Nassi, 1970b: 63).20 Indeed, although the fashion industry superficially tried to please the giovane audience, magazines claimed that i giovani resisted its commercial authority. The hippy fashion was defined in an article in Ciao 2001 as ‘anarchist’: Dobbiamo essere riconoscenti alla moda di oggi, perché ci lascia tutta la libertà che desideriamo. Pur seguendo le linee generali e le indicazioni degli atelier, la moda dei giovani non è mai stata tanto simpatica come adesso. Perché mai come oggi è stata tanto anarchica: non obbedisce più a nessuna legge, se non a quella del gusto personale. (Nassi, 1969: 66)21

The idea of a resistance against the power of the fashion industry can be seen as an adaptation of the anti-authoritarian message coming from protest movements. Magazines also promoted an active challenge to the authority of designers by suggesting to their readers that, if they are ‘stanch[i] delle imposizioni dei grandi sarti’,22 they should, for instance, ‘disegnare da soli i loro abiti’ (‘La moda Big di Tonie e Jo. Facciamo da noi?’, 1967: 49).23 Indeed, they encouraged readers to display their own fashion creations, by publishing sketches of outfits created by them (‘Bam! La moda lei e lui’, 1969).​ Moreover, some fashion reports did not advertise a specific fashion brand, but rather underlined the personal choice of i giovani in deciding their own style, by displaying for example the ‘guardaroba senza etichetta’24 of stars, which only showed the bearer’s ‘gusto’ and ‘preferenze’ (Castagna, 1969a: 58).25 The intrinsic ‘demercificazione’ (Castagna, 1969a: 58) (decommodification) of do-it-yourself and second-hand fashion promoted in teen magazines guaranteed the possibility of expressing oneself outside of fashion’s accepted framework. However, hippies’ refusal of high fashion did not completely erase the homogenising power of the giovane style. A 1970 article that appeared in Ciao 2001 talked of an ongoing ‘crisi’ in the youth fashion industry: La ‘Haute Couture’ è sempre più nel caos … si vuole venire incontro al gusto giovane, e il mondo giovane ignora nel modo più completo i dettami [degli stilisti]: non riceve il ‘messaggio’. Sarebbe giusto dire che lo riceve esattamente quando gli fa comodo. I veri creatori della moda oggi sono proprio i giovani … Nelle grandi capitali si adotta ciò che si vuole, e si va in giro vestiti uguali, come se si indossasse una divisa: anche questa è una forma di protesta che distingue il giovane da chi, non essendolo più (o non volendolo essere) non può e non sa indossare le stesse cose. (Nassi, 1970a: 72)26

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Figure 3.2  Anti-authoritarian fashion: magazine fashion spread reporting the readers’ fashion sketches.

The quote ingenuously highlights how, despite its claims of freedom, the hippy style was in some way codified, to the extent that it constituted a ‘uniform’. In other words, despite being apparently anti-authoritarian, the hippy style was still homogenised. A 1969 article that appeared in Ciao 2001, for example, insisted on the relevance of giovani music stars in influencing the hippy fashion: La nuova moda dice che … non ci importa cosa dicono Nina Ricci e Valentino. Al massimo possiamo copiargli qualche idea. Noi ragazzi abbiamo la nostra moda. Che è fatta non tanto dai maghi della linea, quanto da ciò che portano quelli che per noi ‘contano’. Il foulard di Hendrix. La camicia di Paul [McCartney]. La mini-indiana della Baez. (‘2001 Moda’, 1969: 51)27

Although this quotation reaffirms the importance of international music stars such as Jimi Hendrix and Joan Baez during 1968–70, youth-oriented popular culture was increasingly problematising the role of stars as representatives of i giovani, as these stars were accused of being ‘fake’ or ‘inauthentic’ on account of their commercialism. Authenticity, as a concept, is a social construction suggesting the reality or genuineness of a particular object or subject; as such it always conceals a fabrication (Thornton, 1996: 26). More than being an objective notion, the definition of what is ‘authentic’ is always the result of an interaction. Richard E. Peterson explains that ‘authenticity is a claim that is made by or for someone, thing or performance and either accepted or rejected by

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relevant others’ (2005: 1086). Authentication, then, is a constant process of negotiation between different subjects, such as the industry and the fans in Peterson’s analysis of country music (1997: 6) and, in the case of hippies, between the industry, youth-oriented media and young people. The concept of authenticity became fundamental in the media construction of i giovani between 1967 and 1970, especially regarding representations of giovani stars and their public and private lives. In the period 1965–67, stars often appeared as spokespersons for i giovani. After 1967, teen magazines started to question the role of stars as representatives of the young generation. Stars were criticised for being part of the music industry, and therefore an artificial product of the youth market. Unlike beat singers, several new giovani singers such as Lucio Battisti, Nada Malanima and Massimo Ranieri were said to embody an ‘authentic’ giovane identity because of their natural style or their sincere, down-to-earth behaviour. Discussions about authenticity in magazines and television programmes after 1967 reflected the generalised anti-consumerism of the hippy style: according to magazines, the commercialisation of youth-oriented practices undermined them as authentic forms of expression for i giovani. Magazines began to denounce the commercial appropriation of countercultural styles, which had diluted their subversive potential. An article that appeared in Ciao Big in 1968 explained this process of appropriation: Ci fu anche chi, con felice intuito commerciale, volle sfruttare i capelli lunghi e le vesti multicolori e strane dei beats, elementi quanto mai esterni e superficiali della loro ribellione. Si videro allora dilagare camicie a fiori, pantaloni di velluto; si diffusero, ma sempre più purgate ed edulcorate, le ‘canzoni di protesta’, che ripetevano all’infinito, in facili slogans, e in forme che spesso denunciavano la prevalente mira commerciale, i motivi del pacifismo, della libertà, della lotta contro il razzismo, trasformando e facendo degenerare tutto in un gioco di moda. (Modesti, 1968: 53)28

Media accounts thus pointed to the fashion and music industries’ appropriation of countercultural trends, accusing them of de-politicising and homogenising the giovane identity. For example, an article that appeared in Ciao Big claimed that ‘il capellonismo [è] diventato, ormai, una forma antipatica di conformismo’ (‘Quattro chiacchiere con il direttore: i capelloni’, 1968: 12).29 As a consequence, popular culture suggested that rejecting elements appropriated by the industry, and therefore adopting a hippy style, could increase i giovani’s authenticity. Another element connected to authenticity in the media construction of hippies was the presentation of i giovani as spontaneous and sincere, onstage and at home. This aspect is well represented by the television programme Speciale per voi (1969–70), a musical show broadcast by RAI’s

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Secondo Canale for two series, in 1969 and 1970. The programme featured musical performances and interviews with singers, athletes, actors and cartoonists. In Speciale per voi, the studio setting and the content of the programme were constructed to seem spontaneous and unplanned. The programme always starts with a long shot of the studio in which the members of the audience are talking among themselves as if they were not being filmed. Moreover, seats are randomly placed all over the studio and the host, Renzo Arbore,30 needs to ask for the studio audience’s attention in order to start the show (Speciale per voi, episode 1, 18/03/1969). The set is bare and the frequent long shots film the entire audience, in this way suggesting their full participation in the programme. Arbore insists on defining the show as ‘un programma vero’ (episode 1, 18/03/1969),31 in which there is no script: Arbore himself is caught by the camera casually talking to a young woman at the beginning of several episodes (Speciale per voi, episode 5, 22/04/1969 and episode 6, 29/04/1969) and the dialogue between the audience and guests is often in an informal register. The programme makes no apparent distinction between the guests and the audience: singers perform live in the studio, and when they do not perform, they are sitting with the audience and participating in the discussion. In addition, translators who speak with foreign guests such as the Greek band Aphrodite’s Child and the French singer Éric Charden are presented as accidentally being part of the studio audience (Speciale per voi, episode 3, 08/04/1969 and episode 5, 22/04/1969). Most importantly, the giovane audience leads the show to some extent. Members of the audience talk directly to the musical guests, often drowning out the host. Arbore walks around the studio, carrying a microphone so that the audience can pose their questions to the guests, and asks for the audience’s permission when singers start to perform. Moreover, members of the audience interact with the guests in a polemical way, asking thorny questions and criticising their attitude. As the show was broadcast after 1968, this behaviour can be interpreted as mirroring the protest stance of the student and worker movements. Furthermore, in Speciale per voi, the audience criticises the stars who do not seem authentic in their behaviour, especially because of their commercialism. In other words, the role of the studio audience is to ‘demitizzare i miti attraverso le domande’,32 as Renzo Arbore underlines in one episode (Speciale per voi, episode 5, 22/04/69). For example, in an episode of Speciale per voi, Gianni Morandi enters the studio while the audience whistles to criticise him, and some members accuse him of being too mainstream and disengaged. One member of the audience also asks Morandi not to sing his latest single, ‘Occhi di Ragazza’ (Baldazzi & Braidotti, 1970) (Girls’ Eyes), in order to demonstrate that he is not on the show solely to promote his music (Speciale per voi, episode 2, 21/04/1970).

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Renzo Arbore also states that singers fear the Speciale per voi audience because they are too critical: he claims that if singers want to be taken seriously by i giovani, they need to perform for them on the show and answer the audience’s questions (Speciale per voi, episode 6, 29/04/1969). Accounts of stars being commercial products and thus inauthentic giovani also emerged in teen magazines: in a 1969 editorial in which Ciao 2001’s editor introduced the first issue of the magazine, he claimed that un giornale per i giovani non p[uò] continuare a creare miti, ad alimentarli, a cercare urletti di gioia, fasulli attori purché giovani all’anagrafe e vecchi perché nati in un sistema vecchio ed istruiti peggio … Un taglio netto ci vuole, una rivoluzione (il termine è troppo forte per il mio scopo, ma non ne trovo un altro subito) nel colloquio con la gioventù. (Ciao 2001, 1969a)33

The choice of terms, such as ‘revolution’, adds to the numerous references to protest in youth-oriented media discourse in this period, and is used here to criticise the mythification of giovani stars. However, when looking at Ciao 2001, one can see how the editor’s aim is fulfilled only to a certain extent. Although the magazine ran articles on society and politics, it also published celebrity gossip, and therefore Ciao 2001 still fostered the celebrity of stars. Criticism of inauthentic stars was not necessarily a reflection of an anticonsumerist attitude, but rather a renegotiation of giovani stars’ defining features. Peterson details the process of fabricating authenticity in the music industry as a deliberate endorsement of a musical genre’s stereotype: ‘entertainment music impresarios sense … that the essential appeal of the music [i] s rooted in the feeling of authenticity conveyed by its performers’ (1997: 5). The same can be said about the presentation of giovani singers in the period 1967–70: in response to a demand for less commercial stars, hippy stars were put forth and described as affecting a modest and friendly demeanour and an apparently natural style. This supposed ‘authenticity’ was, however, fabricated by the industry, as these stars were commercial products as much as their beat predecessors. Lucio Battisti, for example, became a singer and therefore a celebrity only after 1968, although he had previously been a composer for several beat bands. In one article, he was defined as the ‘anti-Morandi’ (Resta, 1969a: 50), in this way emphasising his difference from beat stars. According to an article that appeared in Giovani, Battisti ‘non vuole essere definito un “personaggio”. Nel vestire non si lascia andare a stranezze, non si compera macchine sportive, non scende a compromessi per un po’ di pubblicità’ (‘Le vacanze sul fiume del cantante solitario’, 1968: 27).34 Furthermore, the authenticity of his persona was reflected in his style, which was presented as ‘natural’. In a 1969 interview with Ciao 2001, Battisti comments:

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E i miei capelli! Lo sai che più di una persona pensava che portassi la parrucca e, quando dicevo: toccate, toccate, sono veri, tutti si allontanavano, come di fronte a uno zulù? Oggi le ragazze trovano addirittura sexy la mia capigliatura, ma io li lascio così soltanto perché odio tagliarmi i capelli e pettinarmi. (Resta, 1969a: 52)35

This attitude concerned not only his hairstyle, but also his style, which is described as follows: trasandato in maniera comoda, distratto, à la page soltanto per quell’eterno foulard di seta legato alla gola … Gli hanno detto che deve un po’ dimagrire; via, le cosce sono un po’ troppo robuste; ma lui lascia cantare e continua a portare sgraziati pantaloni che certo non aggraziano la sua figura. ‘Non ho alcuna intenzione di diventare un divo, sia ben chiaro’, puntualizza. (Resta, 1969a: 52)36

Battisti describes his Afro-inspired hairstyle37 and the wearing of hippy fashion as something completely casual and natural. He insists on the fact that he does not wear a wig, in this way accentuating his supposedly natural style. Moreover, he says that he does not want to lose weight to become more desirable, but he is conscious of the fact that his hairstyle, for example, is considered attractive by his female fans. He justifies his style, and therefore contributes to the construction of his own authenticity, by saying that he is too lazy to get a haircut, and he states that he wears what he likes; however, his style and hairstyle clearly recall the hippy trend advertised by magazines during this period. Media discourse presented Battisti as authentic because of his supposedly natural style; however, he was clearly following the hippy trend, and despite being a self-defined anti-celebrity, he was as much a part of the music industry as other singers. Similarly, Nada Malanima, who won the Sanremo Festival in 1969 when she was only fifteen years old with the song ‘Ma che freddo fa’ (Migliacci & Mattone, 1969) (How Cold It Is), embodied the naturalness and authenticity of the hippy star. In 1970, the magazine Ciao 2001 described her as follows: I riflettori della musica leggera … sono puntati ormai da mesi, su questo personaggio, minuscolo personaggio dal sorriso dolce e semplice, e dalle maniere ancora non rovinate dalle manie della pubblicità, o dagli atteggiamenti da diva … Si è imposta anche per le sue caratteristiche fisiche: un tipino adolescente, niente fronzoli, niente atteggiamenti caricaturali, semplicissima nei modi e nel vestire. Una tipica – accettabilissima – ragazzina dei nostri giorni. (‘Nada vince contro-canzonissima’, 1970: 36)38

Here, Nada is praised for being an anti-diva, still modest in her style and manners. She is said not to have an overstated way of presenting herself,

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both in appearance and behaviour. Nada also adopted a simple and natural style, which tended to stress her authenticity. Giovani published a backstage interview recorded during the singer’s participation in a Spanish television show, where she complains about the heavy makeup that the producers want her to wear by saying: Guarda come mi hanno conciata! … Ho un dito di cerone in faccia che mi pizzica! Se qualche ragazzo italiano mi vedesse conciata così, non mi riconoscerebbe nemmeno! Una cosa però ho rifiutato, pestando come una matta i piedi: le ciglia finte. Eh, no! Quelle sono davvero troppo. Io voglio cantare con la faccia pulita, alla mia età me lo posso permettere. (Tumbarello, 1969: 30)39

Evident is Nada’s discomfort over the heavy makeup she is forced to wear; she acknowledges that this style does not belong to her star persona, as she states that her Italian fans would not recognise her with all that makeup. Nada’s extremely youthful appearance also contributed to the construction of her persona as simple and natural, far from the excesses of other stars. Finally, Massimo Ranieri, a singer and actor who reached the peak of his popularity at the end of the 1960s, also represented the stereotype of the ‘boy next door’, in some way recalling Morandi’s star persona during the beat period. In Ciao 2001, Ranieri, as well as being an anti-star, was portrayed as a friend to readers: Se non facesse il cantante, potrebbe essere un compagno di banco, o l’amico con il quale si studia più volentieri, o il ragazzo con il quale si va volentieri al cinema (se si è una ragazza) o a tirare quattro calci al pallone. Massimo Ranieri è talmente lontano dalle ‘deformazioni’ della pubblicità e degli atteggiamenti da divo, che può ispirare una immediata, genuina, divertente simpatia. (‘Massimo ci ha confessato’, 1970: 26)40

The quotation concentrates on Ranieri’s behaviour towards other young people, and it stresses his difference from traditional stars, who are described as arrogant. It shows how, given his friendly demeanour, Ranieri as a star can appeal to everyone: to women, who would go on a date with him, and to men, with whom he would become friends. Similarly, in a 1970 appearance in a Speciale per voi episode, a member of the audience questions Ranieri’s authenticity by pointing out that when he entered the studio he was wearing a casual outfit and blue jeans, while during his performance he was wearing a suit and a shirt. When asked which was his ‘true’ self, Ranieri answered that ‘io sono lo stesso che in blue jeans’,41 in this way affirming that his authentic self and his star persona were the same (Speciale per voi, episode 13, 07/07/1970). The similar constructions of Battisti, Malanima and Ranieri emphasise how, during the period 1967–70, the term ‘star’ acquired negative

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connotations. Unlike beat singers, hippy stars were defined by a friendly attitude and by a natural style that rejected commercial fashion and makeup. However, as shown in the examples above, the authenticity of the hippy stars’ ‘natural’ construction is questionable: a supposedly natural style does not necessarily mean that these stars did not follow or promote a trend; moreover, the anti-star representation of singers such as Battisti, Malanima and Ranieri clashed with their role as representatives for i giovani. As this telling quotation taken from Ciao Big comparing singers Patty Pravo and Gianni Morandi suggests, star personas, despite being labelled authentic or inauthentic, were all fabricated by the media: Costruita? Ma un personaggio è sempre costruito. Anche la più bella, spontanea melodia del mondo è qualcosa di costruito. E se Patty Pravo è qualcosa di artificiale, bene, questo ci sembra un suo merito in più … Patty Pravo non vuole essere il simbolo mimico-musicale della ragazza spontanea, dagli atteggiamenti spontanei: non vuole essere la contropartita musicale di Gianni Morandi. Ma la ‘spontaneità’ di Morandi (personaggio) è una ‘finzione artistica’ né più e né meno della sofisticazione un po’ barocca di Patty Pravo. (Scaccia, 1968b: 52)42

This analysis ably summarises the meaning of ‘authenticity’ in the media construction of young stars. The way in which the authentic hippy was constructed in popular culture had the double function of building a sense of community and creating commercial star personas, such as Nada, Battisti and Ranieri, who, despite performing in different ways, still had the same purpose as beat stars: that was, to sell records and to promote a specific style. However, this construction was based on a rejection of the beat identity: this process confirms the definition of the hippy in opposition not only to adults, but also to previous representations of young people.

‘Other’ times, ‘other’ places: the 1930s-inspired trend and the Afro style During 1967–70, several trends which seemed to have an anti-consumerist inspiration, and were inspired by ‘other’ times and ‘other’ places, emerged in youth-oriented popular culture. For example, at the end of 1967, the ‘flower power’ trend, directly inspired by the American hippie movement, was complemented by the proliferation of an India-inspired style. After the Italian release of the Hollywood film Bonnie and Clyde (Penn, 1967) in December 1967, a wave of 1930s-inspired fashion was presented in popular media. However, this trend quickly disappeared in 1968, while at the same time an Afro trend, which affected particularly hairstyles, emerged.

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All these different styles were influenced by transnational trends that were developing in Western countries, both in mainstream culture, such as the 1930s-inspired trend, and in countercultures, such as the so-called ‘ethnic’ looks. Often these fashions were casually appropriated by mainstream fashion, in Italy and elsewhere. Sonia Ashmore points out, for example, that the British hippie fashion was characterised by an indiscriminate mix of styles: In the 1960s and 1970s, a different kind of interest in ‘ethnic’ dress emerged as part of a counter-cultural reaction to conventions of all kinds … Exoticism was often undifferentiated. North African, Native American, South American, ‘peasant’ and ‘gypsy’ styles were also casually borrowed. (Ashmore, 2010: 110)

The same apparently accidental incorporation of ethnic elements can be found in the Italian giovane style, where the ‘ethnic’ style expressed an eccentricity and extravagance that, in the Italian case, was best in moderation: Adesso è il grande momento dello stile western. Ma anche tutte le altre influenze, sia orientaleggianti che del terzo mondo, sono accettate, purché siano un po’ attenuate. Insomma, pensiamo proprio che i guru e tutte quelle stravaganze che sino a ieri dettavano legge oggi siano state bandite dal guardaroba maschile. La nuova parola d’ordine è: stravaganti sì, ma con moderazione e gusto … Naturalmente, parliamo dell’aspetto esteriore. Perché dentro, i ragazzi, oggi sono più rivoluzionari che mai. (‘Le camicie del Far West’, 1968: 34)43

In order to show how these trends’ commercial and political meanings were represented in Italian popular media, this section will use two case studies. It will analyse firstly a transhistorical appropriation, namely the 1930s-inspired trend, and secondly a transnational inspiration, the Afro style developing in 1968–69. One of the main differences between the beat and the hippy style from 1968 to 1970 can be found in their references to the past. If during the period 1965–67, opposition to adults implied a rejection of everything that was considered ‘old’, from the end of 1967 there was a re-evaluation of the past as a source of inspiration for young people’s style.44 An article in Ciao Big announces at the end of 1967: Il futuro … ha un cuore antico. Cinque o sei anni fa, questa affermazione sarebbe apparsa strana … E i disegnatori di moda si affannavano a immaginare abiti alla marziana, con caschi e cappotti in materiale plastico, se non addirittura in amianto. Invece, che cosa è accaduto? Sono nati i ‘figli dei fiori’, gli hippies e nel giro di un anno (anche meno) si è affermato lo stile liberty, quello stile fatto di ghirigori, di ornamenti bizzarri, di fiori, di quei fregi dolci e tenui che si affermarono negli anni a cavallo tra le due guerre mondiali (1920–1940). (Settimelli, 1967: 83)45

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The period from which the hippy style took inspiration was the inter-war period: for example, the floral theme of the ‘flower power’ trend was said to be inspired by 1920s Art Nouveau, which also made substantial use of references to floral patterns. The chapter has already mentioned the widespread use of vintage fashion during this period, which equally celebrated the idea of ‘old’. Moreover, at the beginning of 1968, giovane fashion was influenced by the release of Arthur Penn’s film Bonnie and Clyde, set in the United States in the 1930s. The success that met this film not only in the United States, but also in Europe, provoked the emergence of a 1930s-inspired trend, the main features of which were curly hairstyles, heavy makeup and the wearing of female and male suits. Although this fashion trend lasted only for a short time – references to this style only appear in teen-oriented media during the first three months of 1968 – it was widely covered in magazines and influenced fashion46 and television programmes.47​ Consequently, a discourse that did not consider the ‘past’ as contradictory to the giovane identity, but rather as a renewal of what the giovane identity was supposed to embody, began to emerge: Dopo il lungo periodo ‘beat’, dunque, in cui era la ‘swinging’ London a dettar legge, ora è la volta della ‘roaring’ America … È chiaro che con una mise del genere i capelloni stoneranno terribilmente: perciò, bene le basette a metà guancia e oltre, e benissimo il capello liscio con scriminatura a sinistra. (Pady, 1968: 17)48

Figure 3.3  1930s-inspired fashion worn by famous giovani stars.

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According to this article that appeared in Ciao Big, 1930s style implied a rejection of the beat style, embodied here by long hairstyles, which did not fit with the new trend. The writer points out that the new trend emerging in 1968 is not inspired by a contemporary foreign phenomenon, such as ‘Swinging London’, but rather a historic, and again, foreign, cultural reference: the 1930s in the United States. In teen magazines, the inter-war period started to be described as ‘l’epoca giovane’ (Movilia, 1968: 18).49 In other words, popular media discourse sought to construct a historical connection between the 1930s and the giovane identity: it emphasised how several practices that emerged during the inter-war period anticipated modern youth-oriented practices. On the one hand, the 1930s were described as the period in which contemporary adults were giovani, thus mitigating the distance between i giovani and adults. On the other hand, the inter-war period was represented as the period in which ‘nasceva … tutto quello che amiamo oggi’ (Movilia, 1968: 18),50 such as dances and fashion. Teen-oriented magazines portrayed the 1930s as a period in which i giovani of both sexes were allowed much more freedom in leisure activities. For example, an article in Ciao Big described the 1930s as quelli nei quali si scopre la vita moderna, lo stile novecento, lo sci d’acqua, lo sport femminile e signori per bene, seri e vestiti di scuro camminano per la strada facendo andare su e giù lo yo-yo. È la mania di quegli anni. (Movilia, 1968: 18)51

The way in which teen magazines presented the 1930s in Italy clearly represented a stereotyped appropriation of the 1930s, which was borrowed from fictional and transnational experiences. Indeed, during the Ventennio (twenty-year period) from 1922 to 1943, Italy was ruled by the Fascist regime, which notably tended to exercise direct control over the Italian population’s leisure activities and their individual bodies. The social life of the younger generations, including their free time and holidays, was organised and controlled through compulsory participation in youth movements like the Opera Nazionale Balilla (National Balilla Organisation) (1922–37) and the Gioventù Italiana del Littorio (Italian Fascist Youth) (1937–43). Discussing physical exercise during the Fascist regime, George Mosse underlines that the overriding importance of physical exercise in Italy … was not so much centred on the symbolic importance of the beautiful body as, above all, on its use to instil discipline and a sense of order, and proper comportment was considered essential. (Mosse, 1996: 161)

Furthermore, the role of women in society was also controlled and ruled by Fascist propaganda: Victoria De Grazia points out that despite the existence

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of images of ‘modern’ women in Italian inter-war culture – the donne-crisi, Italian counterparts to the French garçonnes and the American flappers – these images were used in the Fascist imagery as a negative counterpoint to the woman-as-mother: ‘fascist propaganda manufactured two female images. One was the donna-crisi: she was cosmopolitan, urbane, skinny, hysterical, decadent, and sterile. The other was the donna-madre: she was national, rural, floridly robust, tranquil, and prolific’ (1992: 73). Because of the primary role of women as mothers envisioned by the regime, women’s sports were not fully encouraged by Fascism after puberty, because it could impact women’s fecundity and ability to give birth. The misremembering of the past, and the transposition of nostalgia for the 1930s from the Italian to the American context, can be interpreted as strategies to avoid dealing with a traumatic past such as the Fascist Ventennio: referring to an imagined past, such as that which came from Hollywood imagery and American popular culture, contributed to partially erase the memory of living under a dictatorship, and therefore influenced the collective memory of the inter-war period in Italy. As young people had not experienced the Fascist regime, the discussion of the 1930s in youthoriented media suggests the hand of the magazines’ writers and editors in creating this renegotiated depiction of the past. Descriptions of the 1930s arguably reveal the presence of adults working through their own experiences and perhaps trying to gain the acceptance of their young audiences. For example, scholars have interpreted the display of violence in Bonnie and Clyde as an attempt at defusing the trauma of the Vietnam War in American society (Devine, 1995: 56–7). The absence of violence in 1960s Italian popular media accounts of the 1930s, instead, suggests a refusal to come to terms with the traumatic memories of Italy’s past. The creation of an imagined past, in addition, had a more direct effect on the media construction of i giovani: references to a fictional past and a different place, such as that created by Hollywood, functioned as a myth of origins for the community of 1960s giovani. In the television programme Speciale per voi (1969), part of the discussion in the studio dealt with the supposed discrimination of adults towards i giovani and the incommunicability between the two groups. The studio audience tended to justify their behaviour by connecting it to that of their parents who were young during the inter-war period. For example, during a discussion about the giovane style, a member of the audience declares that he does not understand how adults can consider i giovani’s style ‘strange’, as his parents adopted a similarly ‘strange’ style – he does not specify which – when they were giovani (Speciale per voi, episode 3, 08/04/1969). Similarly, when discussing dances, another member of the audience describes how their parents’ generation

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danced similarly to today’s giovani, for example when they danced the Charleston (Speciale per voi, episode 4, 15/04/1969). In these examples, references to the inter-war period as a giovane era effectively functioned as an ‘invented tradition’, or an ideological construction that created an illusive link to the past, for i giovani. According to Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, ‘invented traditions’ have a strong ritualistic, symbolic and therefore ideological function (2004: 4): they perpetuate and naturalise the social construction of ‘imagined’ national communities. Similarly, the creation of a past for the community of i giovani functioned to naturalise not only the social construction of youth as a collective identity, but also the practices through which it was constructed in popular media. Hobsbawm and Ranger underline how, in invented traditions, ‘the continuity with [the historical past] is largely fictitious’ (2004: 2). The practices that the studio audience in Speciale per voi situate in the 1930s are in fact acquired from an imagined past. According to David Forgacs and Stephen Gundle, access to leisure activities and social relationships was restricted for young people in Italy during the 1930s, especially those outside major cities: for example, ‘public dances [for young people] were often declared off-limits by parents’ (2007: 86). As a consequence, it is arguable that the popular media imagery of 1930s young people dancing the Charleston was not common or experienced by most of the Italian population. Similarly, Forgacs and Gundle note how the use of commercial fashion during the 1930s was limited to the few people who could afford it: [Before 1945] although even poorer people were aware of fashion, attractive or even new clothes were usually out of reach … Before the mass consumption of fashion, clothes, and cosmetics, there was a period where working-class and some peasant women sought to emulate the appearance of women with higher incomes but could do so only in a rough and ready way. (2007: 87)

As a consequence, the assumption that young people in Italy used to wear a ‘strange’ style in the 1930s is unlikely to be true. In popular culture, then, references to the 1930s as the ‘epoca giovane’ was mainly based on those aspects, namely dance, fashion and music, which were the main features of the giovane identity in the 1960s. This representation tended to obscure the reality of many Italian citizens’ lives during the inter-war period, when the Fascist regime exercised control over the body and practices of the younger population. The popular media construction of 1960s giovani, then, can shed light on issues connected to Italian society as a whole, such as the complicated relationship a nation has with its own past. Italy’s difficult relationship with its own past also emerges in the Italian appropriation of another giovane trend of the late 1960s, namely the Afro style. Indeed, the hippy fashion in 1967–70 was characterised by the

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co-opting of several seemingly ‘ethnicised’ or ‘non-Western’ features. The Italian appropriation of these styles, however, had a Western inspiration: in 1967, an India-inspired trend emerged in the United Kingdom, where young people started to wear saris, kaftans and Indian textiles. In 1968, an Afroinspired trend developed in the United States that concerned particularly hairstyles, but also accessories such as ‘African’ necklaces and bracelets. The appropriation of ‘ethnic’ garments and accessories was not new in Western fashion, as a fascination with the exotic has always permeated occidental trends: The incorporation of exotic motifs in fashion (across all cultures) is an effective way of creating a ‘frisson’ (a thrill or quiver) within social conventions of etiquette. Because fashion systems are built on the interrelationship and tension between exotic and familiar codes, [they] plunder ‘exotic’ techniques and codes from ‘other’ looks and fashions … In Western fashion, the term ‘exotic’ is used to refer to elements of new fashion codes or ‘new looks’ codified as profoundly ‘different’ from previous or contemporary fashion techniques. (Craik, 1994: 17)

Ever since the period of European colonialism in Africa and Asia, the Western adoption of aspects of the colonised countries’ traditional garments was used to express extravagance and originality, whilst also reaffirming the supremacy of the West over the colonised populations. However, the 1960s appropriation of ethnic elements was substantially different from the previous resignification of non-Western styles, for its meaning became countercultural and political. Indeed, ‘ethnic’ styles expressed either a rejection of Western consumerist society, as was the case with the hippie appropriation of Indian garments, or visually demonstrated alignment with emancipatory groups such as those involved with the American civil rights movement, as did the American Afro style. To explain how these Western trends were incorporated in Italy, the case of the Afro trend seems the most significant, not only because it represented a strong political statement in the Western world, but also because the giovane style had not previously incorporated elements questioning issues of race and ethnicity. During the 1960s, the African American community used style to create a common identity and to show a sense of belonging to a shared tradition. Susan B. Kaiser explains how in the United States ‘in 1952, a black woman proudly wearing “nappy” hair was unfashionable. In 1960, she was a curiosity, in 1965 a militant, and in 1968 stylish’ (2012: 78). Ayana Byrd and Lori Tharps claim that African Americans’ style before the 1960s tended to conform to white American standards of beauty, especially in the styling of hair, which used to be straightened and coiffed (2014). From 1965 onwards, the adoption of natural hairstyles and the abandonment of several

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techniques of hair straightening symbolised a challenge to the subjugation of Black people in the United States, summarised in the civil rights movement’s slogan ‘Black is Beautiful’ (Kaiser, 2012: 80). Byrd and Tharps explain how between 1964 and 1966, colored people and negroes ‘became’ Black people … The shift to calling oneself Black and being proud of it translated into a style that proudly hearkened back to Africa. More than skin color, the word became a political statement in terms of one’s consciousness, color and culture. After generations of trying to neutralise distinctive African characteristics, people began to celebrate them. And just as hair had been central to the way blacks of earlier years had sought to mainstream themselves, hair became a key determinant in visually declaring Black Pride. (2014: 50–1)

The Afro hairstyle was thus a ‘declaration of [African Americans’] racial pride’ (2014: 54), and it became a political statement, as it aesthetically acknowledged involvement in the civil rights movement. In Italy the adoption of the Afro trend effaced its protest roots. Instead of connecting Afro influences in the hippy style to the American civil rights movement, teen magazines tended to locate the origin of the Afro trend in an Orientalist and unspecified idea of ‘Africa’. In other words, the Italian appropriation of an ‘African’ style can be seen as what Edward Said calls a ‘latent Orientalism’ in postcolonial popular culture, characterised by a reinforcement of the stereotypes by which the Orient is viewed. Television, the films, and all the media’s resources have forced information into more and more standardized modes. So far as the Orient is concerned, standardization and cultural stereotyping have intensified the hold of the nineteenth-century and imaginative demonology of the ‘mysterious Orient’. (2003: 26)

Said maintains that in depictions from the West, the Orient is regularly described as having an ‘unchallenged coherence’ and a ‘unanimity, stability, durability’ (2003: 206). Almost every account of the Afro trend in teen magazines referred to ‘Africa’ as a singular entity, in which different traditions were randomly borrowed and mixed together: Nella moda Giovane … è arrivata l’Africa. La più Nera. La più Colorata. La più Pazza: collane berbere su caffetani arabi; sandali congolesi con mantelli libici. Africa per tutte le ore. Per farsi il primo caffè ancora a piedi scalzi: il lungo caffettano bianco o nero, con disegni che nevrotizzeranno tutta la giornata … Per la sera lei indosserà la lunghissima tunica da preferita di harem, e lui quasi la stessa, ma con ricami importanti, da sceicco. E collane a chili: perfino le bancarelle ne sono piene. (‘Moda’, 1969: 66)52

The highlighting of the Afro style’s colourful and eccentric features suggests that the appropriation of ethnic trends is an extravagant act. The article lists different African traditions and styles, such as Arab, Berber, Congolese and

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Libyan, one after the other as adjectives for objects, without offering any contextual information, thus implying that these cultures are all similar and can be randomly appropriated. Moreover, Italian popular media references to ‘Africa’ in descriptions of the Afro style also presented these societies as unchanging and immutable, not only in space, but also in time: Prossimamente le pettinature anni Trenta verranno soppiantate da quelle ispirate all’Africa. Le negre [sic] che si acconciano ancora davanti alle capanne di fango e di paglia, hanno molto da suggerirci. I parrucchieri creeranno parrucche e toupet ispirandosi a quelli di lana e fibre vegetali delle donne bantù e zulù. Caschetti di capelli arricciati cortissimi, parrucche di media lunghezza lanose, toupet vertiginosamente alti, simili a coni piazzati sulla sommità del capo, ciondoli di cinghia e metallo ad imitazione di quelli di teck e semi delle negre [sic], per la gran sera. (‘L’Africa nei capelli’, 1968: 84)53

Here, ‘Africa’ is presented as a backward society in which people live in huts and use outdated hairstyling methods and poor materials. This static representation characterises ‘Africa’ as a place that has not experienced a Western-style modernisation. It is a place without a history, in which colonisation and decolonisation never happened. ‘Africa’, just like ‘the Orient’ described by Orientalist writers, is a place where ‘the very possibility of development, transformation, human movement – in the deepest sense of the word – is denied’ (Said, 2003: 208). Moreover, in the quotation above, and in that which follows, Africa is often identified with the Zulu tribe: the term Zulù in the Italian language has been used since the nineteenth century in a derogatory way to indicate an ‘ignorant and rough’ person (Vocabolario Online Treccani, n.d.). The conflation of ‘Africans’ and Zulus reinforces the construction of ‘Africa’ not only as a static space, but also as a backward society. Magazine references to tribalism in the Afro style seem to imply a savageness in the ‘African’ subject that, the author of the next quotation hopes, the West will not adopt: Questa ondata ha colpito anche il mondo maschile. [Portano] qualche collana di perline colorate come quelle degli Zulù, altre di vetro con pendagli anch’essi di vetro, altre di panno con guarnizioni varie. Poi ci sono le zanne di cinghiale, appese a catene d’argento … È una moda che sta invadendo l’Inghilterra. A che cosa si arriverà? Forse ai piattelli che certe tribù dell’Africa inseriscono sotto le labbra? Speriamo di no. (Mascalero, 1970: 47)54

The journalist celebrates the originality of Afro fashion, as long as it does not reach certain excesses, which are instead identified with the ‘African’ population. This quotation reaffirms the colonial power dynamics between Western and non-Western subjects: despite the appropriation of trends that are said to be ‘African’, the supposed modernity and moderation of the

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West are celebrated against the backwardness and savageness of ‘African’ subjects. References to the ‘African’ ‘Other’ in youth-oriented media, in fact, are imbued with stereotypes that date back to the European, and in this case, the Italian, colonial past. Jacqueline Andall and Derek Duncan have demonstrated that the memory of Italian colonial experience can still be found in social, political and cultural representations of both Italy and its former colonies. According to the authors, the specificity of the Italian postcolonial legacy is ‘the particular way in which it has been both remembered and forgotten’ (Andall & Duncan, 2005: 15). On the one hand, the Italian colonial experience tends to be described as ‘less pernicious than that of other European nations’ (Andall & Duncan, 2005: 11); on the other hand, the ‘Italian colonial encounter often returns as a latent and repressed memory in moments of crisis’ (Andall & Duncan, 2005: 19). References to the Afro style in teen magazines show the legacy of Italian colonialism, for example in the use of words that evoke the Italian colonies: in an article that appeared in Big in 1967, curly hair is described as ‘abissino, cresposo, divertente, volutamente trasandato’ (Nicky, 1967b: 81).55 The adjective ‘abissino’, as well as the adjective ‘libico’ appearing in a previous quote, are not used to indicate a specific geographical region, but rather as a synonym for ‘African’, thus demonstrating the latent conflation of the ‘African’ and those African populations that were colonised by Italy. Resonances of the Italian colonial past also appear in media descriptions of the body of the ‘African’ ‘Other’, and in particular of Black and Brown skin. Shirley Anne Tate explains that ‘skin signifies. It is a mark of ethnicity, status, identity, self-hood … Black women and men continue to be placed as other: as Black others imprisoned by discourses of skin’ (2001: 209). Frantz Fanon talks about a ‘color prejudice’ that views Black people as ‘savages, brutes, illiterates’ (2008: 88–9), and points out how dark skin makes the identification with this stereotypical and immutable image impossible to escape from. In addition to these global meanings attributed to Black and Dark skin, references to Black skin immediately bring to the mind of an Italian reader the Fascist colonial imagery of the faccetta nera,56 or the racist depiction of the colonised ‘Other’s’ bodily features as a form of domination. Before discussing the domination of the Black ‘Other’, however, it is significant to stress how, in teen magazines, people with Black and Brown skin were almost uniquely represented as ‘Africans’. For example, in a photo story which appeared in Ciao Big, singer Rocky Roberts, who became extremely famous in Italy during the beat period, portrayed a Congolese student moving to Italy for his studies (‘30 in amore’, 1969: 56–9). Here the Black person is directly associated with ‘Africa’, instead of with his own national origins. Rocky Roberts was in fact an African

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American marine who first came to Italy during the 1960s as part of a military operation. Once in Italy, he became a successful singer with his band, the Airedales, made up of some of his comrades in arms (Della Casa & Manera, 2011: 103).​ At the end of 1967, two extremely popular songs, both sung in Italian by French singers, focused on skin as a marker of difference. These two songs demonstrate how, in popular culture, discourses around Black and Brown

Figure 3.4  American singer Rocky Roberts playing Bob, a young Congolese student, in a photo story.

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skin tended to inscribe in the Black ‘Other’ prevailing stereotypes, such as a naturalised predisposition to rhythm and musicality, an inner inclination to sexuality and an animal instinct. In ‘La pelle nera’ (Ferrer, 1967) (Black Skin), singer Nino Ferrer laments that he would like to sing like Wilson Pickett and James Brown but cannot, because he is white. As a consequence, he wishes he could have their Black skin, in order to be able to ‘naturally’ sing like his idols: Eeeh dimmi Wilson Pickett / eeeh dimmi tu James Brown / questa voce dove la trovate … io faccio tutto per poter / cantar come voi / ma non c’è niente da fare non ci / riuscirò mai / io penso che sia soltanto / per il mio color che non va / ecco perché io vorrei / vorrei la pelle nera … eeeh dimmi tu signor Faubus / eeeh dimmi come si può / arrostire un negretto [sic] ogni tanto / con la massima serenità / io dico Nino tu non ci dovresti pensar / ma non c’è niente da fare / per dimenticar / ’sto maledetto colore di pelle che mi / brucia un po’ … Poi vorrei stare laggiù / abitare a New Orleans / ascoltare il Missisippi, fare a pugni con gli amici / tutti neri e musicisti, saper suonare la tromba / poter parlare l’inglese, l’italiano non funziona per questa musica qui / poi vorrei poter gridare / yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, all right!57

The song is intended to be an anti-racist song: the singer talks to Orval Faubus, the governor of Arkansas who became known worldwide during the Little Rock Crisis of 1957, when he brought out the National Guard to prevent African Americans from attending Little Rock Central High School as part of the federally ordered racial desegregation programme. In the song, Ferrer polemically asks him how he could be so cruel towards Black people. However, the song is based on racist stereotypes, as it equates Black skin with an innate inclination to rhythm and musicality, as well as to violence. Moreover, even though ‘La pelle nera’ clearly talks about African American singers, one of the Italian covers of Ferrer’s album features a white drawing on a black background representing an ‘African’ tribal warrior, with face paint and ornaments: again, the sign ‘Black skin’ is translated in Italian media through a direct reference to ‘Africa’. Whilst ‘La pelle nera’ concentrates on Black people’s ‘innate’ musicality and aggressiveness, Antoine’s ‘Cannella’ (Antoine & Pagani, 1967) (Cinnamon) is about a young mixed-race woman with whom the singer falls in love. La chiamerò Cannella / per il colore che ha. / La chiamerò Cannella / in privato e in società. / La pelle di Cannella / impazzire mi fa. / Se dico così / una ragione ce l’ho: / io l’ho assaggiata e voi no … Ti metterò un guinzaglio / per essere sicuro che / da oggi in poi, / nemmeno per sbaglio, / tu possa fuggire da me.58

As both Said (2003: 207) and Anne McClintock (1995) point out, in colonial discourse the Orient is often feminised; it is the virgin, natural territory

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that needs to be actively subjugated by the colonial white male. In particular, McClintock talks about a ‘porno-tropic tradition’ (1995: 22), which sees imperialism as a male penetration of a veiled female interior. This discourse is also transferred to the colonised female ‘Other’, who has to be conquered and tamed: ‘within this porno-tropic tradition, women figured as the epitome of sexual aberration and excess. Folklore saw them, even more than the men, as given to a lascivious venery so promiscuous as to border on the bestial’ (McClintock, 1995: 22). Echoes of a porno-tropic tradition are retraceable in ‘Cannella’: the young woman is identified through the cinnamon-like colour of her skin, which literally defines her. Moreover, the way in which the singer refers to Cannella suggests a subjugation and animalisation of the female Black ‘Other’: on the one hand, the singer is proud of having ‘tasted’ her and her skin; on the other hand, he says that he will use a lead to prevent her escape, in this way affirming his conquest of the young woman and equating her to a slave, or an animal. Singer, dancer and television personality Lola Falana also embodied the sexualisation of the Black ‘Other’ in Italy during the period 1967–70. The African American artist, who became a celebrity in Italian popular media during the second half of the 1960s, was often referred to as ‘la venere nera’, indirectly alluding to the colonial imagery of the ‘beautiful, docile and sexually available’ Black Venus (Ponzanesi, 2005: 173). Sandra Ponzanesi points out that to Western male colonisers the Black Venus was ‘the quintessential emblem of the other, both in racial and sexual terms’ (Ponzanesi, 2005: 166). In the Musicarello film Stasera mi butto (Fizzarotti, 1967) (Tonight I Give It a Go), starring Rocky Roberts and Lola Falana, the two stars portray themselves; in the case of Lola Falana, her role appears in the film’s opening credits, where she is called ‘la venere negra [sic]’.59 Falana is stereotypically represented as a sexual temptation for the protagonist, Carlo Timidoni (Giancarlo Giannini). Not only does Falana help Carlo make his girlfriend jealous by pretending to have sex with him, she is also the central female object of desire in the film. For example, comedians Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia, playing the roles of two lifeguards, open a business allowing all the men in the beach resort to spy on her through a keyhole while she is naked in a changing room. Moreover, even if Rocky Roberts is presented as African American in the film, his Black skin is still connected to his supposed African origins: while he is singing a song in English, an old lady comments: ‘queste urla mi ricordano il viaggio in Africa del mio povero Filippo’,60 referring to her dead husband. Discourses around the non-Western ‘Other’ in 1960s Italian youth-oriented media thus still concentrated on Black and Brown skin and on its stereotyped behavioural and social significations. As Ponzanesi has noted about contemporary representations of the Black body in Italian advertisements, in Italian popular media ‘the

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Black body is still crystallized in its immutable otherness, stuck in passive, solitary sensuality. This is indeed an exoticization and eroticization of the Black body, where it is very much entrapped by the Orientalist gaze, not unlike during the fascist period’ (2005: 180). In 1968–69, the appropriation of two Western trends in Italian popular media took very different trajectories from their original inspirations. In Italian teen magazines and television programmes, the Hollywood-inspired 1930s trend became an ‘invented tradition’ for the community of i giovani. The Afro trend, on the other hand, was stripped of any references to the American civil rights movement and reconfigured into a stereotypical representation of ‘Africa’. The relocation of the giovane style to imagined times and places – the Hollywood representation of the 1930s, and Orientalist ‘Africa’ – suggests that these trends tended to remove i giovani from the Western reality of the 1960s, where young people were starting to be politically active. In other words, the faraway inspirations and references in media representations of Italian giovani in this period enabled people to escape a social reality in which young people were actively starting to demonstrate against power in schools and within Italian society as a whole. Descriptions of both the transhistorical and the transnational influences of the hippy style can also shed light on the difficult relationship between Italian society and its own past. If discourses about the inter-war period tended to hide the trauma of Fascism, descriptions of the ‘African’ ‘Other’ in the 1960s show the permanence of racist and colonial discourses. These aspects clearly demonstrate how, in the 1960s, a contradictory renegotiation of the Italian recent past was taking place, and it was influenced by the circulation of discourses around the ‘Other’ as expressed in popular media.

Hippy femmes fatales and the effeminisation of young men In the period 1965–67, although the miniskirt had introduced discussion about female sexuality, the construction of young female stars such as Caterina Caselli and Rita Pavone tended to obscure young women’s active sexuality. From 1967 on, the increasing presence of discourses around female sexuality introduced new, sexualised ways of representing giovani femininities in popular media. The new role of women as sexually active and emancipated also troubled traditional power dynamics between genders, not only in the sexual sphere, but also in Italian society. In popular media, men’s alleged loss of power over women was represented as a form of effeminisation of Italian masculinities, as seen in discussions around men’s fashion. The hippy style increasingly eroded the boundaries between masculine and feminine styles, for it significantly altered male beauty standards

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further than the issue of long hair. In this section, I discuss representations of these changes in youth-oriented Italian popular culture by showing how discourses around femininities and masculinities were influenced by social and gender anxieties that encouraged a reassertion of traditional feminine and masculine ideals in popular media. From 1967 on, articles discussing the ways in which sexuality was experienced by young people multiplied in teen magazines, as well as those addressing society’s reluctance to accept their approach to sex and premarital sexual experiences. In particular, teen magazines debated the lack of sexual education for Italian youth. An article that appeared in Ciao Big in 1968, for example, claimed that in Italy there was a complete absence of sex education, not only in schools, but first and foremost in the family. Even if young women have ‘il coraggio di mettere la minigonna, spesso contro il parere non solo dei genitori, ma anche del fidanzato giovane’,61 ‘il loro coraggio non sembra avere un riscontro sulla maturità sessuale e, prima ancora, nella coscienza dei fenomeni fisiologici’ (Settimelli, 1968: 10–11),62 because, according to the journalist, their mothers do not explain anything about sexual intercourse and contraception to them, with obvious consequences: Naturalmente quando la ragazza ‘fa il salto’, l’ignoranza delle cose sessuali porta a risultati deleteri. Perché la perdita di quella che viene eufemisticamente chiamata ‘purezza’ (proprio per dare l’idea del … peccato che si commette perdendola) si accompagna troppo spesso ad una immediata maternità. (Settimelli, 1968: 10–11)63

Silence on the part of the family, and adults in general, is also found in discussions about contraceptive methods. While in Italy free access to the contraceptive pill was not legalised until 1976, a debate around this topic started to circulate at the end of the 1960s. An article that appeared in Ciao 2001 in 1969 summarised this dispute as follows: Di fronte all’argomento pillola le reazioni del costume sono state due, ben differenziate. Una attiva, una passiva. Entrambe significative. Una mentalità attiva, curiosa, senza preconcetti – per lo più da parte dei giovani … Per la mentalità passiva invece parlare della pillola è già compromettersi … Signora, scusi, ma la pillola esiste. Mi dica solo il suo parere, cosa ne pensa. Silenzio. (Benzoni, 1969: 14)64

While, according to the writer, young women are actively interested in getting information about the contraceptive pill, the adults’ reaction is often silence. This lack of dialogue was considered problematic in these magazine articles, which identified the family as the place where i giovani should receive information about sexuality. As a consequence, teen magazines often acted as substitutes for the family in educating young people about

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sex. The way in which sexuality was discussed in teen magazines, however, demonstrates a cautious attitude towards sexual liberation, especially for young women. Indeed, some articles still took a moralistic approach to the subject, defending women’s decency as innate. For example, the threat of sexually provocative garments, such as the miniskirt, is said, in this article, to be defused by qualities that every woman possesses naturally, like modesty: Oggi sono poche le donne che sanno resistere alla tentazione della minigonna … ma per una misteriosa forza il pudore ha reagito e con successo. Se la minigonna bomba si permette ogni audacia, ecco nascere spontaneamente il collant che sembra un aggeggio di niente … ma che in realtà esercitano una notevole pressione psicologica, tale da disinnescare la carica esplosiva della ‘bomba’ … L’evoluzione dei costumi … può dare l’impressione che il pudore sia un valore dimenticato, invece è proprio il contrario perché nessuna donna accetterebbe i capricci della moda senza aver salvaguardato quel sentimento intimo e quel suo mistero che è appunto il pudore. (De Santis, 1969: 19)65

Many articles in teen magazines also insisted on Italian giovani women’s modesty and promoted sexual abstinence for young people. Yet, despite these moralistic representations, interviews and readers’ letters printed in magazines reveal the existence of a giovane sexuality and young women’s desire to overcome sexual taboos. A letter from a young female reader, for example, shows the emergence of feminist ideas about gender equality in the approach to sex: Qui non si tratta di ‘darsi o non darsi, negare o non negare il proprio corpo all’uomo che sta con noi’. Visto così il problema è sbagliato. È sbagliato secondo me perché rimane sempre l’uomo il signore e padrone … Qui si tratta di prendere con la forza il diritto di fare l’amore, care ragazze, qui si tratta di avere del coraggio e dire basta a questa schiavitù. Dobbiamo una volta per tutte decidere che anche noi come loro, anche noi ragazze come loro ragazzi abbiamo diritto di fare l’amore e voglia di farlo. (Sally, 1970: 57)66

In the letter, the young woman expresses her views about premarital sex and consent: sex is not only a passive act that women allow, but it can also be a genuine desire that a woman chooses to satisfy, and not just as a way to please her boyfriend. Young Italian women’s premarital sexual experiences also emerged in articles published in teen magazines: Ciao 2001 interviewed a group of young women on holiday on the Adriatic Sea and published an article stating that giovani women tend to have ‘rapporti incompleti’67 with men, as a way of being sexually active without risking becoming pregnant (Marino, 1969: 39). The article also suggests that there may be geographical and social differences in approaches to sexuality in Italy:

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Nei paesi nordici porsi il problema delle esperienze pre-matrimoniali non ha più senso, l’argomento è da tempo superato e le esperienze pre-matrimoniali sono entrate nella norma. Ma qual è la situazione in Italia? Abbiamo cercato di capirlo attraverso un incontro con un gruppo di ragazze che molto apertamente hanno esposto le loro idee e i loro comportamenti. Ne è venuto fuori il quadro di una gioventù italiana abbastanza disinvolta, c’è però un ma: le ragazze del dibattito sono quasi tutte settentrionali e vivono in una grande città. Che cosa sarebbe uscito fuori se il dibattito si fosse svolto in un paese di provincia del nostro meridione? (Marino, 1969: 38–9)68

The contradictory approach to sexual liberation in magazines can thus be explained in the light of the geographical and social variance in attitudes towards the subject: as teen magazines tended to homogenise Italian giovani, they tried to simultaneously please both the most conservative and most liberated attitudes towards sex in Italian society. Popular media discourse reflected the increased liberation in relationships between the sexes, for instance in the description of leisure activities enjoyed by young people, such as dancing. In 1965–67, i giovani were represented as dancing in groups, unlike adults who traditionally danced in pairs. For example, the Shake was performed by the dancer alone in a social space, thus it was both an individual and a group dance. During the period 1967–70, dances reunited couples, even if in a modern way. This is how Giovani explains the ‘Yum-Yum’, a new dance invented in 1968: In quattro giorni sono sparite tutte le gomme per bicicletta. E le gomme sono alla base dello ‘Yum-Yum’, il ‘ballo elastico’ per eccellenza, per garantire alle coppie la più completa elasticità di movimento … Come si balla questa danza che viene a sostituire lo Shake? … Non appena l’orchestra accenna il motivo, le coppie saltano in sala dentro l’ormai famoso ‘tubolare’ … Nel cerchio del ‘tubolare’ ogni mossa è consentita … Una danza, diciamolo subito, che riavvicina le coppie. Che nel modo più moderno, riporta i ballerini a stare uniti. A ritrovare il fascino del ‘ballo al buio’. (Valleroni, 1968: 14)69

The description of the dance insists on the fact that it brings the two partners close together, because the dancers are constrained to a space circumscribed by a bicycle tyre. Moreover, the fact that the ‘Yum-Yum’ needs to be danced in semi-darkness, adds a mysterious and potentially sexual aspect: when the light is off anything can happen between the two dancers. I giovani’s sexuality also emerged in advertisements for young people such as Vespa’s famous advert ‘Chi Vespa … mangia le mele’ (Piaggio, 1969: 11).70 This advert is still considered one of the most successful in the history of Italian advertisements (Calabrese, 1996: 33), and not just because of the innovative language used in the slogan (the invention of the verb ‘to Vespa’ to indicate ‘to buy a Vespa’ or ‘to drive a Vespa’). The reference to eating

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apples may recall the biblical story of Adam and Eve: Eve offers Adam an apple, symbolising her body, and his acceptance marks him with original sin. Similarly, by saying that those who use a Vespa ‘eat apples’, the advertisement implies that young men who own a Vespa will be able to have sexual experiences: in this way, advertisers played on the new social acceptance of giovane sexuality. Furthermore, the acknowledgement of female giovane sexuality is reflected in the circulation of images of the naked female body in media advertisements. Before 1969, advertisements avoided showing women’s breasts, legs and bottoms, and the miniskirt was presented as a very sexy outfit. From 1969 onwards, the representation of the female body suddenly changed: advertisements used photographs of fully naked female bodies or body parts in any context, as a way to increase the appeal of the product. Sometimes the images were also sexually inviting, as is the case with Ciao 2001’s self-advertisement: the image chosen to advertise the magazine in one of its issues is a close-up of a woman’s mouth; she is licking her lips, saying ‘buono eh?’ (Ciao 2001, 1969b: 83).71 Women’s greater sexual liberation thus produced an increasing objectification of the female body in popular culture. Contingently, in Italian society, there was a growing anxiety provoked by changes in traditional gender roles, of which female sexual emancipation formed a significant part. Young women’s curiosity about sex, and a greater engagement with their own sexual lives, was seen as threatening to men, who faced losing their dominance in romantic and social relationships. For example, the following excerpt is taken from an article discussing the phenomenon of groupies: Le strane fanciulle inseguono sistematicamente ogni membro del complesso, lo accalappiano, e dopo averlo trascinato nelle alcove improvvisate sui furgoncini carichi di strumenti o nei meandri dei retrosala, lo mollano per balzare sul prossimo … I musicisti, i cantanti, sia famosi che ignoti, si lasciano prendere con indifferenza, sembrerà incredibile ma è vero, l’ho constatato coi miei occhi in Italia … questi giovani subiscono con indifferenza le attenzioni delle ‘groupies’ … si lasciano sballottare da un giaciglio all’altro, come se l’affare non li riguardasse, e questa loro misteriosa passività procura non poche, amare sorprese, che talvolta richiedono l’intervento del medico. (Cozzi, 1970: 14)72

The female groupies are presented as aggressive figures, sexual predators of passive male band members who accept a subordinate role in potential sexual encounters. The groupies’ sexual emancipation is presented as toxic, given that the article suggests that having sex with a groupie can cause sexually transmitted diseases. Active female sexuality is seen as a problem in this excerpt because it questions the power structures between genders by

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giving women a stereotypically masculine role and therefore reducing men’s control over women. The imagery around female sexually liberated giovani in popular culture often recalls twentieth-century cinematic depictions of the femme fatale. Clare Bielby has shown that in Western cinematographic imagery the femme fatale is identified with some specific features, such as a ‘masculinized and (pornographically) sexual’ attitude (2012: 121), an active role in making men sexually dependent on her (2012: 122) and a seductive appearance rendered through the use of strong makeup and bleached blond hair (2012: 133–4). The figure of the femme fatale in cinema personifies and externalises social anxieties caused by female emancipation: she can be seen as ‘a projection of male anxieties about the consequences of female economic and psychic independence’ (Wood, 2010: 167). These aspects also characterised the media construction of the most iconic Italian hippy female singer, namely Patty Pravo. The nicknames used to describe the singer in magazines show how Patty Pravo’s star persona was constructed around her sexual emancipation, and subsequently her dangerous allure. As early as 1967, in an article she was defined as ‘la sirena dei capelloni’,73 compared to the Sirens that tempted Odysseus (Vitaliano, 1967: 38). Pravo was also described as ‘la sacerdotessa del Piper’,74 by referring to her position of power over the crowd when performing in the Piper Club in Rome (1967: 38). Her sexiness was emphasised in the nickname ‘la sexsinger’, which also shows an attempt at foreignisation through the use of English (1967: 38), while her dangerous allure was confirmed by the epithet ‘demonio biondo’ (Sardi, 1967: 46).75 Most interestingly, in an article written in 1968, Patty Pravo was described as ‘la Marlene Dietrich degli anni Sessanta’,76 thus connecting her star persona to arguably the most iconic femme fatale in Western cinema (Tumbarello, 1968: 18). Analysing discourses around Patty Pravo’s star persona, it is possible to observe the dangerousness emerging from descriptions of the sexually emancipated female giovane, as well as the strategies used to domesticate the hippy femme fatale. Patty Pravo (the stage name of Nicoletta Strambelli) succeeded Caterina Caselli and became la ragazza del Piper, the regular performer at the Piper Club in Rome, in 1966 and 1967. Born in Venice, Pravo had become a representative of the Italian beat musical scene, but unlike her colleagues Caselli and Pavone, her popularity with the young audience continued through 1968 and the following years.77 As early as 1967, like Caselli and Pavone, Pravo distinguished herself from adults; however, unlike these beat singers, she embodied the sexually liberated giovane, who was not afraid to talk about her sex life and to have several sexual partners. Her femme fatale persona was primarily constructed through her appearance: her hair was long and bleach blonde, and her makeup was often excessive, in this way

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representing an artificial and un-Italian femininity. Moreover, she usually wore menswear-inspired garments, such as trousers and suits, and her deep voice was often described as masculine. Her persona was thus presented as contradictory by magazines: ‘si sposa, non si sposa? Ama, non ama? È un uomo, una donna?’ (Scaccia, 1968b: 48).78 The mixture of masculine and feminine aspects in Pravo’s star persona, in other words, created a type of indeterminacy, which threw into question not only her sexual behaviour, but also her sexual orientation and gender. Moreover, Pravo’s behaviour was presented as dangerous and threatening, for example in an article entitled ‘Chi è Patty Pravo? I ragazzi io li fumo come sigarette’:79 Patty mi guarda e sorride: capisce e gusta l’effetto delle sue parole. Di quelle che ha appena detto. ‘Io, i ragazzi me li fumo come sigarette’: queste le parole … Patty è la ragazza nuova della nostra canzone. L’hanno subito tutti ribattezzata Miss Piper, perché tutte le sere è nella grande bolgia del locale di via Tagliamento. E al Piper è sempre circondata da una piccola popolazione di gente di tutti i generi: ragazzi, uomini non più giovanissimi e persino qualcuno decisamente anziano. ‘… io polarizzo l’attenzione – dice Patty – e solo difficilmente riesco a scrollarmi di dosso gli sguardi degli uomini’. (‘Chi è Patty Pravo? I ragazzi io li fumo come sigarette’, 1966: 54–5)80

Pravo is presented here as a young woman who is conscious of her power over men. She is aware of her provocative attitude, and she knows she is the object of the male gaze. What is more, the interview seems to suggest that she enjoys the role. By reporting that Pravo ‘smokes young men like cigarettes’, the article not only conveys the idea that Pravo has met, and actively looks for, many different sexual partners, it also lends a dangerous allure to her sexual encounters, in this way constructing her as a femme fatale. In the quote, Patty Pravo’s sexual appeal is presented as inescapable, as if every man who sees her will inevitably be sexually attracted to her.​ Magazines also stressed Pravo’s interest in the contraceptive pill, considered one of her many sensational and unscrupulous declarations: Poi ci sono le dichiarazioni fatte ai diversi rappresentanti della stampa: spregiudicatissime per quelli dei giornali scandalistici … ‘Io prenderei la pillola, perché trovo molto civile avere un figlio soltanto quando si desidera, ma ancora non la uso perché voglio prima essere sicura che sia innocua’. E ancora: ‘prima di cantare, ho voglia di un bicchiere di whiskey e del mio ragazzo’. (Dessy, 1967c: 84)81

In this article, which appeared in Ciao Big in 1967, Pravo’s behaviour is represented not only by her desire for alcohol and sex (which recalls again the toxicity of the femme fatale), but also by her interest in using birth control. In other words, sexual education – the discussion about the pill – is represented as being as threatening as the dangerous sexuality of the femme

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Figure 3.5  Patty Pravo, hippy femme fatale: ‘I smoke boys like cigarettes’.

fatale. Pravo also embodied the femme fatale in the television programme Stasera Patty Pravo (Falqui, 1969) (Tonight, Patty Pravo). In the show, she performed the song ‘La bambola’ (Migliacci, Zambrini & Cini, 1968) (The Doll), which talks about a woman who asks her man to stop treating her as if she were a doll. In the show, the song is initially arranged as a tango: the arrangement sets the stage for Pravo’s performance; she’s dressed as a 1930s-era femme fatale, smoking and dancing with a male corps de ballet. In the second half of the performance, the song resumes its original arrangement, and Pravo appears dressed in a 1960s style, in this way equating the femme fatale and the emancipated hippy woman. To paraphrase Mary Ann Doane’s analysis of femmes fatales in cinema, Pravo’s construction as an emancipated young woman through transhistorical and transcultural references to 1930s film imagery represents ‘a clear indication of the extent of the fears and anxieties prompted by shifts in the understanding of sexual difference’ (1991: 1–2). From 1969 onwards, however, magazine accounts of Patty Pravo’s femme fatale star persona started to depict her emancipated behaviour as inauthentic. This chapter has already pointed out how the concept of authenticity became fundamental in the definition of hippy stars; in Pravo’s case, authenticity was used in magazines to domesticate her potentially threatening femininity. A 1969 article explains how Pravo’s personality before that point was based on a provocative and exaggerated attitude:

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Patty Pravo è nata come ragazza del Piper, emblema di un certo tipo di gioventù che tre anni fa cavalcava la tigre, disorientando un pubblico di adulti, a causa di certi atteggiamenti anticonformisti e volutamente provocatori. Nella prima intervista a un rotocalco sufficientemente spregiudicato, il biondo prodotto aveva addirittura proclamato a gran voce la sua ‘non illibatezza’. (‘Patty, che ti ri-Patty’, 1969: 20)82

The journalist here calls Pravo a ‘blonde product’, referring to the strong commercialisation of Pravo’s beat star persona: the link between the giovane star and the music industry emphasises her ‘fake’ construction. Moreover, this attitude is presented as inauthentic: magazines maintained that ‘con i quarantenni e con i conformisti fa la spregiudicata. Con quelli come lei è sé stessa: una ragazza come te, con i tuoi pregi e i tuoi difetti’ (Dessy, 1967c: 83).83 From 1969 on, therefore, Patty Pravo changed her appearance: she ‘elimina le parrucche troppo grandi, che finivano col caricaturarla’ (Resta, 1969b: 20),84 and adopted a more stereotypically feminine style: ‘di punto in bianco, quindi, ha deciso di cambiare tutto! Ha eliminato i vestiti stravaganti, ha regolato la sua vita, è diventata improvvisamente più femminile, romantica, docile, umile, modesta: cerca di cancellare dalla mente del pubblico l’immagine della ragazza del Piper’ (Tumbarello, 1970: 41).85 The excerpt, taken from an article that appeared in Giovani in 1970, correlates Pravo’s style transformation with a transformation in her personality and her behaviour towards her audience. The singer is said to have become more feminine and humbler; as she abandons her beat style, she seems to also abandon her sexually liberated attitude: ‘la “nuova” Patty Pravo sta conquistando tutti – “Lascerei subito la carriera per l’amore di un uomo, per una famiglia mia con tanti figli”’ (Tumbarello, 1970: 41).86 In the quote, Pravo’s updated star persona aligns with practices that recall a more traditional and reassuring femininity, such as marriage and pregnancy. In short, in a period in which women were increasingly asking for sex education and that their sexual emancipation be recognised, the construction of Patty Pravo’s star persona showed how Italian popular media tried to domesticate troubling giovani femininities by insisting on the inauthenticity of their sexually liberated attitudes and by presenting emancipated women as a potential danger to the societal order. Representations of the hippy femme fatale not only show changes in the perception of giovane femininity and giovane female sexuality, but they also hint at a crisis in i giovani’s masculinities. Chapter 2 showed how i capelloni’s long hair challenged traditional ideas about masculinity, for it was considered evidence of the feminisation of giovani men’s appearance. With the hippy trend, popular media’s terminology for attractive masculine features started to suggest an appropriation of traits that were previously

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considered feminine. For example, an article introduced Maurizio Arcieri, former lead singer of the band New Dada, as ‘il biondo, esile, dolce, fascinoso … Maurizio’ (Paola, 1967c: 14).87 The singer’s attractiveness is described through aesthetic features that usually defined female stars, such as blondness and thinness (‘Tu sei il nostro biondo dio!’, 1966).​ Arcieri himself, in an interview, reveals that he deliberately chose to emphasise these features, to conform to changing male beauty standards: I primi passi li ho fatti perché proponevo, tre anni fa, un tipo nuovo di ragazzo: filante, timido, riservato con tanti capelli biondi. Credo di avere contribuito nel mio piccolo alla riforma del costume giovanile italiano … Piaccio alle ragazze: se vuoi un segreto, ti confesso che all’inizio, quando ero con i New Dada, accentuavo un poco quell’aspetto femmineo che poteva essere suggerito dai miei capelli biondi, dagli occhi azzurri, dalla figura sottile. E funzionava: era il tempo dei tipi alla Mick Jagger, alla Paul Mac Cartney … E poi [ricevo] lettere frivole di uomini che mi chiedono da quale parrucchiere vado, e come faccio a mantenere sempre i capelli così morbidi e biondi. (Scaccia, 1968a: 36)88

Arcieri’s words show how foreign male beauty standards, represented here by Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney, influenced the change in the perception of male attractiveness in Italy. This quotation also emphasises the ongoing male appropriation of another stereotypically feminine behaviour, namely

Figure 3.6  Change in male standards of attractiveness: Maurizio, singer with the band New Dada, here presented as a ‘blonde God’.

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the tendency to take care of one’s own body and appearance, by going to the hairdressers and beauty salons and by following beauty advice from magazines. Arcieri defines men writing to him as frivolous, because they care about their appearance; however, he does not present the appropriation of this traditionally feminine behaviour as problematic. Media accounts of changes in male beauty standards, however, show how the male appropriation of feminine features was not as easily accepted. Fred Davis, discussing the unisex style of the 1960s and 1970s, claims that androgynous fashion is always located ‘much more often on the male side of the gender division than on the female’ as Western society bears a ‘strong male gender barrier toward all paraphernalia evocative of femininity’ (1992: 37). Although the male appropriation of female features was present in popular media, some boundaries were delineated between feminine and masculine beauty practices. This tendency is confirmed, for instance, by the emergence of a beauty column specifically dedicated to men in Ciao Big in 1967: E adesso, qualche consiglio anche ai ragazzi, che poverini sono quasi sempre trascurati in questa mia rubrica. Anche per voi, cari giovanotti beat, hippy, ecc., l’aspetto fisico decente e gradevole è un dovere. Non vi consiglio cerone per il viso o smalto per le unghie (eppure, ne ho visto qualcuno in giro conciato così …) ma vi limito a darvi un paio di suggerimenti per la vostra capigliatura. (Nicky, 1967a: 54)89

Beauty advice for men always tended to be limited to hairstyles, as a way of keeping a boundary between ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ practices. For example, the quotation above still sees the use of makeup as unacceptable. An article discussing skincare for men and women also claimed: Spesso ci si chiede perché le ragazze possono curare la loro pelle e per mezzo di cure estetiche evitare punti neri … e gli uomini no. È forse il comedone virile? Secondo me togliersi i punti neri e curarsi i brufoletti è una questione di estetica e di igiene. Perciò i ragazzi possono schiacciarsi sulla punta del naso quei fastidiosi puntini neri disinfettandosi poi con acqua di colonia e alcool … E se l’acne prevalesse? Chiedete a vostra madre o vostra sorella di prendervi un appuntamento in un istituto di bellezza, andateci e fatevi curare. Magari entrando per le retrovie. (‘Lui e Lei allo specchio’, 1968: 81)90

The article states that it is completely acceptable for a man to take care of his body. However, this practice is accepted insofar as it is considered more for hygiene than beauty, and therefore not effeminising. Moreover, the article declares how being seen as performing practices related to beauty is still taboo for giovani men: it suggests to male readers that direct contact with the beauty salon has to be made by a female relative, and men are encouraged to enter the salon ‘via the backdoor’.

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Young men’s increasing consumption of fashion and beauty products also signalled another problematic aspect of the construction of giovani masculinities, namely the role of men as consumers. While during the 1950s consumerism had always been reserved for women, who used to take care of the purchasing of household goods and family items, during the 1960s, men began to be considered consumers, as well. In particular, men’s consumption of products previously connected to women, such as style and beauty products, produced preoccupations over the Italian man’s virility. This alleged loss of virility created anxieties about young men’s sexual orientation. The introductory chapter has already stated that the equation of effeminacy and homosexuality is the result of a social construction that has been naturalised over time. In the context of Italian society of the 1960s, the ‘decline of virility’ exposed preoccupations with male homosexuality (Bellassai, 2011: 97). It must be pointed out that despite being legal, homosexuality was still taboo in post-war Italian society, and it was often silenced in popular culture. Teen magazines did not deviate from the norm: during the period 1967–70, the word homosexuality rarely appeared in articles, and the sexuality of i giovani and young stars was always implicitly heterosexual. Moreover, even though magazines often discussed foreign politics, they did not cover news regarding the emergence of gay liberation movements in other Western countries. Anxieties about homosexuality, however, appear in discourses around masculinities and male beauty standards, where a continuous reaffirmation of heterosexual norms can be observed, and the division between ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ products was still emphasised. Media descriptions of the giovane style show how the image of the modern, civilised male consumer was domesticated through a de-feminisation of male consumerism, and through references to the assertion of masculinity and power, such as sexual domination (Bellassai, 2003: 118–19). For example, stereotypically feminine accessories were ‘masculinised’ so that they could be co-opted by male giovane fashion. The following quote is taken from an article presenting a handbag for men, which was called the borsetto: Il borsetto. Non è altro che una vera e propria borsetta, ma da uomo. Non c’è da scandalizzarsi, in fondo la borsetta da donna è nata da quella sacchetta che gli uomini portavano piena di monete quando ancora non usavano le banconote di carta. Quindi non si fa che tornare alle origini. Il ritorno alla borsa da uomo sembra dovuto alla linea troppo aderente della nuova moda. (‘Arriva il borsetto’, 1968: 92)91

The word borsetta in Italian is feminine, and it is an accessory usually reserved for women. In the quotation, the name of the accessory is made masculine, in order to de-feminise the object advertised. Moreover, the

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article tries to emphasise how the handbag used by women was actually the adaptation of a historically masculine accessory, in this way legitimising its use by men. In addition, most of the advertisements for male clothing and beauty products used the naked female body to reassert the heterosexuality of male consumers and to reaffirm male domination over the female body. An advertisement for HOM underwear, for example, used a picture of the lower part of a man’s body in his underwear, next to which appeared a woman’s bare leg. The caption says ‘per gli uomini che sono veri uomini’ (HOM, 1969: 22),92 in this way assuming that the ‘true’ man is necessarily heterosexual. The advertisement for Gillette shaving foam does not even portray a man: the picture shows a picture of the face and shoulders of a naked woman, and the caption ‘prendimi … e poi lasciami se ci riesci’ (Gillette, 1969: 11).93 The advert has a sexual allusion: in Italian the verb ‘prendere’ not only means ‘to buy’ – the shaving foam, in this case – but can also mean ‘to possess someone sexually’, possibly referring to the woman in the photograph. Vidal used an even stronger message to advertise a bathing foam: the image shows a boxing ring, with a close-up of a man’s face, and in the background, a naked woman crouching. The caption says ‘mettila K.O.’ (Vidal, 1970: 6–7):94 here the image of the man’s win over the naked woman suggests male dominance, even rape. These advertisements were not published exclusively in teen magazines, but their presence in teen magazines demonstrates how anxieties about homosexuality and the sexual emancipation of women also entered youth-oriented popular culture.​ In addition, letters to magazines testify to discriminating attitudes towards young men wearing allegedly effeminate clothes or with long hair. It is interesting to note how, in these letters, the protagonists’ heterosexuality was always pointed out: Lecco … Pochi giorni fa, era molto caldo, io e la mia ragazza andammo in giro in ‘bermuda’, quei simpatici pantaloni estivi che arrivano poco sopra le ginocchia. Non riesco a descrivervi cosa è successo per strada, la gente ci guardava come fossimo extraterrestri, molti ci compativano, altri ridevano, alcuni non risparmiavano battute idiote e feroci. Ma è mai possibile che gli abitanti di questa provincia siano stupidi al punto di definire ‘invertito’ un normalissimo ragazzo solo perché va in giro in ‘bermuda’? Ormai odio la mia città. (Mazzoleni, 1969: 61)95

In this letter, for example, a young man complains about adults identifying him as gay because he was wearing Bermuda shorts. The writer stresses the fact that he was walking with his girlfriend, in this way implicitly underlining his heterosexuality. Similarly, an article describes older men’s attitudes towards capelloni in Sicily, who used to be called ‘fimminiedde’ – ‘little girls’

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Figure 3.7  Advertisements for male products using male domination imagery: Vidal for men.

in Sicilian dialect – because of their effeminate appearance. In the article, the journalist speaks to a young Sicilian man who has long blond hair. The young man explains that the discrimination he suffers is caused by a desire to safeguard the (heterosexual) ‘virility’ of Sicilian men, that according to the interviewee is still predominant amongst the Sicilian population. However, rather than distancing himself from it, the interviewee seems to comply with this heterosexual imperative, as he points out that ‘poco cont[a] che i capelloni si fac[ciano] vedere insieme a belle ragazze: i frizzi [sono] ancora più feroci’ (Veneroni, 1970: 9).96 Again, this comment insists on the attractiveness of the capelloni’s female partners and highlights their heterosexuality. Youth-oriented popular media constructed a discourse around giovani masculinities that introduced changes in male fashion while, at the same time, dispelling the social anxieties these changes caused. Despite an increasing openness towards new beauty standards for men, in teen magazines, gender hierarchies of power were reaffirmed and the effeminisation of male style was accepted, but only insofar as it did not question heterosexuality. The sexualised images of women that were starting to appear in popular culture were beneficial to reaffirm the virility and heterosexuality of giovani men; however, they also created anxieties concerning the morality of young women. This is why representations of sexually active young women in popular media were often presented as either toxic and dangerous or

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inauthentic. The construction of giovani masculinities and femininities in Italian popular media, then, can be said to be influenced by social anxieties: potentially subversive discourses were introduced, but they were mediated and made safe through strategies that functioned to reaffirm the traditional construction of Italian gender identities and the division between masculinities and femininities.

Conclusion On the television programme Stasera Patty Pravo, Patty Pravo, while performing ‘Yesterday’ (Lennon & McCartney, 1965), changes into costumes that recall different historical personas and ethnic trends, from the 1920s silent film star to the smoking 1930s femme fatale, from the cowgirl and Afro looks, to the futuristic and ‘flower power’ trends. This performance is particularly representative of the complex and often contradictory media definition of Italian hippies: media representations of the hippy style appropriated completely different influences and elements ‘as if different cultural identities could be tried on like clothes’ (Ashmore, 2010: 110). This chapter has presented the multiple trends that were portrayed and described in youth-oriented popular culture during the period 1967–70, which suggest common traits in the media’s definition of the hippy identity. A standardised style remained an element of identification for the community of i giovani. Magazines and television programmes circulated new shared features for i giovani: a bland politicisation, drawn from the global political activism of young people; a critical appraisal of capitalism and the entertainment industry, and of those stars created by the industry itself; the recognition of giovane female sexuality, and the ongoing redefinition of gender identities. I giovani as a collective identity was cemented through the invention of a tradition directly drawn from Hollywood imagery, that normalised and naturalised this construction; it also benefited from the fabrication of an ‘authentic’ hippy identity that differed from both the beats and adults. However, the way in which the new trends were represented was strongly influenced by the commercial aim of youth-oriented media, and by the persistence of discriminatory discourses around the ‘Other’. The anti-consumerist aim of hippy fashion was soon converted into a commercial trend, thus still constructing i giovani first and foremost as consumers. The supposed authenticity of hippy stars was fabricated by the music industry. Italian media accounts avoided discussing the emancipatory aim of the Afro trend, instead describing it through a colonialist and Orientalist lens, in this way showing the persistence of heavily racialised descriptions of alterity and

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contributing to the perpetuation of these discriminatory discourses. The persistence of such discourses also shows how, despite the circulation of foreign news, the purpose and objectives of global emancipatory movements struggled to enter Italian popular culture and society. For example, interest in Martin Luther King, or American politics, in teen magazines did not bring a change in the perception of the racialised ‘Other’. The same can be said about the absence of discourses on the homosexual ‘Other’. Moreover, the presentation of female emancipated subjects as hippy femmes fatales revealed the continuing reluctance to accept female sexual emancipation. The media construction of the giovane style in the period 1967–70 also started to show how there were differences in the community of i giovani: despite the standardised representation that youth-oriented media were perpetuating, distinctions started to emerge in discourses around the Italian giovane community, for example in the opposition between (commercial) beats and (political) hippies. During the early 1970s, these differences became increasingly present in youth-oriented media, showing at the same time the disruption of the fictionally homogeneous construction of i giovani, and the recognition of young people as social and political agents. This shift will be explored in Chapter 4, which deals with the fragmentation of the community i giovani in 1970s Italian popular media.

Notes 1 This chapter uses two different spellings to make a distinction between the American countercultural movement (hippie) and the giovane identity construction of the period 1968–70 (hippy). Italian teen magazines adopted both spellings, but tended to use ‘hippy’ as the singular form of the word ‘hippies’. 2 (Where are those young people who are supposed to change the world? Surely not in Turin when … there was a March for Peace. Maybe they were at the Piper, or at Club 84, but surely they were not with us. Unless these Italian capelloni believe that to be ‘beat’ it is enough not to shower, to dance the latest dances, to grow their hair.) 3 For a further reading on the Sessantotto in Italy, its causes and consequences, and an overview of the political movements of 1968 in other Western countries, see De Bernardi and Flores (2003). Robert Lumley (1990) has also written an interesting analysis of the 1968 movement in Italy and its aftermath (the Autunno caldo and the 1970s, up to the 1977 movement). 4 (refusal of capitalism and its commodified cultural models.) 5 The ‘Valle Giulia Battle’, as it has been called by Moroni and Balestrini (1997: 397), is one of the events from which historians tend to date the Italian Sessantotto. This clash between the police and the demonstrators from the faculty of architecture in Rome resulted in several policemen and students being

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injured. Most notably, after this clash Pier Paolo Pasolini provocatively wrote a poem in which he supported the policemen who fought against the students, because the true proletarians in the battle were the policemen themselves (De Bernardi & Flores, 2003: 225–6). 6 For a historical overview of the emergence of the hippie movement in the United States, see Issitt (2009: 1–18). 7 Teen magazines talked about attempts to set up communes in Italy, for example, next to Piazza di Santa Maria in Trastevere in Rome. See Miloro (1969). 8 These trips contrasted with the traditional ideas for holidays in Italy, for both adults and young people. Summer seaside holidays were one of the aspects that characterised the Italian economic boom of the late 1950s: the possibility of vacations for the entire family was a reflection of a better economic condition for Italian society. Holidays were also part of the construction of i giovani during the first half of the 1960s: they were the occasion for young people to meet new people who, despite coming from different places, shared the same emblems characterising the community of i giovani. Several Musicarelli are set during summer holidays: for example, Stasera mi Butto (Fizzarotti, 1967). 9 (‘Hippy’ literally means ‘hypochondriac’. The hippies’ depressive melancholy is expressed by a refusal to participate in the bourgeois mechanised society. Their symbols are flowers, not the long hair and the guitar. Flowers, LSD, free love and free life: this is the cure for the American hypochondriacs.) 10 (we demand a longer summer.) 11 (Jockey … you can’t protest against it.) 12 For example, ‘Fateli da voi i gioielli di carta’ (1967: 68–9). 13 (Francis is the simplest and humblest person in the entire universe. He calls his original jewels ‘ornaments’, and he would never make one of his creations out of gold: he prefers the simplicity of iron and copper to gold and silver. Another thing that Francis (who is thirty years old, with a young wife, and a ten-monthold son named Igor) doesn’t like is mass-produced objects.) 14 (I don’t shop in boutiques: I invent my own garments. I don’t sew them myself, though: I go to Chelsea Market, I buy old clothes, I shorten or lengthen them, I sew the bustier of one garment and the skirt of another together, and there it is, an original dress no one can imitate.) 15 (antiques for modern fashion.) 16 (the laces aren’t always perfect, the shirts and dresses have lost their original colours through the years, some will need some patching and cleaning.) 17 (no one else will show up at parties, cocktail parties, nights out, wearing such an exceptionally authentic style, with that touch that only time and an authentic manufacturing can give.) 18 (You should choose a style and then play at identifying with it; mix it with other styles and invent it anew every time … To facilitate the purchase of supercolourful dresses, Ciao 2001 offers convenient shopping: you need only to fill out the order form on page 66. Please note that you can only buy the dresses in the foreground. The others have a purely decorative and illustrative function, and the most eccentric people can take inspiration from them.)

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19 (The great guru of the new style of fashion inspired by the hippies is Jean Bouquin. The materials with which Jean Bouquin makes his dresses are the key to his success, and what has made him extremely rich and famous in only five years. Jean only uses fabrics that he, or some of his partners, find in chests in old country houses, in the attics of old provincial palaces, and sometimes in castle chambers. His garments, then, are tailored in at least one-hundred-yearold fabrics that ‘emanate’ charm and mystery … However … Jean Bouquin’s dresses are very expensive and no hippy would buy one.) 20 (hippy clothes that are not for hippies.) 21 (We need to be thankful for today’s fashion, because it gives us all the freedom that we wish for. Despite following the general advice given by fashion ateliers, youth fashion has never been as fun as today. Because it has never been as anarchist as today, it does not obey any law, except one of personal taste.) 22 (tired of the designers’ dictates.) 23 (design their own clothes.) 24 (tag-less wardrobe.) 25 (taste and preferences.) 26 (The ‘Haute Couture’ is more and more confused … designers want to satisfy young people’s taste, but young people do not follow their norms any more, they do not receive the ‘message’. Or, they just receive it when they want to. The true fashion creators today are young people themselves. In the big capital cities everyone dresses as they like, and everyone is dressed in the same way, as if in uniform: this is a form of protest against those who are not young any more (or do not want to be young) and therefore cannot and do not know how to wear younger fashions.) 27 (The new fashion says that … we do not care what Nina Ricci and Valentino say. We could copy some ideas from them. We, young people, have our own trend, that is not made by fashion designers, but by the people who ‘count’ for us. Hendrix’s scarf. Paul’s shirt. Joan Baez’s Indian miniskirt.) 28 (There were those who, with commercialist insight, decided to take advantage of the long hairstyles and the multicoloured and strange beat garments, which were just external, superficial elements of young people’s rebellion. Floral shirts and velvet pants spread rapidly; protest songs became successful, although they used to repeat, in easy slogans, and through forms that often revealed their commercial aim, the themes of pacifism, freedom, anti-racism, transforming everything into a fashion trend.) 29 (the long hair trend has now become an annoying form of conformism.) 30 Renzo Arbore, musician and radio and television presenter, is a clear example of a giovane who is not necessarily young. Born in 1937, he famously hosted the radio programme Bandiera Gialla from 1965 to 1970, in this way becoming a representative of i giovani in the media. He was thirty-two years old in 1969; however, as he states on the show, ‘Io mi annovero tra i giovani’ (I belong to the category of i giovani) (Speciale per voi, episode 1, 18/03/1969). 31 (a genuine show.) 32 (dismantle myths through questions.)

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33 (a magazine for young people could not keep on creating myths, fostering them, looking for joyful shouts and false actors who are young in age but old in spirit, because they are born into an old system … We need a change, a revolution (the term is maybe too strong for this context, but I cannot find another one now) in the way in which we talk to young people.) 34 (does not want to be defined a ‘star’. His style is not extravagant, he does not buy sport cars, and he does not accept compromises in order to get publicity.) 35 (My hair! Do you know that more than one person thought that this was a wig, and when I used to ask them to touch it, they were scared, as if they were facing an African savage? Today, girls even find my hairstyle sexy, but I only keep it long because I hate cutting my hair and combing it.) 36 (sloppy and comfortable, absent-minded, trendy only because of that silk scarf that he always wears around his neck. People told him that he needs to lose weight, his thighs are too big, but he doesn’t care, and he keeps on wearing baggy trousers that surely do not help his figure. ‘I absolutely do not plan to become a star’, he makes clear.) 37 The circulation of the Afro style in the Italian context will be discussed in depth in the following section. 38 (The music industry spotlight … starting a few months ago, is on this new, tiny singer with a sweet and simple smile, and manners that are still not ruined by publicity, or by a diva attitude … She became famous for her physical features: a teen type, no trimmings, no exaggerated attitudes, very simple, in manner and style. She is a typical – very acceptable – today’s girl.) 39 (Look at how they dressed me! … I have so much foundation on my face that it itches! If some Italian guy could see me like this, he would not identify me! I could only resist one thing: fake eyelashes. No! This is too much! I want to sing with a clean face; given my age, I can do it.) 40 (If he were not a singer, he could be a classmate, or a friend with whom you would study, or go to the cinema (if you are a girl) or play football. Massimo Ranieri is so far from the ‘distortion’ of advertising and from the divo attitude, that he can inspire an immediate, genuine, fun congeniality.) 41 (I am the same person as the one wearing blue jeans before.) 42 (Constructed? Well, a star persona is always constructed. Even the most beautiful, most spontaneous melody in the world is constructed … Patty Pravo does not want to be the mimic-musical emblem of the spontaneous girl, with spontaneous behaviours: she does not want to be the musical counterpart of Gianni Morandi. The ‘spontaneity’ of Morandi’s persona is as ‘fictional’ as Patty Pravo’s baroque sophistication.) 43 (Now it is time to wear a Western-inspired style. But any other influences, coming from the Orient or from the third world, are also accepted, if they are toned down a bit … The new trend is: you can be extravagant, but with moderation and taste … Of course, we are talking about young people’s appearance. Because inside, young people today are more revolutionary than ever before.) 44 References to the ‘future’ did not disappear in teen-oriented popular media: for instance, in March 1968 the name of the magazine Ciao Big was changed to

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Ciao 2001, almost at the same time of the American release of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968). 45 (The future … has an old spirit. Five or six years ago, this sentence would have sounded strange … Fashion designers were trying to imagine Alien garments, with helmets and plastic textiles, and even asbestos coats. What happened after that? ‘Flower children’ and hippies emerged and, even less than a year after, the Art Nouveau style became established, a style made of squiggles, strange ornaments, flowers, soft and gentle decorations that were used during the inter-war period (1920–40)). 46 Many fashion reports feature stars dressed in 1930s styles, accompanied by a short history of the period and a description of its many features. See ‘Un documentario esclusivo di Giovani: gli anni Trenta rievocati dai cantanti’ (1968). 47 For example, the RAI programme Giochiamo agli anni Trenta (Let’s Pretend We Are in the 1930s) (1968) hosted by singers Ombretta Colli and Giorgio Gaber. The programme was broadcast in October 1968. 48 (After the long-lasting ‘beat’ period, in which ‘swinging’ London was the main source of inspiration, now it is ‘roaring’ America’s turn … It is clear that, with these kinds of outfits, long hair will clash: sideburns are ok, as well as straight hair with a left-side part.) 49 (young people’s era.) 50 (everything we love today … was born.) 51 (the ones in which people have discovered the modern life, the ‘Novecento’ style, water-skiing, women’s sports, and in which serious and dark-clothed men would walk on the streets playing with a yo-yo. That was the trend during those years.) 52 (In youth fashion … Africa has arrived. The Blackest Africa. The Most Colourful Africa. The Craziest Africa: Berber necklaces on Arab kaftans; Congolese sandals on Libyan mantels. Africa for any hour of the day. For sipping the morning coffee, while still barefoot: a long black or white kaftan, with drawings that will give you energy for the entire day … For the evening, she will wear the ‘harem favourite’ long tunic, and he will wear almost the same thing, but with more detailed embroidery, as if he were a sheik. And plenty of necklaces: even market stalls are full of these.) 53 (Soon, 1930s-inspired hairstyles will be replaced by the ones inspired by Africa. The Black women styling their hair in front of huts made of mud and straw, have much to suggest to us. Hairdressers will create wigs and toupees inspired by those created from wool and vegetal fibre made by Bantu or Zulu women. You can wear bobs of curly short hair, woolly mid-length wigs, extremely tall toupees, similar to cones placed on top of the head, leather and metal necklaces similar to those from teak and seedpods that Black women wear, for your evenings out.) 54 (This trend has also influenced men’s fashion. [They wear] necklaces with coloured pearls like the ones worn by the Zulus, or glass necklaces with glass pendants, or textile necklaces with other ornaments. Then there are boar fangs that hang from silver chains … This trend is invading England. Where will it

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stop? Are we going to wear those disks that are worn under the lips in some African tribes? Let’s hope not.) 55 (Abyssinian, kinky, funny, deliberately sloppy.) 56 (Black face.) The reference is taken from the Fascist song ‘Faccetta Nera’ (Ruccione, 1938). 57 (Eeeh tell me Wilson Pickett / eeeh tell me James Brown / how can you have this voice … I do my best to / sing like you / but I cannot help it, I will not / make it ever / I think it is only / because I have the wrong colour of skin / This is why I wish / I wish my skin was black … eeeh tell me Mr Faubus / eeeh tell me how could you / roast a Black boy once in a while / with all this calm / I say to myself: Nino, you should not think about it / but I cannot help it, I cannot / forget it this damn skin colour that / bothers me a bit … I would like to be down there / live in New Orleans / listen to the Mississippi, clash with my friends / all Blacks and musicians, be able to play the trumpet / and to speak English, Italian does not work for this music / And then I would like to scream / yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, all right!) 58 (I call her Cinnamon / for the colour of her skin. / I call her Cinnamon / in private and public. / Cinnamon’s skin / makes me crazy. / If I say that / it’s because you know: / I tasted her and you did not … I will keep you on a leash / to be sure that / from now on, / not even as a joke, / you could run away from me.) 59 (the Black Venus.) 60 (these screams remind me of the trip to Africa my beloved Filippo took.) 61 (are brave enough to wear a miniskirt, often against not only their parents’, but also their boyfriends’ will.) 62 (their actions don’t represent sexual maturity and the knowledge of human physiology.) 63 (Of course, when girls decide to have sex, their ignorance can have harmful results. Because the loss of what is euphemistically called ‘purity’ (to underline how sinful it is to lose it) is often accompanied by pregnancy.) 64 (On the contraceptive pill, there are usually two main opinions. There is an active, curious, mindset without prejudice – mostly on the part of young people … According to people bearing a passive mindset, to talk about the pill is already damaging … Excuse me Madam, but the pill does exist. Can you give me your opinion? Silence.) 65 (Not many women today can resist the temptation to wear a miniskirt … but thanks to the mysterious force of modesty they have been successful in resisting it. If the miniskirt is like a bomb ready to explode, tights seem an ordinary accessory … but they actually create a psychological pressure that can deactivate the ‘bomb’ … The evolution of fashion may lead us to think that modesty is a forgotten value, but really no women could accept fashion trends that so endanger that intimate and mysterious feeling that is modesty.) 66 (Here it is not a matter of giving or denying your body to the man you love. This approach still grants a man the agency … We should appropriate the right to have sex, my dears, to be brave and stop our oppression. We must decide that us girls, like them boys, have the desire and the right to have sex.)

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67 (non-penetrative sex.) 68 (In northern European countries, women do not even discuss the topic of premarital sexual experiences any more, because these practices have become the norm. What is the situation in Italy? We tried to understand it through a group discussion with young women who have openly discussed their ideas and behaviours. The discussion showed that Italian youth are rather relaxed, but there is a ‘but’: the girls participating in the debate were all northerners and from a big city. What would have happened if the debate took place in a provincial village in the south?) 69 (In four days, all the bicycle tyres have gone. And these tyres are used in the ‘Yum-Yum’, the ‘flexible dance’ par excellence, which grants couples the most flexibility of movement … How is this dance, which replaced the Shake, performed? … When the orchestra starts playing, couples jump inside the famous tyre … Inside the tyre, all movement is allowed. We would say this dance brings couples back together to enjoy the appeal of ‘dancing in the dark’.) 70 (Those who Vespa … eat apples.) 71 (good, eh?) 72 (The strange girls systematically chase every band member, they capture him, and after having dragged him to a makeshift love nest – vans full of musical instruments, or dark alcoves backstage – they dump him, ready to jump on the next boy … Musicians and singers, both famous and unknown, allow these girls to capture them, seemingly indifferent; it seems incredible but it is true, I saw it with my own eyes in Italy … these young men passively endure the groupies’ attention … they let the groupies drag them from one love nest to another, as if it’s something that doesn’t concern them, and their mysterious passivity often produces some bitter surprises that require the doctors’ intervention.) 73 (the capelloni’s siren.) 74 (the Piper’s priestess.) 75 (the blonde demon.) 76 (the 1960s Marlene Dietrich.) 77 Although both Caselli and Pavone continued their careers as singers even after 1967, they stopped being considered giovani, as both stars got married and had children in the late 1960s. This observation shows how the giovane identity is based on lifestyle as well as age: wedding and pregnancy are two life rites that can push women into the category of ‘adulthood’. 78 (is she getting married? Is she in love? Is she a man or a woman?) 79 (Who is Patty Pravo? I smoke boys like cigarettes.) 80 (Patty looks at me and smiles: she understands and enjoys the consequences of her words. ‘I smoke men like cigarettes’: these are the words … Patty is the new girl on the Italian music scene. Everyone immediately nicknamed her ‘Miss Piper’, because every night she performs in the big pit in Via del Tagliamento. And at the Piper she is always surrounded by a small crowd of all kinds: boys, not-so-young men and even someone definitely old. ‘I draw the attention of these men’, says Patty, ‘and it is difficult to shake off their looks’.)

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81 (Then there are the declarations made to journalists: extremely unscrupulous journalists working for gossip magazines … ‘I would like to start taking the pill, because I find it very evolved to have a child only when you desire one, but I am still not using it because I want to be sure it’s harmless’. And again: ‘Before performing, I long for a glass of whiskey and my boyfriend’.) 82 (Patty Pravo was born as the girl of the Piper, an emblem of young people who were trendy around three years ago, and who disturbed adult audiences with their provocative and eccentric behaviour. In her first interview to a sufficiently open-minded magazine, the blond commercial product even declared her ‘non-virginity’.) 83 (with forty-year-olds and conformists she pretends to be unscrupulous. With her peers she is herself: she is a girl like you, with your qualities and flaws.) 84 (got rid of big wigs, which made her a caricature.) 85 (out of the blue, she decided to change everything! She gave up the extravagant clothes, she started a normal life, she became more feminine, romantic, docile, humble, and modest: she is trying to make her audience forget her image as Ragazza del Piper.) 86 (the ‘new’ Patty Pravo has won everybody’s love – ‘I would immediately stop working as a singer for a man’s love, and for a family with many children’.) 87 (the thin, blond, charming … Maurizio.) 88 (My career took off because three years ago I was embodying a new kind of boy: thin, shy, introverted, with lots of blond hair. I think I contributed in my small way to the reformation of the Italian young people’s style … Girls fancy me: if you can keep a secret, I’ll tell you that when I was playing with New Dada, I used to slightly accentuate the feminine aspects that my blond hair, my blue eyes, my thin figure suggested. And it worked: it was a time when Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney were considered attractive … And then [I receive] frivolous letters from men who want to know who my hairdresser was, and how I keep my hair so blond and soft.) 89 (And now, some advice to boys, who are often neglected in this column. For you too, my dear beat, hippy, etc. boys, a decent and agreeable physical appearance is a duty. I won’t tell you to wear foundation or nail polish (despite the fact that I saw several boys going around with makeup on), I will just give you advice on your hairstyle.) 90 (One often wonders why girls can use skincare products that eliminate blackheads … and men cannot. Is the blackhead a manly feature? I think that getting rid of blackheads and pimples is an aesthetic and hygienic question. Boys can squeeze those blackheads on the tip of their nose, disinfecting with alcohol and perfume. And what if they get acne? They could ask their mother or their sister to make an appointment for them at a beauty salon, go there and have the beauticians take care of their problem. Maybe slipping in through the back door.) 91 (The borsetto. It is nothing more than a proper purse [borsetta], but it is for men. Nothing shocking, as the women’s handbag was modelled on a small bag for coins that men used to carry before paper money was invented. So it is a

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return to its origins. The return of a men’s handbag seems caused by the tighterfitting style of clothing in men’s fashion.) 92 (for men who are true men.) 93 (catch me … and then leave me if you can.) 94 (knock her out.) 95 (Lecco … Some days ago, it was hot, and my girlfriend and me went out wearing Bermuda shorts, those nice summer trousers that end just above the knee. I cannot describe what happened on the streets, people looked at us as if we were aliens, many felt sorry for us, some were laughing at us, some others made idiotic and cruel jokes. How is it possible that this province’s inhabitants are so stupid that they define a normal guy a ‘queer’ just because he is wearing Bermuda shorts? Now I hate my village.) 96 (the fact that capelloni are with beautiful girls does not count: comments are even more cruel.)

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4 Fragmented youth, 1970–75

In the early 1970s, the colourful and ‘ethnic’ features that characterised the Italian hippy style were replaced by an alleged ‘normalisation’ of i giovani’s appearance, which involved a toning down of some of the aesthetic features that distinguished i giovani from adults. In popular media, this toning down of style was represented as a political act, and it coincided with the increasing representation of Italian young people as political subjects. The first section of this chapter discusses the ‘normalisation’ of the giovane style in the light of the tense situation caused by terrorism, and the polarisation of Italian politics into extreme left and extreme right. The second section concentrates on the fragmentation of the community of i giovani in popular media. Chapters 2 and 3 showed how, in constructing the beat and the hippy, popular media homogenised representations of young people, creating an ‘imagined community’ where political, class, race and gender differences were overcome by a greater sense of belonging to i giovani. This did not mean that there were no differences among young people: most of the practices constructing i giovani in the 1960s did not apply to whole sections of Italy’s young population, and in particular to people who were geographically, economically and socially excluded from the modernisation of Italian society that was occurring at that time. In the early 1970s, the homogenised construction of i giovani started to disintegrate, by including the working classes, people from different political orientations and young people from the south. The third section concentrates on gender identities, and it shows the effects of the emerging feminist and gay rights movements on popular media representations of young people’s style. From 1973 to 1974, trends such as trousers for young women and glam music and style for young men fostered preoccupation over i giovani’s sexual and gender identity. This section discusses how emancipatory discourses either transformed or inspired a reaction in popular media representations of discriminated identities such as women and gay people.

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Promoting moderation: the giovane style in the Anni di piombo Chapter 3 highlighted how, during the Italian Sessantotto and the Autunno caldo, media representations of the hippies incorporated the ongoing politicisation of Italian young people. The hippy style reflected some of the Italian student and worker movements’ social and political claims; however, popular media foreignised these elements in their references to hippies, while eliding discussions of the actual social and political situation in Italy. During the early 1970s, two main events influenced popular media’s construction of political giovani. First, the Italian political system became increasingly interested in young people as potential voters. In the early 1970s, political parties started to publish advertisements in youth-oriented magazines and create slogans to attract young people. This was provoked by the debate around the proposed law that would lower the age of majority from twenty-one to eighteen years old, which eventually passed in 1975. Because of this law, an increasing number of young people became part of the active electorate. However, the fact that political youth were increasingly represented in popular media even before the law was passed shows a gradual process of politicisation of Italian youth in popular media representations, regardless of their actual right to vote. Second, the student and worker movements became more institutionalised through the creation of political organisations – such as Potere Operaio (Worker’s Power) in 1968 and Lotta Continua (Permanent Struggle) in 1969 – that did not condemn the use of violence to pursue social equality. In 1970, some members of these groups started to organise themselves into terrorist units such as the Brigate Rosse (Red Brigades) that, by using acts such as boycotting, kidnapping and eventually murder, became one of the symbols of the so-called Anni di piombo (O’Leary, 2010: 244) (Years of Lead). Alan O’Leary claims that more than 14,000 terrorist attacks were committed in Italy between 1969 and 1983, resulting in 374 deaths and 1,170 injuries (2010: 244). These terrorist acts were committed by both extreme right- and extreme left-wing organisations. The bombing of the Banca dell’Agricoltura in Piazza Fontana in Milan on 12 December 1969 inaugurated the so-called strategia della tensione (strategy of tension), which resulted in a series of terrorist attacks carried out by neofascist movements together with some members of the Italian secret service (Ginsborg 1990: 333–5). The increase in violent actions both from the extreme left and the extreme right brought about the revival of words like fascista (Fascist) and comunista (Communist), two terms that tended to stress the radicalisation of young people’s political positions. The radicalisation of political struggle in Italian society during the Anni di piombo influenced society’s perception of youth, as most of the people

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participating in radical groups were young. The media construction of political giovani in the early 1970s functioned on the one hand to moderate young people’s political positions, and, on the other hand, to mitigate the ongoing social trauma of Italian terrorism. Popular media representations tended to promote a ‘normalisation’ of the giovane style, where the abandoning of extravagant garments – such as those worn by the hippies – was presented as a political act. The ‘normalisation’ of the giovane style coincided with the recognition of young people’s political role, not only in youth-oriented popular media, but also by those political parties that, through advertisements in magazines, tended to connect the image of the modern giovane with political moderation. In addition, popular media promoted moderation by representing a reconciliation between i giovani and adults: an alleged resolution of the generational struggle tended to lower the social tension caused by terrorism and the potential threat of political giovani. From 1971 onwards, the term hippy started to have pejorative connotations in youth-oriented magazines. This process echoed the 1967 representation of the beat: the hippy style began to be criticised over its widespread commercial adoption, and once again foreignised. Anche l’hippy è stato strumentalizzato a fini economici. Interi empori di oggetti, ispirati al modo di vivere degli hippies, riempiono Broadway. Saloni immensi dove fanno bella mostra di sé i posters, i gioielli, gli arnesi e i gingilli più strani. Ciò che i bravi capelloni di Santa Maria di Trastevere creano con paziente ingegnosità qui è rigorosamente fabbricato in serie. L’artigianato ha ceduto il passo all’industria. E i giovani comprano. (‘Pubblicità e consumismo in U.S.A.: Ehi, vieni, comprami, ti prometto …’, 1971: 34)1

In this quotation from a 1971 article that appeared in Ciao 2001, for example, a distinction is made between the (American) commercial hippie and the (Italian) authentic capellone. In an article about Piccadilly Circus, the same is said of English giovani: the journalist states that ‘qui la rivoluzione si è ridotta ad un fiore sulla natica sinistra anziché su quella destra … Il qualunquismo impera, ormai la nostra contestazione è diventata un fenomeno folkloristico, gli hippies fanno parte del colore locale’ (Sbrollini, 1973: 25).2 An article that describes young people’s trends in Saint-Tropez also emphasises the shift in meaning of the word ‘hippy’: La parola ‘hippy’, che ha fatto la sua prima comparsa alcuni anni fa per rappresentare un certo movimento giovanile sviluppatosi contemporaneamente in California e in Inghilterra, ha ormai perduto buona parte del suo significato … Oggi ‘hippy’ ha assunto un significato più largo, un significato che abbraccia la gioventù in genere ma in particolare la gioventù meno convenzionale, quella che si distingue per certi atteggiamenti e certe mode che magari non

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hanno proprio nulla a che fare con gli ideali ‘hippy’ di tre o quattro anni fa. (Mascalero, 1971: 28)3

The journalist explains how the word ‘hippy’ now implies wealth, as the article talks about young people attending one of the most exclusive French holiday destinations. References to a foreign location again tended to externalise the commercial hippies, by distancing them from Italian giovani. Hippies were either accused of being increasingly commercialised, or they were described as drug addicts and degenerates. An article in Qui giovani describes a commune of giovani living in a squat in Rome, called ‘Hotel Hilton’: the journalist explains how this name is ironic, because in the hotel ‘mancano i servizi igienici, la sporcizia regna sovrana, l’atmosfera è pesante’ (Mancini, 1971: 37).4 Hippies are also presented as drug addicts: ‘Naturalmente la droga è di casa all’Hotel Hilton: anche se non era difficile immaginarlo’ (1971: 37).5 These hippies, however, are foreignised: the article states that the hotel only hosts ‘pochissimi ospiti italiani’ (1971: 37).6 Hippies were also said to have abandoned those places that they had previously appropriated, such as squares and public places. An article that appeared in Ciao 2001 in 1971 states that, for example, Piazza Navona in Rome ‘si va sempre più svuotando dai beats e dagli hippies che la popolavano un tempo’ (Marras, 1971: 20–1).7 The article claims that the beats and the hippies have been confined ‘ai margini delle fontane, non più padroni, ma quasi bestie curiose in uno zoo, additate con curiosità dai passanti’ (1971: 20–1):8 here, the animalisation of the hippies works to minimise their subversive image and relate it only to extravagance. The article also adds that it is possible to still see hippies walking ‘tristemente al guinzaglio di ben tenute signore quarantenni in caffetano’ (1971: 20–1):9 not only are hippies animalised here, but they are also said to use their extravagant style to satisfy the adults’ exoticism. In this quotation, the abandonment of Piazza Navona by the hippies is connected to their increasing commercialisation and de-politicisation. The three main features of the giovane style in the period 1970–75 were the adoption of an Americanised style, the widespread wearing of trousers by women, and the so-called ‘ritorno al classico’10 in men’s fashion, represented by short hair and less colourful garments. The significance of these features in terms of a redefinition of gender roles will be discussed in the last section of the chapter; it should be underlined here, however, that the style i giovani adopted in the early 1970s – which was never given a specific name, unlike the trends examined in the previous chapters – was presented in popular media as a sign of modernisation, political participation and moderation.

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Starting in 1973, a casual style, characterised by jeans and pullovers for both young men and women, appeared in magazines. Popular media connected the 1970s giovane style with its ‘American’ counterpart and inspiration: Una bandiera a stelle e strisce, un berrettino di baseball, una bottiglietta di Pepsi-Cola, i pantaloni in tessuto jeans: ecco i simboli che gli Stati Uniti hanno ormai esportato in tutto il mondo. Ora, prendete tutti questi simboli, mescolateli con un po’ di allegria e un pizzico di follia e avrete una moda nuova. (‘Moda: stelle e strisce’, 1973: 55)11

Chapter 3 showed how the hippies’ fascination with the Orient resulted in a hippy style that was full of references to ‘other’ places and ‘other’ historical eras. Although, as the previous chapter demonstrated, the Afro style was ultimately a reappropriation of an American trend, giovani magazines described it by emphasising the alleged backwardness of the non-Western ‘Other’, and making invisible its American-ness. The hippy style also referenced 1930s American Hollywood imagery through the widespread use of vintage fashion. If we consider, as David W. Elwood maintains, that ‘America plays a significant … role in Italy’s search for a modernity of its own’ (2006: 253), references to ‘America’ in early 1970s fashion can be seen as a strategy to bring the giovane identity back to the West and to the present times, and to reaffirm an ideal of modernity in the construction of il giovane. The giovane style of the early 1970s was also characterised by a toning down of some of the features that were considered to be troubling in the late 1960s, such as long hairstyles, floral patterns and extravagant colours. The alleged ‘normalisation’ of giovani trends during the early 1970s was presented as retaining strong political connotations, in contrast to the increasing commercialisation of the hippy style. For example, in discussing short hair, an article in Ciao 2001 states that Il ritorno al capello corto è … oggi uno dei simboli più appariscenti (e più superficiali) di una reazione giovanile alla sua nuova crisi di identità, la quale, a livello più profondo, riflette il disagio di aver visto il sistema, dopo Woodstock, recuperare e far ipocritamente propri, svuotandoli di significato, proprio quegli ideali alternativi per i quali si era fino ad ora combattuto. (Insolera, 1976: 45)12

Short hairstyles for men also reflected a refusal of middle-class culture, as expressed by an interview with American political activist Abbie Hoffman, reported in Ciao 2001: ‘Questa stessa società che noi combattiamo … ha rimaneggiato i nostri atteggiamenti e i nostri costumi, e li ha riproposti alle masse svuotati e snaturati

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del loro significato. Adesso hanno i capelli lunghi: i figli delle famiglie “bene” della borghesia … Noi non vogliamo essere confusi con loro e, quindi, abbiamo deciso di tagliarci i capelli!’. ‘Ma in questo modo non rischiate di essere scambiati per tranquilli impiegati di banca?’. ‘No, perché il nostro taglio di capelli non è quello azzimato che portano i borghesi frustrati. Noi non andiamo certo dal parrucchiere, i capelli ce li tagliamo da soli, in qualche modo’. (Russell, 1971: 33)13

Youth-oriented magazines also discussed the style of young people involved in Italian political organisations and explained its increasing normalisation as a political act. At the end of the 1960s, the student and worker movements started to evolve into more organised groups, which gathered under the label ‘New Left’. ‘New Left’ groups visibly expressed their political affiliation by using a specific style: for example, an article in Ciao 2001 introduces the so-called cinesi (Chinese), groups inspired by Maoism, who are described as wearing ‘fazzoletto rosso al collo, libretto di Mao in pugno’ (Moroli & Del Giudice, 1969: 13).14 Mao’s book, in this article, becomes a fashion accessory i giovani use to show their left-wing political affiliation. Most interestingly, in the article members of the ‘New Left’ are said to have abandoned the hippy style for political reasons: the article explains how, before entering the political movement, they ‘portavano i capelli lunghi, i ciondoli al collo, i pantaloni colorati. Le ragazze vestivano con le minigonne e insomma il loro aspetto era, più o meno, quello degli hippies e dei capelloni nostrani’ (Moroli & Del Giudice, 1969: 17).15 After having entered the ‘quadri dirigenti del partito’,16 young people are said to wear short hairstyles and a ‘modesto e banale’ style (1969: 17).17 Young people’s abandonment of the hippy style, here, coincides with participation in institutionalised political movements: according to the article, when young people became actively involved in the leadership of movements they decided to adopt a ‘normalised’ style to appeal to their target voters, namely the working classes. Indeed, the article states, Tra la gente di borgata e un hippy o un capellone non c’è dialogo: il capellone, infatti, è un classico prodotto borghese … Il piccolo borghese che crede di ribellarsi facendosi crescere i capelli e mettendosi fiori in testa, in realtà opera una protesta completamente sterile, individualista, senza alternative. (Moroli & Del Giudice, 1969: 17)18

The article discusses how the adoption of a ‘normalised’ style can be an effective strategy to appeal to the working classes, unlike wearing a hippy style, which identifies one as borghese (middle class). In Italy, the term borghese had become extremely popular during the Italian Sessantotto and in its immediate aftermath, as a result of the increasing critique of bourgeois society. The student movements identified the borghesi as their

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parents’ generation, against whom they were demonstrating. After 1968, however, the student movement itself was criticised for its members’ bourgeois origins: those participating in student occupations of universities and schools were in fact the sons and daughters of the Italian middle classes. This process was identified by intellectuals such as Pier Paolo Pasolini, who, in the famous 1973 article ‘Il “discorso” dei capelli’ (Pasolini, 2013) (The ‘Discourse’ of Hair), connected long hairstyles with class belonging. Pasolini claimed that, if during 1968 long hair used to carry working-class and therefore left-wing associations for student and workers’ protests, in 1973 long hair had become a borghese, and therefore right-wing sign, because of its commercial appropriation: Che cosa dicevano questi loro capelli? Dicevano: ‘… Noi siamo impiegati di banca, studenti, figli di gente arricchita che lavora nelle società petrolifere … Noi siamo dei borghesi: ed ecco qui i nostri capelli lunghi che testimoniano la nostra modernità internazionale di privilegiati!’ … Il ciclo si è compiuto. La sottocultura al potere ha assorbito la sottocultura all’opposizione e l’ha fatta propria: con diabolica abilità ne ha fatto pazientemente una moda che, se non si può proprio dire fascista nel senso classico della parola, è però di una ‘estrema destra’ reale. (Pasolini, 2013: 9–10)19

According to Pasolini, the trend of long hairstyles in the early 1970s had become a sign of class privilege, and therefore an expression of a ‘neofascism’ that he identified with neocapitalism (Bondavalli, 2015: 201). Unlike in the 1960s, then, the giovane style in the early 1970s was clearly connected to the political role of Italian young people. This recognition can be explained as a consequence of not only the increasing political role of young people in the social and political movements of the 1960s, but also of their institutionalisation as social and political subjects. In 1972, advertisements for political parties started to appear in youth-oriented magazines: the presence of these advertisements arguably signalled a desire to politically attract young people towards more moderate positions than the radical ‘New Left’ movements. Some advertisements centred on issues that could be of interest to an audience of young people: for example, the Partito Socialista Italiano used the theme of school reforms to appeal to young voters. Moreover, the 1972 series of Democrazia Cristiana advertisements in youth-oriented magazines used the giovane style as a marker of neutrality and modernisation. The Democrazia Cristiana employed discourses around the radicalisation of young people’s political choices to present itself as the bearer of a more moderate and therefore ‘modern’ politics. One advertisement features photographs of a stereotyped Fascist balilla – with black shirt and plus-four trousers – and a Communist soldier, with a maxi coat and

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a gun on his shoulder. Standing between the two is a modern giovane with short hair, in flared blue jeans and a white shirt. The slogan reads: Come sarà la moda l’estate prossima? Questa volta, sei tu che decidi. Non saranno i grandi creatori della moda a importi uno stile: la scelta sta a te. Sarai tu a decidere se dovrai metterti in camicia nera coi pantaloni alla zuava e fasce mollettiere, oppure in maxi-cappotto siberiano e parabellum. O se, invece, potrai continuare a vestirti alla tua maniera solita, coi tuoi blue-jeans e quella tua camiciola di cotone che ti sta così comoda addosso! … Né fez né colbacchi. Democrazia Cristiana: la libertà. (Democrazia Cristiana, 1972a: 76)20

The advertisement uses the same narratives previously used to promote giovane fashion, in particular the idea that young people are actively creating their own style. However, il giovane depicted in the advertisement is wearing a fashionable outfit that recalls the commercial style presented in teen magazines’ fashion columns: American-inspired blue jeans, short hair, beard and sunglasses identify the potential voter of the Democrazia Cristiana (Democrazia Cristiana, 1972b: 70). Moreover, in order to emphasise the modernity of the Christian Democrat giovane, the extreme left and extreme right are represented by stereotypes – the 1930s Fascist balilla and the 1920s revolutionary Communist – instead of a contemporary version of politically active giovani – the 1970s neofascists and those with Mao’s book in their hands and a red scarf around their necks. Unlike the references to the 1930s made in 1968 – when the inter-war period was described as ‘l’epoca giovane’ – here, references to the past function to represent political radicalisation in its totalitarian examples, such as Fascist Italy and Communist Russia. By transferring these political ideas to the past, political radicalisation is kept away from the modern giovane, who, in order to be ‘free’, should vote for the Democrazia Cristiana. In the Democrazia Cristiana campaign ads, then, the translation of the concept of political freedom into ‘the freedom to wear what you want’ demonstrated how style was still fundamental in expressing the ‘political’ identity of young people in popular media.​ The ‘normalisation’ of the giovane style also weakened the boundaries between i giovani and adults, who were previously constructed as opposed to i giovani. In the early 1970s, not only was i giovani’s style presented as more similar to that of adults, but adults were also said to appropriate certain features characterising i giovani. This appropriation had happened before, but it was presented in magazines as a usurpation: for example, in Chapter 2, an excerpt from an article by Rita Pavone expressed her shock that some adults had started to go to the Piper Club in Rome. By contrast, from 1971, the appropriation of young people’s style and music by adults was discussed in youth-oriented media as a sign of Italian society’s greater

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Figure 4.1  An example of Democrazia Cristiana advertising: short hair, beard and sunglasses identify the potential voter of Democrazia Cristiana.

acceptance of i giovani. A 1971 advertisement for Coca-Cola in Ciao 2001, for example, described adults’ co-option of the giovane style as unavoidable: Visto la camicia colorata che tuo padre ha comperato la settimana scorsa? Proprio lui che diceva che non se ne poteva più di sentir parlare dei giovani, della moda giovane? … Quelle che ieri erano idee esclusive dei giovani, oggi

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sempre più diventano idee accettate ed adottate anche da chi non ha più 18 anni … Dopo i primi urli e stridori di denti, i benpensanti tradizionalisti si trovano, che lo vogliano o no, ad accettare (e magari anche ad apprezzare) molti dei comportamenti tipici dei giovani. (Coca-Cola, 1971: 51)21

A similar narrative appears in the 1971 Carosello commercial for the ice cream Boomerang Algida. Starting in the early 1960s, the Algida Caroselli had always featured young stars such as the Rokes, Rita Pavone and, from 1967, Patty Pravo. The choice of testimonials and slogans – for example, ‘il gelato giovane’22 – demonstrated that the company’s branding was directed at an audience of young people. The 1971 Carosello, however, featured as the main testimonial adult actor Nanni Loy. The commercial begins with the actor stopping traffic at an intersection, shouting: ‘Fermi tutti! Voglio protestare. Basta con questa moda di imitare i giovani. Tutti a correre sempre dietro ai giovani. Invece bisogna ascoltare i giovani, bisogna aprire un dialogo con loro. Protesto, si, protesto!’ (Carosello Algida Boomerang, 1971).23 The dynamics expressed by the advertisement are contradictory: the actor says that adults should stop imitating the young, but he himself is imitating a giovane practice, namely staging a demonstration. Demonstrating is not the only giovane practice Loy appropriates: at the end of the short commercial, he enters a bar, where he orders Boomerang, ‘il gelato dei giovani’,24 thereby participating in the consumption of youth-oriented goods. Considering that both the Coca-Cola advertisement and the Algida commercial were directed at young people, it appears that popular media were facilitating the adoption of young people’s practices by adults during the 1970s. As young people were increasingly recognised as social and political subjects, the strong distinction between the two generational groups was becoming more blurred. Another sign of the reconciliation between i giovani and adults in popular media can be found in the attitude of the young television studio audience towards the main representative of adults in Italian popular music, namely Claudio Villa. Villa, also known as Il Reuccio (the Little King), from the late 1950s was one of the main interpreters of Italian sentimental pop music; as a consequence, especially in the late 1950s and early 1960s, he became the ‘adult’ par excellence in youth-oriented media, in contrast to the urlatori and the beat singers. For instance, Chapter 1 briefly discussed Claudio Villa’s parody in the film I ragazzi del juke-box. In 1970, Villa was a guest on the television programme Speciale per voi, where he sang ‘Marina’ (Granata, 1959), one of his most successful songs. Here, the singer was verbally attacked: the audience’s jeering whistles and yelling drowned out his singing, and he stopped so as to be able to respond to the insults being screamed at him (Speciale per voi, episode 7, 26/05/1970). The entire scene

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was evidently staged; however, it shows i giovani’s hostile attitude towards this adult singer. Instead, in 1972, only two years after his performance in Speciale per voi, Villa sang on the youth-oriented programme Tutto è pop (Moretti, 1972).25 Villa drove onstage on a motorcycle, wearing all leather, while the young onstage audience applauded. Moreover, the singer was invited to sit on a throne, his nickname Il Reuccio being presented literally as the king of singers, including young singers. To reinforce his role as king, all the young singers performing in that episode paid homage to Villa (Tutto è pop, episode 7, 20/09/1972). In his appearance in Tutto è pop, not only did young singers accept Villa’s appropriation of giovani practices, but they presented themselves as subordinate to him, in this way implicitly recognising adults’ powerful position over i giovani. The alleged reconciliation between i giovani and adults represented in popular media can be read in light of the delicate social situation in Italy in the early 1970s: the increase in violence from both left- and right-wing terrorism was creating social anxieties, especially about young people who, because of their symbolic role in the Sessantotto, seemed the most radical in their political position. As a consequence, the resolution of generational conflict in early 1970s popular culture can be interpreted as a strategy to decrease the social tension via popular media representations: by reproducing a reconciliation between generations, popular media seemed to suggest a social compromise within Italian society. Just like the modern young people depicted in the Democrazia Cristiana advertisements, the construction of i giovani as accepting adults – and, in some cases, their role of power – in television programmes and advertisements functioned to recuperate and moderate the image of political young people. In the early 1970s, the increasing radicalisation of Italian politics and the tense social situation of the Anni di piombo was diluted in popular media through an attempt at domesticating political Italian giovani. Political parties also used the alleged ‘normalisation’ of the giovane style to promote moderation, in a phase of Italian history where young people were associated with right-wing and left-wing radicalisation. The attenuation of the generational conflict in popular media representations can also be seen as an attempt to advocate for a blurring of the generational differences in Italian society, and thus resolve the social tension caused by the Anni di piombo.

Fragmented giovani: discrimination and inclusion During the period 1970–75, new forms of opposition started to appear in media representations of i giovani. The previous chapters showed how, beginning in the 1960s, popular media constructed i giovani as a

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homogeneous identity in opposition to ‘other’ identities. In particular, the construction of the beats and the hippies tended to erase any references to social class or socioeconomic status: in popular media representations, i giovani were represented as all equally different from their adult counterparts, irrespective of their individual differences. However, on closer inspection, it becomes evident that the practices through which i giovani were constructed were middle-class practices, in that leisure activities such as attending concerts and buying records and fashion required economic resources not easily available to all Italian young people. Moreover, the proliferation of references to schools and universities confirmed that in popular media il giovane was a student by default, and therefore the working classes were excluded from this construction. Similarly, the giovane identity represented in popular media in the period 1958–70 was geographically indeterminate: for example, i giovani who featured in early Musicarelli films did not portray their regional origin. Even though most Musicarelli were set in Naples,26 none of the young actors had a Neapolitan accent in the films, while the adult actors who played the roles of their parents often spoke with a strong accent or used expressions in dialect. I giovani also tended to be represented as an international community, in which regional and national boundaries did not disrupt their supposed unity. When southern Italian giovani appeared in youth-oriented magazines, they were represented as resisting the backwardness of the society they were living in (such as, for example, the giovani beat women with miniskirts in their handbags presented in Chapter 2), and therefore as criticising southern Italian values and traditions, instead of embracing them: in this sense, southern-ness and a giovane identity were presented as mutually exclusive. However, the social and economic discrepancies between different parts of the Italian peninsula certainly affected young people’s lives: i giovani, as constructed in the media, were representative of a limited section of youth, who lived in the big cities where the clubs and shops were or where concerts by young stars were taking place. During the early 1970s, the homogenised media construction of i giovani started to splinter, producing multiple Italian giovani identities in popular media. This process worked through the proliferation of two main narratives, one emphasising discrimination, and one fostering integration. On the one hand, a feeling of discrimination started to emerge in letters written by young people and published in youth-oriented magazines. Young people writing to magazines were feeling discriminated against both by popular media’s portrayal of them and by other giovani. On the other hand, working-class and southern Italian young people started to be more visible in magazines, television programmes and films, in this way showing that i giovani were not just different from adults – in fact, as noted previously, adults

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could be giovani as well – but could also be different from other young people. This process produced media constructions of i giovani that were more representative of Italian society as a whole; however, these representations sometimes tended to reaffirm dominant power relations and further discriminate against subordinate identities. In this section, I ultimately argue that the fragmentation of the ‘imagined community’ of Italian giovani was influenced by popular culture’s appropriation of emancipatory discourses regarding young people’s class, political and geographical identification circulating in Italian and other Western societies. Unlike in the previous chapters, here I will not discuss in detail the incorporation of foreign elements in popular media representations of Italian young people in this period. Indeed, during the 1970s Italian popular media’s role in translating foreign influences became less evident. Youthoriented magazines and TV programmes increasingly featured foreign singers and bands. Moreover, unlike Speciale per voi, where mostly Italian young bands performed in the studio, television programmes such as Pop studio (Dama, 1971) and Under 20 (Trapani, 1973) broadcast recorded performances of foreign stars such as David Bowie and John Lennon. Even the use of English terms became more accurate in the early 1970s, probably because of a higher level of knowledge of the English language in the young Italian population, due to education and the increasing direct contact with English-language popular culture. Italian young people’s access to influences coming from other countries, then, appeared to be less mediated by popular media: there was no need to culturally ‘translate’ every word, trend, song or celebrity. Yet, strategies of ‘mirroring’ and ‘othering’ of foreign influences persisted in youth-oriented popular media, as is visible, for example, in the presentation of glam artists discussed in the next section. In the late 1960s, in letters written to youth-oriented magazines, several young readers expressed frustration over popular media’s depiction of i giovani, which they felt did not represent them, and emphasised how the depiction prescribed a preferred way of being young, which was middle-class and northern. For instance, in a letter to Ciao 2001’s editor, a reader complained about the magazine’s perceived classism: Ma allora il vostro giornale è per un élite, per una classe, è classista, è borghese … È possibile che non vi scriva mai un contadino, un operaio? Ed è possibile che faccia una lettera di esemplare lingua? Se è vero siete classisti, sennò siete bugiardi perché non fate vedere le cose come sono. (‘Al Direttore’, 1969: 4)27

In the letter, class is discussed in terms of the level of education that readers are expected to have, as indicated by the language used in the magazine. The reader wonders why ‘nessuno [sbaglia] a scrivere, forse sono tutti istruiti, studenti, signori?’ (‘Al Direttore’, 1969: 4).28 This comment illustrates how

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i giovani constructed in popular media were often considered students by default. Cecilia Cristofori discusses how, in media representations, l’immagine del giovane lavoratore … si va progressivamente eclissando nella seconda metà degli anni Sessanta. Quando … la scolarizzazione diventa di fatto un’esperienza condivisa dalla maggioranza dei ragazzi e delle ragazze, la sovrapposizione tra l’immagine giovanile e la condizione studentesca … rende disponibile una rappresentazione coerente e unitaria del mondo giovanile. (2002: 104)29

Moreover, the identification between students and borghesi in the letter above signals how a high level of education was conflated with a middleclass upbringing. The student and worker movements emerging during the late 1960s, which evolved into the ‘New Left’ movements, had strong Marxist roots. Paul Ginsborg explains that in the summer of 1968, when the student movement moved away from the universities to start picketing outside factories, students began criticising their own middle-class origins in order to draw closer to the working classes (1990: 312). By doing so, they were also disseminating Marxist ideology, instilling workers with a stronger class consciousness (Lumley, 1990: 114).30 The circulation of Marxist ideals popularised terms that were previously limited to intellectuals and politicians, such as borghesi and proletari (proletarians), which also started to appear in popular media discourse in the late 1960s. In addition, young readers began to denounce discrimination that was based on political orientation. A series of letters written by young neofascists accused Ciao 2001’s editor of not representing them because of their radical political orientation. In one of these letters, a neofascist group stated that they were interested in the topics covered by the magazine, but they felt that the views expressed were too different from their own: Egregio direttore, noi fascisti non abbiamo ancora capito se lei ha paura dei nostri giudizi, e si, perché inviamo in continuazione lettere … Lei cestini pure le nostre lettere, un giorno si troverà il fascismo sotto il letto! … Ripetete con noi: VIVA IL DUCE, VIVA IL FASCISMO! E: abbasso i calabresi, i negri [sic], i siculi non fascisti, i sinistrati, il Vietnam comunista, i falliti, i drogati, noi fascisti siamo sempre qui, nelle nostre sedi, venite a trovarci, riceverete quello che vi meriterete … (‘Lettere al direttore. Chi ha paura dei “Cavalieri del nulla”?’, 1972: 5–6)31

Although the letter is clearly racist and provocative, it is interesting to see how some readers criticised the unitary view of il giovane as non-political or left-wing by default. The media’s exclusion of right-wing young people, criticised in the letter above, demonstrates not only the media’s attempts to moderate young people’s political beliefs explained earlier, but also how any direct mention of neofascism was omitted from representation, arguably

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because of its direct connection to Fascism, and therefore to the traumas of the Ventennio and the Second World War. The increased visibility of young people from the south of Italy also created fragmentation in the community i giovani in this period. During the mid-1960s, media representations of southern youth replicated the stereotypes of the south as lacking in economic, social and cultural resources that were circulating in Italian society as a whole. After the economic boom of the late 1950s, industrialised cities in northern Italy became increasingly influenced by the social and economic models of Western capitalistic societies; conversely, the south and the rural areas of the north and centre experienced an economic decline, which was worsened by the migration of the meridionali (southerners) to major cities in the north of Italy, especially Milan and Turin. As a consequence, while popular media represented northern cities as reflecting the modernisation of the Italian peninsula, the south was defined ‘by its lack of what the North possessed’ (Forgacs, 2014: 6): it was presented as static, backward and economically underdeveloped. In other words, ‘Italy appear[ed] dragged down by its Southern half’ (Schneider, 1998: 8): the cultural construction of the south often functioned to underscore, through opposition, the increasing modernisation of the north. This representation of the south contrasted with the construction of il giovane as a transnational and inherently modern identity, and this is probably why stories on southern young people like those analysed in the previous chapters often focused on their resistance to their own backward social context. Gabriella Gribaudi, however, notes that the social difference between the two ‘poles’ of Italy has never been as neat as the discourse constructing it. Sexual taboos, the communication difficulties between generations and the impossibility of going out in the evening for young women ‘were probably common to the whole of Italy in a specific generation’ (1996: 85). To identify the south as the backward part of Italy, then, was a strategy to emphasise through opposition the north’s increasing modernisation. Young readers, in letters to teen magazines, began pointing out the fictional division between north and south: in a letter that appeared in 1970  in Ciao 2001, the writer complained quante volte nel settentrione ho sentito parlare male dei meridionali, e nessuno si è accorto che io lo ero. Sono state in Sicilia queste persone? NO! Certo che se poi vanno nello sperduto paesetto dell’Etna non troveranno benessere assoluto. Ma nel settentrione ci sono paesetti lontani dai grandi centri? SI! Ma noi giudichiamo il settentrione da città quali Milano, Genova. E perché non si giudica la Sicilia da città quali Catania, Siracusa e Messina? Perché criticare è divertente, ecco perché! (‘Al Direttore’, 1970: 4)32

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This letter is representative of a highly significant development in the northmodern/south-backward discourse: the southern young person writing here is not resisting his own backward society, but rather he is trying to oppose a stereotypical representation of the south. In this letter, moreover, the criticism is not directed at youth-oriented magazines, but rather it is addressed to other young people. Thus letters sent to magazines also started to highlight discrimination within the community of i giovani, based on different social backgrounds, economic resources and ethnicity. For example, a Sardinian young woman living in Turin wrote to Ciao 2001  in 1970 to share her own situation of discrimination, which was caused not so much by her status as a migrant, but by her job. In the letter, she defines herself as giovane by saying that she ‘am[a] la musica, il ballo, le pagine di [Ciao] 2001 e insomma tutte le cose piccole e grandi che amano le ragazze della mia età’ (Cambula, 1970: 72),33 thus referencing those leisure activities through which i giovani were constructed in popular media. However, she declares that she feels excluded by her peers because she is a waitress. Her waitressing job marks her as being of a lower class, and that is why other young people exclude her, she deduces. In other words, the young letter writer is expressing her desire to belong to an ‘imagined community’ that she has seen represented in popular media, but that does not actually exist in the way in which it has been portrayed. She writes, da queste parti abbiamo tutti la pelle dello stesso colore, non è uno sforzo mostrarsi superiori davanti a un problema che non ci tocca; ma le cameriere qui in Italia esistono, ed io sono una di loro: una ragazza come tante altre, con un lavoro come tanti altri eppure sono vittima di uno stupido, inspiegabile razzismo, che relega la mia categoria nelle sottospecie da non frequentare, da non conoscere, da non salutare … da non amare. Ma perché succede questo? (Cambula, 1970: 72)34

Interestingly, the word used by the reader to express her class discrimination is ‘racism’, even though the discrimination is not based on race. The misuse of the term shows that vocabulary used to describe discrimination came not only from the political discourse of the Italian student movements, but was also borrowed from foreign movements such as the American civil rights movement. In another letter, which appeared in Ciao 2001, a young woman identifies herself as being working class: she explains that ‘compro un disco ogni 2 o 3 mesi con i miei esigui risparmi’ (‘Lettere al direttore. Razzismo alla rovescia’, 1972: 6),35 therefore she identifies her social status through the quantity of music records she is able to buy. The writer describes how she has found a new group of friends, who are richer than she is. She complains that her former friends now think that she is ‘una che ama i soldi e la gente imbevuta di stupido borghesismo’ (1972: 6).36 The writer is rejected

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by her working-class friends because she has overcome class boundaries by going out with middle-class people; the vocabulary used by her friends, that she reports in the letter, shows the disregard that her working-class friends have towards the borghesi. She says, at the end of her letter, ‘quello che voglio dire è, che ora stiamo esagerando con quest’idea del “siamo tutti uguali”. Verissimo, ma si sta facendo del razzismo proprio da parte di chi lo combatte’ (1972: 6).37 The writer labels rejection by her working-class friends as ‘reverse racism’: here the word ‘racism’ is used not only to report a class issue, but also to discuss different forms of discrimination within the community of i giovani. The frequent use of the term ‘racism’ in letters of young Italians denouncing forms of discrimination shows that discourses around civil rights for American Black people did circulate in the Italian peninsula and that they were appropriated by Italian young people. The term ‘racism’ became interchangeable with ‘discrimination’ even though the discrimination was not based on race. The term was often used without a complete understanding of its definition and significance, and sometimes its use supported racist claims. For example, in 1972 Qui giovani published a debate between Adamo, a young Somali man who was studying in Italy, and Antonio, who moved from Lecce in the southern region of Apulia to the north of Italy. The theme discussed is whether ‘gli italiani sono razzisti’ (‘I nostri problemi. Gli italiani sono razzisti? Con i negri no con i terroni un po’ (ma finirà)’, 1972: 42):38 ANTONIO: Il tuo [di Adamo] non mi sembra un caso particolare. Ho l’impressione che io, meridionale, venendo al nord ho incontrato difficoltà ancora maggiori: tutti quelli che mi sentivano parlare mi davano del ‘terrone’. DOMANDA: Da dove vieni? ANTONIO: Da Lecce. Ora mi sono abituato all’idea di essere chiamato ‘terrone’ ma il primo anno, mi è stato molto difficile inserirmi nella società: e io ho la pelle bianca! … Adesso il negro [sic] va di moda. (1972: 42)39

The debate recounted in this interview demonstrates the significance of language in defining forms of discrimination within i giovani. First, Antonio explains how northern people used to call him terrone, derogatorily: this term, referring to the terra (land) that southern people used to cultivate, is the traditional derogatory epithet used by northern Italians to refer to southerners. According to Antonio, the use of the term is widespread, a comment that indicates discrimination against southerners is widespread in northern cities. Second, Antonio claims that the discrimination against southerners in Italy is worse than that against Black people. However, this comment is also racist, as it implies an alleged hierarchy between people

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discriminated against but still white such as southern Italians, and people who should be discriminated against and are not, such as Black people. In other words, this article shows that, despite the claims about the anti-racism of Italian giovani emerging from the letters above, discrimination based on race existed in Italian society, including amongst young people. The appearance of forms of discrimination within the community of i giovani in the early 1970s demonstrates the emergence of discourses around class, political beliefs and ethnicity in the media construction of youth in the late 1960s. In describing discrimination, young people often used terminology around racism: this linguistic appropriation demonstrates the circulation of emancipatory claims such as those of the Italian student movements and the American civil rights movement and their inclusion in popular media discourse. The misuse of the term ‘racism’ in letters to youth-oriented magazines, however, shows the lack of a complete understanding of the full implications of this term and of the movements with which it was associated. The emergence of discourses around discrimination in letters written to youth-oriented magazines coincided with the progressive inclusion of class and geographical identity features in media representations of i giovani. In the early 1970s, different giovani identities started to be represented in popular media: these representations, however, often tended to reproduce stereotypical views about people from the south and working-class young people. Moreover, while the meridionalità (southern-ness) of several young stars was widely embraced, and even celebrated, other subjects – such as workers and right-wing militants – remained largely absent in popular media representations. From the end of the 1960s, young people from the south were not only increasingly represented in popular media as the agents of resistance against their own society, but also started celebrating their southern origins. Youthoriented popular media’s revival of the south can be seen as a consequence of the new attention to folk culture that emerged in Italian society from the mid-1960s. In the 1960s and early 1970s, anthropologist Ernesto de Martino and ethnomusicologist Roberto Leydi started a rediscovery of southern popular songs and oral narratives, with a specific political goal: to demonstrate that southern society was underdeveloped because it had been exploited by the north, and to advocate for a transformation of southern society.40 De Martino’s and Leydi’s venture was in no sense a nostalgic conservationist movement aimed at turning back the clock against ‘cultural modernization’. It was a combative, politicized movement, keenly aware of how the popular culture of rural areas was being broken apart by the expansion of capitalism and defining itself in opposition both to the cultures of capitalism and to the inert ‘reformism of the institutional left’. (Forgacs, 2014: 195)

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It was not only anthropologists who were interested in more marginal areas of the country, but also musicians. During the early 1970s, there was a revival of Italian folk music41 and especially southern folk and traditional music, through cultural organisations such as the Nuovo canzoniere italiano (New Italian Songbook).42 Unlike other countries, where the folk genre mostly concerned political songs, in Italy, this term also identified the traditional peasant music coming from peripheral areas of the peninsula, especially the south. Youth-oriented popular media also featured their own ‘rediscovery’ of the south in the early 1970s. For example, the television programme Speciale tre milioni (Nicotra, 1971) (Three Million Special), the title referring to the number of people aged twenty to thirty in Italy at the time, brought youthoriented music to marginalised areas of the peninsula through a series of episodes, each exploring a different theme. This programme staged the performances of young singers and bands in southern cities and villages like Campobasso in Molise, Viterbo in Campania and Sant’Agata in Apulia, and in other areas of the country, such as Marostica in the Veneto countryside and Sirolo in Marche. Through Speciale tre milioni, national television displayed suburban Italian areas and presented performances of young people’s music together with discussions of the problems experienced by Italian southerners, thereby showcasing previously invisible local youth communities. Similarly, several young singers started to be identified with the South of Italy and therefore with a southern identity, like Neapolitan singer Edoardo Bennato: La strada originaria è quella di Napoli, sua città d’origine, e questo aggiunge altre particolari considerazioni … Napoli come punto storico di focalizzazione della cultura, ma anche, purtroppo, della miseria del Sud; Napoli come centro orgasmico di tradizioni, di razze, di popoli … Tutto questo marca un profondo riflesso nella musica di Edoardo, nella cui effervescente ispirazione il blues diventa il lamento del ‘negro [sic] napoletano’, il rock’n roll si italianizza ed esprime la rabbia di chi ama svisceratamente la sua terra, e vuole far qualcosa, ad ogni costo, per aiutarla. (Insolera, 1975: 13)43

Naples here is presented not just as a deprived area, but also as a vibrant and multicultural city that influences the personality of its inhabitants. The description of Bennato’s role as a musician illustrates the process of ‘Italianisation’ of specific music genres (like the Blues) and thus of discourses around racial discrimination. Indeed, Bennato’s given nickname in the article identifies southerners with a supposed racial difference, in this way reproducing a discriminatory discourse. Some other young singers, such as Mia Martini, Al Bano and Marcella Bella, also started to be clearly identified as southerners in popular media.

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The southern-ness of these stars, however, is not to be found in their musical repertoire, nor were they using their popularity to highlight the difficult situation of the south. Their regional affiliation was used more as a strategy to captivate young southern audiences without engaging with the political issues that the musical and anthropological revival of southern traditions were implying. The case of Mia Martini shows how the media construction of young stars increasingly involved an emphasis on their regional origins. During the first half of the 1970s, Martini (the stage name of Domenica Bertè) changed from being a hippy singer to becoming a southern singer. In 1971, an article in Qui giovani described Martini as a hippy singer: ‘bombetta in testa, trucco esasperato, tanti gioielli (anche al naso): così Mia Martini, quasi volesse mortificare la sua bellezza, ama abbigliarsi. Mia è nata a Bagnara Calabra, ma ha vissuto ad Ancona. Il suo vero nome è Domenica Bertè’ (‘La novità Mia Martini’, 1971: 33).44 The article offers some personal details: the singer was born in Calabria, a southwestern region of Italy, but she grew up in Ancona, a city in the centre. Only four years later, in the television programme Mia (Trapani, 1975), Martini defines herself as a ‘donna del sud’,45 her gender and regional identity defining her more than being giovane. Martini’s southern-ness is emphasised in the show by her wearing of a folk-inspired style, characterised by long floral skirts and embroidered shawls. Her musical repertoire is also geographically determined: in the show’s last segment, Martini performs several Roman stornelli (traditional folk songs) with singer Gabriella Ferri. However, Martini’s southern-ness seems questionable: although she was born in the south, she did not grow up there, and she moved to Rome only in the late 1960s. Martini’s southernness, although slightly inaccurate, functioned to align her with a specific trend in popular music, that of folk/southern music. Al Bano, the stage name of the singer, actor and TV personality Albano Carrisi, is also a popular singer who in the late 1960s and early 1970s was mainly represented by referring to his southern origins. Al Bano grew up in Cellino San Marco in Apulia and moved as an adult to Rome, where he met Romina Power, the daughter of actors Tyrone Power and Linda Christian, who later became his wife and career partner. The couple featured in many late Musicarelli films: in these Musicarelli, Al Bano’s southern-ness is frequently emphasised. For example, the film L’oro del mondo (Grimaldi, 1968) (All the Gold in the World) is a story of love and betrayal between Carlo (Al Bano) and Lorena (Romina Power). Lorena is harassed by Giorgio Castelli (Carlo Giordana), a northerner and the son of a factory manager who wants to steal the young woman from Carlo. Blackmailed by Giorgio, Lorena breaks up with Carlo; when Carlo discovers what has occurred, he

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beats up Giorgio (showing the southern ‘virility’ that will be discussed in the last section of this chapter) and eventually marries Lorena. In this film, not only does Al Bano portray the southern man who emigrates to the city (Rome, in this case), he is also the working-class young man who fights his rich competitor, who has used his economic power to seduce the woman Carlo loves. In other words, Al Bano’s character in the film is the poor, southern giovane who is exploited by his rich, northern peer. One of the most interesting scenes in the film, and one that shows a different representation of ‘the south’, is Carlo’s return to his mother’s house in Apulia. Carlo’s mother lives in an archaic setting, and she is dressed in black, as was customary for widows in the south. Moreover, she lives in a country house surrounded by olive trees, a stereotypical representation of the southern Italian countryside. However, instead of looking backwards, the south imagined in the film is more of an Arcadia, where nature and traditions are celebrated. ‘The south’ is also defined as the place that Carlo has to abandon, but which he still considers his own. Carlo leaves his hometown as it is unavoidable for him to go back to the city, but he is still proudly connected to his past, as this scene in the film shows. Another singer whose southern origins became a central element of her star persona is Marcella Bella, a Sicilian singer who became popular in the early 1970s. Like Al Bano, Bella was presented as a southern singer, but her music was neither traditional nor folk music, nor did the singer use dialect when she sang. Her origins were simply highlighted as part of her southern identity: magazines, for example, recounted how [nel 1967], mentre partecipava ad uno spettacolo a Palermo, fu notata da un presentatore che la invitò ad andare a Milano per sostenere alcuni provini discografici. Ma (non) le andò bene: la colpa fu di quell’accento siciliano che si sentiva tanto, troppo … Nemmeno questa volta Marcella si perse di coraggio. Visto che la sua cadenza dialettale era stata la causa della bocciatura ‘discografica’, decise di mettersi a studiare dizione per perfezionare la sua pronuncia. (Regini, 1972: 74)46

The article, written in 1972, highlights how in the late 1960s, the singer’s southern origins needed to be concealed from Bella’s star persona. However, this was no longer needed in the early 1970s, when her origins were instead highlighted: for instance, in the television show Tutto è pop, Marcella Bella was said to be a representative of ‘Sicilia pop’ (Sicilian pop).​ Indeed, both Al Bano and Marcella Bella featured in the first episode of Tutto è pop in 1972, which discussed the emergence of ‘Mediterranean pop’ (Tutto è pop, episode 1, 03/08/1972). The term ‘Mediterranean’ here is used to describe different southern European singers, most of whom were from the south of Italy. The fact that an entire episode was dedicated to

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Figure 4.2  Marcella Bella, a southern giovane singer.

southern youth demonstrates that this discourse had entered popular media by 1972; however, the programme shows how narratives around the south in youth-oriented popular media did not offer a political or social opinion; rather, they tended to broadcast a stereotypical representation of the south. In the episode, when the studio audience is asked what they think of the ‘Mediterranean’, they give very generalised answers: for them, the

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Mediterranean is the sun, the sea and, for a young man, the blonde and brunette women. No reference is given to the south as an underdeveloped area, or a place full of traditions. The word ‘sun’ is also largely used in the songs of southern giovani, for example Al Bano’s ‘Nel sole’ (Carrisi, Massara & Pallavicini, 1967) (In the Sun) and Bella’s ‘Sole che nasce, sole che muore’ (Bella & Bigazzi, 1972) (Rising Sun, Setting Sun). The identification of the south with ‘the sun’ seems to naturalise a stereotypical view of the warm and sunny Italian south. The presence of southern youth in Italian popular media during the early 1970s thus shows that, although influenced by emancipatory claims, the inclusion of ‘other’ identities was not necessarily emancipatory in itself, as it often replicated stereotypes, and did not denounce the problematic condition of Italy’s southern areas. If the inclusion of the southern ‘Other’ was quite widespread in early 1970s popular media representations of i giovani, young workers were not integrated as easily in popular media representations, with a few exceptions, like Al Bano’s character in L’oro del mondo mentioned earlier. Young workers also appeared in a 1970 episode of Speciale per voi, where Arbore announced that the studio audience was made up of male and female factory workers from Pomezia, near Rome (Speciale per voi, episode 8, 02/06/1970). The inclusion of young workers in this episode is significant, considering that Speciale per voi’s late evening broadcast – the show was broadcast at 10 pm – was said to be ‘una diga che impedisce a molti giovani lavoratori di avvicinarsi alla trasmissione’ (A.B., 1969: 43).47 An article that appeared in Sorrisi e canzoni TV in 1969 defined the Speciale per voi audience as an ‘élite’ because working-class young people were largely prevented from viewing it due to their work schedules. In the same article, Arbore states: ‘Avevamo pensato di inserire anche voci diverse (gli operai, ad esempio) ma ci siamo trovati di fronte a difficoltà obiettive: timidezza, paura di non saper esprimere bene le proprie idee’ (A.B., 1969: 43).48 In the 1970 episode mentioned above, working-class young people are included in the studio audience, yet their ‘Otherness’ emerges: they do not look any different from the young audiences featured in other episodes, as they are also dressed in a giovane style; however, some dissimilarities are present the vocabulary and the stronger accent used when they speak to the host (Speciale per voi, episode 8, 02/06/1970). Moreover, the fact that the host does not explain the composition of the audience in previous episodes, as if it were assumed they would be students, suggests youth-oriented popular media were still establishing a hierarchy based on class, for which middle-class young students were more legitimately part of the community of i giovani than other young people. No space at all, instead, was given to right-wing political activists in youth-oriented popular media. Although i giovani became increasingly

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political in popular media representations during the 1970s, there were political positions which were more accepted than others: while from the late 1960s popular media started to represent members of left-wing political movements, the same did not happen for right-wing youth. For example, teen magazines did not discuss the emergence of extremist neofascist movements, even though they were becoming more visible. In 1977, Ciao 2001 published a series of articles about the developing relationship between young people and politics. The first segment addresses ‘the left’ (Ruocco, 1977a: 21–2), the second, ‘the centre’ (Ruocco, 1977b: 25–6), but there is no follow-up on ‘the right’. The absence of neofascist groups in popular media representations of young people confirms John Foot’s assumption that right-wing activists are often absent in accounts of 1960s and 1970s political movements (2011: 116). The emergence of discourses around class, political and geographical identity in youth-oriented popular media during the early 1970s suggests that before then magazines, films and television programmes constructed a privileged version of the giovane identity. In popular media, il giovane was someone who could adopt (and afford) a specific style and specific leisure practices and thus lived in a major (and often northern) city. Thanks to the proliferation of national and global emancipatory discourses, subordinate identities could find the vocabulary and practices to express their own discrimination and therefore facilitate the inclusion of ‘other’ identities in the media construction of i giovani. The discrimination expressed in letters written to youth-oriented magazines ultimately illustrates how the community of Italian young people was far more complex than its popular media depiction. The inclusion of working-class people and southerners in the media construction of the giovane identity, however, often had the effect of reiterating stereotypes about these categories, instead of supporting the emancipatory claims of the young people who were feeling discriminated against.

I giovani’s gender identities between feminism and glam During the 1960s, gender differences within the community of i giovani were often downplayed: youth-oriented media tended to not distinguish between ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ giovani practices. In the popular media construction, giovani men and women listened to the same music, danced in the same way and met in the same places, and the style they adopted was often defined as unisex. Moreover, despite the tensions about homosexuality discussed in previous chapters, the implicit heterosexuality of both women and men had never been questioned in popular media.

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In the early 1970s, the emergence of feminist and gay rights movements in Italy influenced the popular media construction of i giovani’s gender identities. Perry Willson claims that the manifesto of Rivolta Femminile (Female Revolution), described as one of the founding documents of Italian feminism, was posted in the streets of Rome in 1970 (2010: 151). In the same period, many collectives started to emerge in Italian cities such as Rome, Milan and Padua, enhancing young women’s gender consciousness. Italian feminism ‘clearly did help reinforce and accelerate the modernisation of social mores, [which had] begun in the period of the economic miracle’ (Willson, 2010: 167).49 During the early 1970s, Italian feminist movements started to promote women’s emancipation, not only in terms of sexuality and reproduction, but also against the commercial use of the female body and the proliferation of sexist beauty standards. According to Eugenia Paulicelli, feminist movements endorsed a style that was not stereotypically feminine, in order to assert an equality that recalled their being on the same intellectual and social level as men. In so doing, the women’s aim was to weaken and control the power of the male gaze, or the male symbolic order; by denying their femininity in dress, they would assert their own existence not as sexual or erotic bodies, but as men’s intellectual equals. (1994: 176)

In other words, the rejection of ‘feminine’ garments was a way to engage with the global feminist claim that ‘the personal is political’. For feminists, refusing to conform to standards of femininity meant rejecting patriarchal norms and the fashion industry’s commodification and sexualisation of women’s bodies. However, a less ‘feminine’ style was worn not only by feminists, but also by most women, as during the early 1970s the wearing of trousers became a trend in mainstream women’s fashion: the widespread appropriation of a historically male garment, then, was not only a political statement, but also a commercial trend. Unlike the hippy femmes fatales of the late 1960s, in the early 1970s young women were seen as ‘masculinised’ not only in their behaviour, but also in dress, which was increasingly similar to that of their male counterparts. Meanwhile, in 1971, the first Italian gay rights movement, called F.U.O.R.I., acronym for ‘Fronte Unitario Omosessuale Rivoluzionario Italiano’ (Italian United Gay Revolutionary Front), formed in Turin and started to publish a magazine under the same name. During the early 1970s, F.U.O.R.I.’s political activism spawned numerous gay and trans rights movements in Italy (Pini, 2011). However, gay rights movements were substantially less visible than feminist movements in youth-oriented popular media. Indeed, no mention of these groups was made in magazines or television programmes, and popular media often took a very cautious approach

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to matters concerning female and male homosexuality. However, alternative ideas about gender and sexuality started to circulate in popular media, especially thanks to the increasing celebrity of glam music stars from 1973–74. This section questions to what extent the aforementioned movements influenced the construction of i giovani’s gender identities in Italian youthoriented popular media. The popular media construction of Italian masculinities and femininities was characterised both by progressive transformations and by a traditionalist reaction to such changes. If the circulation of feminist discourses increased the acceptability of female sexuality, representations of emancipated women and gay people also reflected preoccupations, particularly evident in the construction of giovani masculinities. Christopher Forth highlights how the crisis of modern masculinities in Western countries represented ‘a partial reaction to the modest gains made by women, homosexuals and people of color since the 1960s’ (2008: 3). This section thus analyses the contradictory relationship between representations of women’s (sexual) freedom and women’s emancipation during the early 1970s, and the impact of glam rock in reshaping Italian masculinities in youth-oriented popular media. The previous chapter showed how, between 1968–69, youth-oriented magazines published young women’s requests for sexual education, while young female stars were increasingly sexualised in popular media. However, female emancipation was still presented with caution: sexually active young women in popular media mirrored the image of the femme fatale, thus female sexuality was foreignised and ‘masculinised’ to be presented as dangerous and to disconnect it from Italian young women. In the early 1970s, popular media representations of young women reflected both the centrality of the female body in feminist discourse and the increasing objectification of women’s bodies in magazines, cinema and television (Gundle, 2007: 193– 4). The meaning given to concepts such as ‘feminism’, ‘freedom’, ‘emancipation’ and ‘liberation’ in youth-oriented popular media was contradictory, as discourses around young women’s style were connected to the pursuit of women’s emancipation in two clashing ways. First, the establishment of trousers as a main feature in women’s fashion created anxieties about the ‘masculinisation’ of women, which was itself connected to the emergence of feminism. Second, the theme of women’s emancipation was used to justify an oversexualisation of women’s bodies, which was then externalised, as we will see in the case of African American artist Tina Turner. From the end of the 1960s, women’s fashion increasingly incorporated trousers, and by the early 1970s, they were the unisex garment par excellence, extensively worn by men and women. The female adoption of trousers was seen as a sign of the ‘masculinisation’ of women: an article in Qui giovani predicted the fashion of 1972, by explaining that women would

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dress ‘come i ragazzi’ (Calò, 1972: 58).50 The article explains how ‘la moda del nuovo anno avrà come punti base le camicie a uomo, le cravatte, i gilet, le giacche di taglio maschile e, soprattutto, i pantaloni’ (1972: 58).51 A 1971 article that appeared in Qui giovani presents trousers as an enhancement of women’s freedom, per due ragioni. Innanzitutto con i pantaloni si è sempre a proprio agio, non bisogna stare attente a dove ci si siede e a come ci si siede. E poi libertà perché mai come adesso i pantaloni hanno lasciato tanto spazio alla fantasia. È finita l’epoca dei pantaloni di taglio maschile, in tinta unita, dove l’unico dubbio era se fare o no i risvolti. Adesso non c’è che l’imbarazzo della scelta. (Calò, 1971b: 54)52

Unlike descriptions of the miniskirt presented in Chapter 2, trousers are presented here as a comfortable garment that allows young women to be at ease, and above all to be free. The recurrent choice of the word libertà to describe trousers for women seems to mirror the widespread use of the word liberazione (liberation) to describe feminist goals for women’s emancipation.​ Indeed, the adoption of a typically male garment such as trousers revitalised concerns about the then ongoing ‘masculinisation’ of women, in fashion and in behaviour. Most of the articles about women’s emancipation that appeared in youth-oriented magazines during the early 1970s denounced the increasing masculinisation of women and presented it as an unavoidable and undesirable consequence of women’s emancipation. For example, in a 1971 article that appeared in the section ‘Psicologia e psicanalisi’ (Psychology and psychoanalysis) in Ciao 2001, female emancipation is said to be ambiguous because it runs on a ‘doppio binario’ (‘Psicologia e psicanalisi: l’emancipazione femminile’, 1971: 54) (double track). On the one hand, the political, economic and legal equality between men and women needs to be pursued. On the other hand, in a ‘dimensione istintivo-emotiva’ (intuitive-emotional dimension), women are erasing their femininity and trying to be as similar to men as they can be in order to achieve equality. Women’s acceptance of their femininity – and thus their sexual passivity, the article implies – is nonetheless essential for women to be completely emancipated, so the journalist claims, because men will always look for ‘femmine femmine’ (feminine women): questo è l’assurdo della situazione femminile; per ribellarsi allo stato di cose – che è comunque turpe e intollerabile – deve essere quel tanto indipendente, libera, autonoma, che finisce per farla diventare mascolina … in altre parole: se la donna vuole combattere proprio per rivendicare la sua libertà, la sua femminilità, deve utilizzare energie che sono quelle di cui dispone e che sono sempre in qualche modo antimaschili, antisessuali, antierotiche. (‘Psicologia e psicanalisi: l’emancipazione femminile’, 1971: 54)53

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Figure 4.3  Advertisement for women’s jeans, allowing ‘an incredibly free lifestyle’.

Moreover, in another article that appeared in Ciao 2001, women are warned not to mix up social and political emancipation with a romantic and sexual emancipation from men: La donna libera, femminile, moderna, è quella capace di accettare, anzi di desiderare, l’aggressività dell’uomo, che le porterà vigore, attività, intraprendenza. Ma accade ormai troppo spesso che la donna fuorviata da secoli di schiavitù emozionale … finisca col confondersi. (Humpreys, 1971: 31)54

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In this and the previous quote, women are described only in relation to men. If in the previous article emancipation was said to render women less attractive to men, here it is argued that women should accept men’s aggression, which is described as innately masculine. At the same time, passivity is naturalised as a female attribute. In other words, in descriptions of women’s emancipation, youth-oriented magazines perpetuated the stereotypical power dynamics between women and men. Even though magazines endorsed social and political emancipation for women in theory, the alleged difference between men and women was constantly underscored in magazine articles, and women were ultimately counselled to accept their subordinate position. Although magazines maintained a traditionalist position regarding women’s emancipation, they also gave space to ideas emerging from Italian and foreign feminist movements. Between 1973 and 1974, Italian feminism started to become a more organised mass movement (Willson 2010: 149– 50), and it increasingly featured in youth-oriented popular media. Magazines offered some space for columns and interviews about feminism, where it was presented as an improvement for women’s social life. Moreover, in the television programme Under 20, a performance by the Italian singer-songwriter Francesco Guccini was accompanied by images of a feminist demonstration in the background (Under 20, episode 2, 08/12/1973). Most importantly, starting in February 1973 and until the magazine’s discontinuation in 1974, Qui giovani published a weekly section called ‘Ragioni e ragionamenti del femminismo’,55 in which feminism was explained to the young audience. It was an anonymous section, thus not obviously affiliated with any specific feminist movement: as a result, information about feminism was often lacking or vague. However, the column functioned to challenge some of the stereotypes about feminists at the time, and it signalled not only the impact of feminism in 1970s Italian media, but also the acceptance of i giovani’s political and social engagement – and, for once, not just of young men. The first column was dedicated to the stereotypes that surrounded the image of the feminist: the article countered the idea, asserted by ‘la maggior parte della gente’, that ‘il femminismo sia soprattutto un’unione di donne un po’ matte che organizzano roghi di reggipetti’ (‘Ragioni e ragionamenti del femminismo’, 1973a: 25).56 The article explained how this myth emerged from a demonstration in the United States, in Washington DC, where bras were burned in protest over the objectification of women’s bodies. This is a good example of the column’s possible inaccuracy: the columnist gives a historical explanation of the misalliance of feminists with ‘bra-burners’; however, some scholars claim that there is no historical evidence of actual bra burnings in the 1960s and 1970s in the United States. For example, Bonnie J. Dow maintains that ‘radical feminists never publicly burned bras at all.

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Bra burning was a myth invented by the media’ (1999: 152). Moreover, the column went against the stereotype of the feminist as a masculinised figure who hates men: le femministe sono donne assolutamente identiche alle altre: qualcuna ha il marito, qualcuna il fidanzato, qualcuna figli. Qualcuna non ha proprio nessuno ed è felice lo stesso, certa com’è che per la sua personalità non conta essere signore o signorine, ha importanza essere una donna liberata da tanti complessi. Il femminismo insegna ad essere persone libere. (‘Ragioni e ragionamenti del femminismo’, 1973a: 25)57

This statement can be interpreted as aiming to normalise feminists: against the stereotype of the angry, ‘masculine’ feminist, Italian feminists are portrayed as replicating the social roles traditionally reserved for women, including a supposedly innate heterosexuality. Indeed, although gay rights movements were also emerging in Italy in the early 1970s, popular media representations tended to deny the existence of female homosexuality, at least in Italy. According to another article that appeared in the column, ‘le femministe omosessuali sono rare da noi. Meno rare negli Stati Uniti’ (‘Ragioni e ragionamenti del femminismo’, 1973b: 28).58 The strategy of foreignising gay women in this quotation functions to distance female homosexuality from Italian feminist movements, and can be explained through the difficult acceptance of subversive femininities in Italian society, given the predominant image of Italian women as wives and mothers constructed by the Fascist regime and the Catholic Church. It must be noted that this attitude towards female homosexuality mirrored the difficult acceptance of female homosexuality even in Italian emancipatory movements. Willson underlines that the gay rights movement F.U.O.R.I. was male-dominated, and that ‘lesbians active in women’s movements often found little acceptance among heterosexual feminists’ (2010: 154). Anxieties about female homosexuality can also be read between the lines of descriptions of popular dances. For example, the ‘Swichi-Swichi’ was described in an article that appeared in Qui giovani in 1971 as follows: A poco a poco l’uomo viene esautorato da tutte le sue mansioni. Dopo aver assistito alla lenta ma decisa affermazione del sesso debole nelle attività che una volta erano riservate solo a lui, ora si vede escluso anche dalle piste da ballo. L’ultimissimo ballo lanciato a Parigi, infatti, si danza esclusivamente fra donne! Il nome è ‘swichi-swichi’, ma qualcuno l’ha subito, malignamente ribattezzato ‘Saffo 2000’. Le regole consistono nel tenersi uniti nella parte inferiore del corpo, molleggiandosi contemporaneamente nella parte superiore … ‘Ma a questo punto’, ha commentato uno spettatore, ‘cosa siamo qui a fare? Fra poco le donne ci considereranno degli ingombranti soprammobili!’. (‘“Swichi-Swichi”: ballo per sole donne’, 1971: 38)59

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In the article, the fact that this dance should be performed exclusively by women is directly connected to homosexuality, as the reference to Sappho in the nickname used demonstrates. Here, the anxiety over men being excluded by women clearly appears in the comment made by a male member of the audience. The heteronormative discourse emerging in popular media descriptions of Italian feminism, including the negative judgement of women’s masculinisation, reveals concerns about both female homosexuality, and the changing power balance between the sexes. The column ‘Ragioni e ragionamenti del femminismo’ also discussed the relationship between the media and the female body, and in particular the circulation of sexualised images of women in popular media that contributed to female oppression. For example, in 1973 the column explains that feminists criticise how una delle funzioni della donna in questa società è di essere un attraente oggetto sessuale, quindi il vestiario e il trucco sono strumenti del mestiere. In questo caso – dicono le femministe – il vero consumatore è l’uomo che usa la donna come oggetto sessuale, perciò la moda e i cosmetici sono diretti più agli uomini che alle donne in quanto incoraggiano gli uomini ad aspettarsi che le donne sfoggino tutti gli ultimi dettami dello schiavismo sessuale. La … donna si lascia sfruttare per sopravvivere. (‘Femminismo’, 1973: 28)60

Although feminists’ claims about the objectification of women’s bodies were reported in youth-oriented magazines, during the early 1970s, images in magazines, films and television programmes continued to sexualise women’s bodies.61 The previous chapter discussed how, as part of the general liberalisation of the late 1960s, the naked female body became increasingly present in magazines, and was used in advertising products for both women and men. From the early 1970s, women’s bodies were further sexualised through fashion trends such as hot pants. Indeed, in the 1970s, blue jeans underwent a process of eroticisation, which ‘contravened the unisex, degendered associations that the garment initially held for many’ (Davis 1992: 75). In the case of women, this meant not only the creation of jeans specifically for women, but also the use of denim to create garments such as miniskirts and hot pants, that had a sexier shape and length. Hot pants in particular showed a greater portion of women’s legs, and they also emphasised women’s curves. Accounts of the impact of this garment in Italian popular media describe it as a natural disaster, implicitly referring to the shorts as sexually inviting. For example, a 1971 article which appeared in Ciao 2001 described the arrival of a group of English young women in hot pants on the Isle of Jersey: the British island is said to be ‘scombussolata’ (shaken) by the ‘devastanti’ (devastating) hotpants, which arrived like a ‘terremoto’ (earthquake) and created ‘guai’ (Gallo, 1971c: 17) (troubles).

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The reference to hot pants as a natural calamity underlines their potential to shock people. It is also interesting to point out that hot pants here are sexualised when a group of foreign women are wearing them. Again, active sexuality is detached from Italian women – even spatially, by confining it to a British island – when it comes to wearing potentially sexy garments. The confluence of sexualised images of women and of feminist claims in popular media in the early 1970s contributed to a ‘cultural appropriation and distortion of [feminists’] ideas on female sexuality’ (Gundle, 2007: 194) in popular media. For example, a 1971 advertisement for lingerie appearing in Ciao 2001 showed a close-up of a woman’s torso in lace underwear, with the slogan ‘il potere della donna è nell’abbigliamento intimo’ (GranLine, 1971: 43).62 This advertisement clearly plays with the idea of feminine power. Nina Rothenberg claims that feminists’ objectives for the liberation of the female body often became confused with the consumerist appropriation of the eroticised female body, in this way spreading the image of women as sexual objects: ‘feminism was translated into a male version of women’s liberation that was very often interpreted in terms of sexualisation of film, television and the press. The female body became a symbol of sexual liberation and a sellable expression of modernisation and secularisation’ (Rothenberg in Gundle, 2007: 194). Descriptions of the African American singer Tina Turner show how discourses around emancipation, sexuality and ethnicity were connected in teen magazines in a way that promoted the eroticisation of the Black female body: A buona ragione Tina è stata descritta in America come l’esempio figurativo della liberazione della donna. All’Odeon di Londra ho visto un’immensa platea di giovani e vecchi, bianchi e negri [sic] che pendevano dalle sue labbra, dalle sue suggestive mosse sensuali e dal suo sfrenato ballo. È incredibile cosa possa fare accarezzando un microfono e quanti pensieri … cattivi faccia passare tra le menti degli spettatori pur rimanendo sempre ad un alto livello artistico. (Gallo, 1971b: 60)63

Tina Turner’s star persona is connected here to the liberazione advocated by feminist movements. However, the only emancipation she represents in the article is sexual emancipation. The image of Tina Turner, in most of the articles dedicated to her in giovani magazines, is extremely objectified, and her sex appeal is what defines her: the magazines’ attention is focused on her body and gestures, more than on her singing. Moreover, emphasis is given to Turner’s power over the audience, who ‘(pende) dalle sue labbra’ (Gallo, 1971b: 60).64 Tina Turner is a significant example of the process through which sexiness was often connected to African American female stars in the early

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1970s. Chapter 3 has shown how, from 1967 to 1970, discourses around ethnicity influenced the construction of i giovani, for the hippy trend was largely appropriating Orientalist elements of fashion. The Black ‘Other’ did not tend to be represented as actively sexy, but rather as the object of subjugation by white men. Active sexuality was instead represented by figures such as Patty Pravo, the outrageous but ultimately ‘inauthentic’ Italian femme fatale. In the 1970s, not only was the eroticisation of women connected to female liberation, it was also associated with ethnicity, and in particular with African American female stars. bell hooks analyses how Tina Turner was constructed globally as a representative of Black female sexuality: ‘the image that has been cultivated and commodified in popular culture is of [Tina Turner] as “hot” and highly sexed – the sexually ready and free black woman’ (bell hooks, 1992: 66). This construction was based on very explicit images that showed a ‘wild animalistic [sexual] lust’ (1992: 67): in Italian teen magazines, the singer was notably named leonessa (lionness), or pantera nera (black panther), in this way adhering to the racist topos of the animalisation of Black bodies.65 An element of lust also emerges in the way she is described: Carezza il microfono e inizia il suo lento, minuzioso lavorio di suggestione, di progressiva, presa di possesso del pubblico: creare il desiderio, risvegliare i sensi, offrirsi e non darsi, in una suprema e raffinata lusinga erotica. Tutto lo spettacolo è costruito intorno al desiderio che Tina deve far nascere, intorno a questa provocazione della donna nera, e allora non c’è da meravigliarsi se, diversamente dagli altri consueti pubblici di rhythm and blues, quello di Ike e Tina è essenzialmente bianco: l’erotismo perverso nasce dall’attrazione per la ‘sconosciuta’, da ciò che è diverso. (‘Ike e Tina Turner: Il ritmo del sesso’, 1974: 12)66

The vocabulary used to describe Turner’s attitude and movements creates not only an allure of eroticism around her figure, but also the image of a perverted sexuality, which in the latter article is attributed to the white men who attend her concerts. However, according to the quote, Turner is not only the object of a passive gaze, but also the agent of her own eroticism. The representation of Tina Turner here is very similar to that of the hippy femme fatale outlined in the previous chapter, for Turner is also presented as having a dangerous allure. Here, however, the whole representation is much more sexually explicit, possibly demonstrating a greater openness to discussing sex and sexual relationships in popular media in the early 1970s. Turner’s ‘perverse allure’ in the article above is also emphasised by her ethnic difference: Turner’s erotic persona is aimed to appeal to an audience of white people, who potentially find her ‘difference’ intriguing. According to bell hooks, Tina Turner’s star persona was mainly constructed by her

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musical and romantic partner Ike, who was also reported to have abused her during their relationship. The most significant aspect of bell hooks’ analysis, however, lies in the fact that this pornographic image was acceptable within American society in the 1970s: Ike’s pornographic fantasy of the black female as wild sexual savage emerged from the impact of a white patriarchal controlled media shaping his perceptions of reality. His decision to create the wild black woman was perfectly compatible with prevailing representations of black female sexuality in a white supremacist society. (bell hooks, 1992: 67)

The reproduction of racial tropes such as the animalised and sexualised Black woman in youth-oriented magazines shows the permanence of discriminatory discourses based on race, not only in American society, but also in Italy. The over-sexualisation of the Black ‘Other’ confirms the hidden racism in Italian society that was also discussed in the previous chapter. The increasing sexualisation of Black women’s bodies was foreignised, yet not completely condemned by magazines. Italian young women were still largely de-sexualised, while sexuality in foreign women was often exaggerated, and represented as pornographic. African American singers were not the only ones overly sexualised by the media. The description of Tina Turner’s performances in the previous section and Amanda Lear’s performances in the following excerpt are very similar: Non cantava ancora, ma già le dispute sulla sua sessualità appassionavano la stampa scandalistica: accanto a Bowie, l’uomo dal sesso ambiguo, c’era finalmente anche la donna dal sesso ambiguo … Sono andato a godermi Amanda Lear dal vivo, qualche tempo fa, sotto un tendone da circo. Folla urlante: ‘nuda, nuda …’; ma ci vuol altro per impressionare la nostra eroina che vestita di quel poco che l’odierna congiuntura permette, scende tra il pubblico a dialogare … Dopo aver dato fastidio a tutti gli uomini seduti in platea, Amanda torna sui suoi passi mostrando a tutti che dal fondoschiena, udite udite, le spunta una lunga coda tigresca. (Ferranti, 1977: 43)67

Amanda Lear is a French singer and model who built her star persona on her relationship with singer David Bowie and on her sexual indeterminateness: her deep voice and her androgynous body instilled doubts not only about her sexuality, but also about her biological sex. The account above bears many similarities with Tina Turner’s descriptions. First, there is a reference to animalisation: Lear is singing under a circus tent, and her costume has a tiger tail. Second, she is said to perform on-stage using all her sex appeal: she is scantily dressed, teases the men in the audience and is not frightened by the sexually aroused audience shouting at her. The similar descriptions of Tina Turner’s and Amanda Lear’s sexually inviting performances show

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how Italian popular media tended to project representations of an excessive sexuality on identities discriminated against, such as ethnic minorities in Tina Turner’s case, or people showing a gender/sex/sexual orientation ambiguity, such as Amanda Lear in the quotation above, and glam artists, as I will go on to discuss. From 1973, discourses around gender ambiguity and its perceived connection with homosexuality coalesced around the increasing global popularity of British and American glam artists such as Elton John, Alice Cooper, Brian Eno and David Bowie. Philip Auslander explains that ‘glam rock was defined primarily by the performers’ appearances and personae, the poses they struck rather than the music they played’ (2006: 39–40): glam artists played with costumes and makeup in order to create gender ambiguity and performed an artificial identity that was based on an exaggerated sexuality. The previous chapter highlighted how male hippies adopted a style that was considered effeminate; however, Auslander differentiates between the meaning of effeminacy in representations of the hippies and of glam performers: The gentle, introspective, passive male image portrayed in the hippie subculture of the 1960s was a feminized male image posited in specific opposition to a brand of aggressive masculinity thought to have underwritten the war in Vietnam. However … this soft masculinity was presumed to be heterosexual in nature; by contrast, glam masculinity … alluded to the possibility of homosexuality and bisexuality … The gender-bending of glam challenged both the dominant culture’s standards of masculinity and the androgyny favoured by the hippie counterculture, for glam did not posit androgyny as a ‘natural’ state. To the contrary: glam rockers specifically foregrounded the constructedness of their effeminate or androgynous performing personae. (2006: 60–1)

Similarly, the previous chapter has shown how in Italian youth-oriented magazines, letters written by young male hippies tended to reaffirm these young men’s heterosexuality. By contrast, glam artists represented an explicit and often undetermined sexuality: their moves and gestures frequently referred to sexual acts, and they remained vague when they were asked to define their sexuality. This ambiguity in the definition of gender and sexuality generated much criticism around glam artists: ‘glam artists and their supporters, apparently experiencing a measure of homosexual panic, were at pains to insist that any tendency to dress lavishly and use makeup should not be taken as signs of sexual abnormity’ (Auslander, 2006: 48–9). Discourses around glam performers were based on two discriminating tropes: on the one hand, the connection between effeminacy and homosexuality; on the other, the identification of homosexuality as a form of excessive sexuality. Italian youthoriented magazines’ accounts of glam artists, in fact, often featured allusions

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to sexual deviance and homosexuality. Alice Cooper, in an interview titled ‘Alice nel paese delle porcherie’,68 explained glam singers’ gender indeterminacy by saying: ‘non vogliamo più essere considerati maschi o femmine, ma esseri umani, abitanti del pianeta terra’ (Silvestro, 1972: 20).69 The title of the article connects glam with sexual deviance, and indirectly with homosexuality, as the singer declares that love does not make distinctions of sex (1972: 20). David Bowie, in his Ziggy Stardust persona, is defined in an article as ‘il clown senza sesso’ (In. Ma., 1973: 45).70 The journalist says that Bowie’s show is not sexually explicit, and the singer is not said to be a sex symbol: however, the alleged asexuality of the singer is presented here as a form of aberrancy. Glam singers’ choice of using costumes and makeup is also discussed in giovani magazines: Brian Eno, in an interview, explains that he has both feminine and masculine aspects, and he accepts both his personalities, and this is the reason why he wears make-up (Gentile, 1974: 15). Conversely, Elton John, called ‘il divo’ (and the choice of words is interesting, as usually the category of the ‘diva’ is feminine; the word becomes masculine in the case of John, but still recalls a ‘feminine’ concept), is said not to give to his style any ambiguous meaning (the singer had not declared his homosexuality at the time of the article): ‘tutti i suoi costumi ed i suoi maquillage sono per lui uno scherzo, nessun significato recondito’ (Caffarelli, 1973: 12).71 Despite the differences in the construction of each glam singer, the theme of gender and sexual indeterminacy was thus central in their star persona. Conversely, those few glam Italian singers, such as singer and dancer Renato Zero, were explicitly described as heterosexual, as in this article in Ciao 2001: Alto, magro come un’acciuga, passo da mannequin, [Zero] si dichiara pronto a colpire e ad accusare tutto e tutti: partitismo, militarismo, alienazione, ipocrisia, isterismo … afferma di non essere omosessuale (tra l’altro ha una splendida ragazza) e di amare il travestimento per esigenza intima, il piacere di truccarsi, di indossare abiti scintillanti, di creare un’alternativa ad un mondo in crisi. (M.L.G., 1974: 74)72

Zero’s use of drag and makeup is explicitly disconnected from a possible homosexuality as the article states that he not only is not a homosexual, but he also has a beautiful girlfriend. Just like with Italian feminists, the possibility of homosexuality was negated in the case of Italian male glam stars. This was rather easy as glam was mainly a foreign musical genre and only a few Italian artists embraced it in the early 1970s. Although foreign and foreignised, glam had an impact on Italian young people as it opened up a discussion about sexualities and gender identities, given the complete absence of accounts of Italian gay rights movements

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in youth-oriented magazines. Auslander claims, referring to the United Kingdom and the United States, that ‘there is ample testimony that glam rock was important … to young people who were uncertain of their own sexual identities and in search of role models … Glam provided such models by placing queer images in the public sphere’ (2006: 228). In Italy, foreign popular music became a space of freedom for those young people who were probably not aware of the emancipatory movements forming in major northern cities. Since the end of the 1960s, magazines had published letters written by young gay readers. The letters tended to have the same structure, being written by a young person who was extremely ashamed of their homosexuality and wanted to be ‘cured’ from what they felt was an illness. The answers given by psychologists or journalists to young people declaring their homosexuality in magazines were also similar: homosexuality was presented as a limited phase of life that could be easily overcome, especially with the help of adults.73 From the early 1970s, instead, while the answers of magazine editors remained more or less the same, young people started to use letters to indicate their desire for freedom to express their sexuality and to denounce the discrimination they experienced in Italian society. In a letter to Ciao 2001, a gay young woman signed ‘Lady Stardust’ declares her love for a woman, and criticises society for causing homosexuality to be seen as ‘fuorilegge’ (‘Psicologia e psicanalisi’, 1974: 51) (illicit). Another letter from a young man describes his coming out as a ‘scoperta dolcissima, direi poetica’,74 and he claims to be happy to be ‘una cosa intermedia, “strano essere del futuro”’ (‘Psicologia e psicanalisi: una cosa intermedia’, 1975: 30),75 perhaps referring to David Bowie’s alien persona in the 1970s, Ziggy Stardust, but surely using a typically glam theme, that of the man from the future. In both cases, references to glam in youth-oriented media suggest that this music genre and associated style trend was a significant element of identification for Italian queer young people, especially in a society where media references to both male and female homosexuality were rather absent. The glam trend was therefore presented in magazines as the representation of an outrageous sexuality, but it was also an inspiration for young people, especially those who were induced to think that their sexual preferences were ‘against nature’. Although popular media tended to conceal the existence of homosexuality in Italian society, readers’ letters suggest that popular culture opened some spaces for i giovani to start openly expressing their own sexuality. In contrast to the foreign glam singers, new models of Italian masculinity also started to appear in youth-oriented media, through young southern stars like Adriano Pappalardo, a singer from Apulia. Ciao 2001 introduced him as follows in 1974:

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È strano, ma proprio in un momento come questo, in cui il rock ha raggiunto le punte massime della sua decadenza, in cui le ‘primedonne’ alla Bowie fanno a gara nello sfoggiare abiti, trucchi, e movenze, il più ambigui possibile, è proprio in questo momento che ‘un uomo venuto dal sud’, un giovane strappato alla sua campagna, alla natura, inserito, grazie alla propria volontà, ma soprattutto alla propria rabbia, a Milano, affermatosi ‘tra le belve’ restando però miracolosamente ‘incontaminato’ da tutto ciò che di evoluto, involuto, progressive, decadente o d’avanguardia avvenisse intorno a lui, fa un ‘suo’ tipo di rock dove non solo mantiene intatta la propria rabbia e la propria ‘virilità’, ma ne fa il motivo stesso della sua esistenza artistica … Si, Adriano Pappalardo è un genuino, un autentico istintivo, un ‘bucolico’ che si trova bene nella sua scorza di terra cotta al sole. (Marengo, 1974: 81)76

The direct contrast between the Italian singer and glam artists here functions to implicitly criticise the glam trend and celebrate the genuineness of the Italian singer, as well as his reassuring masculinity. Pappalardo is presented as a man who came from the south: his southern origins speak to his virility. The description of his alleged ‘virility’ draws on a stereotypical representation of the southern Italian man: he is genuine, authentic, instinctive, full of rage and opposed to the ‘primedonne’ (again, the choice of describing glam artists as women does not seem accidental) glam artists, whose sexuality is ambiguous. Discourses around Pappalardo’s southern-ness become here a way to reaffirm the virility of Italian giovani, in opposition to the effeminacy of foreign glam stars.​ The concept of ‘virility’ did not only influence descriptions of Italian young stars, but was also crucial in discourses around the ‘classic trend’ in men’s giovane fashion. During the early 1970s, several hippy style features such as floral prints, long hair and tunics were abandoned, in order to promote a trend that left bright colours and Oriental(ist) textiles behind in favour of more ‘traditional’ outfits for men: Sembra che per gli uomini, dopo due anni di dimenticatoio, il vestito tradizionale con tanto di panciotto stia tornando di moda … Le vendite di vestiti scuri a tre pezzi, pantaloni giacca e panciotto, sono aumentate del 25%. Le camicie ricamate e con ricerche floreali hanno visto un abbassamento di vendite per dar posto a magliette e maglioni a fasce colorate orizzontali. (Gallo, 1971a: 53)77

By using the term ‘tradizionale’, however, magazines were not describing outfits that were similar in shape and cut to men’s suits before the 1960s: for example, trousers and jackets usually fit tighter than traditional suits. Indeed, a male fashion column in Qui giovani stated that ‘la tendenza al classic’78 was a ‘ritorno a forme e colori più “contenuti” e meno sfavillanti’ (Picollo, 1972a: 58):79 the return to a more ‘classic’ fashion, then, eliminated

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Figure 4.4  Adriano Pappalardo, Italian singer representing southern virility.

the extravagance and colourfulness of previous male giovani styles, and emphasised the increasing similarity between giovane and adult style. First, i giovani stopped wearing long hairstyles: in 1971, Qui giovani explained that Sono ormai sei anni che gli uomini vogliono essere alla moda portando i capelli lunghi, con pettinature un po’ pazze, diciamo da artisti e sarebbe ormai giunto il

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momento di rinnovare questo ‘cliché’. In effetti in questi ultimi tempi abbiamo assistito a una specie di graduale uniformità nelle pettinature maschili: i capelli molto lunghi sono in netta decadenza a vantaggio di pettinature più ordinate, di media lunghezza … Una via di mezzo che accontenta un po’ tutti, sia i più conservatori, sia coloro che vogliono essere alla moda evitando però di cadere nell’eccessivo e nel ridicolo. (Calò, 1971a: 48)80

Short hairstyles are said to be more suitable for people who do not want to be ‘excessive or ridiculous’: this statement both discredits the previous giovani who wore long hairstyles, and expresses the idea of a modern giovane who does not need to be completely different from adults, both in hairstyle and in behaviours. The new style, in fact, is said to be ‘misurato, disinvolto, ordinato (soprattutto) e adatto agli uomini di qualsiasi età’ (‘Capelli lunghi basta!’, 1971: 47).81 The new giovane men’s style, then, reaffirmed the ‘reconciliation’ between i giovani and adults described in the first section, and reduced the distance between these two previously opposing identities. Despite being similar to the adults’ style, the new men’s giovane style was described as modern: ‘la nuova linea maschile è stata creata ad immagine dell’uomo d’azione nel nostro tempo: un’immagine di equilibrio e di progresso’ (‘Capelli lunghi basta!’, 1971: 47).82 1970s giovani men’s style, then, was presented as both classic and new: by connecting it with progress, the innovativeness of i giovani was reasserted by youth-oriented magazines. Conversely, references to tradition in descriptions of young men’s style trends referenced a stereotypical masculinity based on aggressivity and opposed to femininity. For example, Qui giovani explains that the giovane men’s style has declared ‘guerra ai colori violenti, al folclore, alle stravaganze’ (Picollo, 1972b: 50):83 it is a violent act against the former effeminisation of male style. Elements of style that could evoke effeminisation were ‘virilised’ in magazines: Tacco alto: si ma quanto? … A chi contesta il tacco maschile, i creatori di questa moda rispondono che i gauchos e i cow-boys hanno sempre portato stivali con tacchi e nessuno ha mai messo in dubbio la loro virilità. Oltretutto, il tacco regala qualche centimetro in altezza, e rende l’andatura più forte e sicura. (Picollo, 1972d: 58)84

Similar to the discussion on the ‘borsetto’ in the previous chapter, heels – a fashion element that could recall women’s fashion – are here presented by referring to the cowboys and gauchos, who were undoubtedly ‘virile’ despite their heeled boots. References to cowboys and gauchos also connected the giovane style to the United States, in this way reinforcing the ‘American’ connotations of the giovane style in this period. Moreover, magazine articles tended to endorse the dismissal of previous giovani styles because of their alleged effeminisation: an article in Qui giovani claimed

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‘Basta ai capelli lunghi, basta all’aspetto effemminato, basta agli abiti hippy! è ora di tornare [un uomo] piacevole da vedersi, senza nessuna frivolezza!’ (Picollo, 1972c: 65).85 The recurring images of the naked female body and sexual allusions in advertisements also tapped into the ‘virilisation’ of giovani men. An advertisement for the deodorant Deodal pictured a naked couple embracing, with the slogan, ‘Vidal prepara ai grandi incontri’ (Vidal, 1971: 24–5).86 As with other Vidal advertisements in the late 1960s, the sexual encounter references boxing, thus bringing the allusion of violence into sexual acts. An advertisement for Hom men’s briefs, specifically a new type of briefs that were invisible under tight trousers, pictures a close-up of a man’s underwear-clad torso and thighs; next to the pelvis is a woman’s head, implicitly suggesting fellatio (HOM, 1971: 5). The ‘classic trend’ in the giovane style, then, was re-establishing the boundaries between men’s and women’s fashion that had blurred during the 1960s. This was perhaps a reaction to the ‘masculinisation’ of the female style described earlier, and therefore to the emergence of feminist movements. In his study of Italian masculinities, Sandro Bellassai identifies the 1970s as the period of definitive crisis of ‘Italian virility’, as the emergence of feminist movements questioned and ultimately modified Italian masculinities to the extent that ‘gli uomini italiani non si identificavano più in una visione del mondo rigidamente patriarcale e tradizionalista’ (2011: 128).87 However, the analysis of the popular media construction of giovani masculinities shows that, more than a transformation, the perpetuation of Italian ‘virility’ in the early 1970s represented a reaction to the emergence of feminist movements and the subsequent alleged ‘masculinisation’ of women. The ‘masculinisation’ of female style embodied by the widespread use of trousers, and the ‘effeminisation’ of male figures represented by glam artists, created anxieties about both male and female homosexuality in Italian society. Subversive gender and sexual identities, then, were always presented cautiously, and in these representations heterosexuality tended to be reaffirmed. Otherwise, gender ambiguity was connected to an exaggerated and therefore dangerous sexuality, to discourage the young audience’s identification with these troubling identities. Rather than returning to a traditional men’s fashion, the ‘classic trend’ was used to reaffirm an ideal of ‘virility’ that drew on stereotypes of Italian (southern) masculinities – as violent, aggressive and dominating – and functioned to dispel anxieties about homosexuality.

Conclusion Despite the persistence of certain homogenising features, such as the use of a rather standardised style, during the first half of the 1970s the giovane

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identity became more complex, and unveiled internal patterns of discrimination as well as produced new identity features. First, the emergence of class and race issues in youth-oriented media discourse revealed the impact of claims by the student and worker movements of the late 1960s on the media construction of youth. In the early 1970s, young people started to be increasingly represented as involved in politics; however, the construction of political giovani tended to promote moderation, in contrast with the radicalisation of political stances in the Italian society of the Anni di piombo. Representations of a reconciliation between i giovani and adults in popular media functioned not only to domesticate the generational struggle that was central to the media construction of i giovani in the 1960s, but also to bring down social tensions, by implicitly confirming adult authority over young people. Second, the (mis)use of terminology borrowed from the American civil rights movements in describing i giovani’s feelings of discrimination signals the influence of global emancipatory movements on discourses around Italian youth in popular culture. However, the emergence of previously discriminated identities, such as southerners and working-class young people, in media representations often tended to reaffirm dominant stereotypes, like the ‘virility’ of southerners, and stereotypical views of the south as an idealised space. Third, Italian feminism influenced the media construction of giovani femininities and their style, but representations of young women’s ‘liberation’ in popular media often functioned to justify a deliberate use of sexualised images of women. The conflation between discourses around women’s emancipation and the objectification of the female body was also a strategy to defuse the threat of feminism and the shift in the power dynamics between men and women. Given the absence of popular media accounts of Italian gay rights movements, foreign popular culture – and in this case references to British and American glam music stars – acted as a subversive and emancipatory model for Italian young people. The construction of giovani identities in the early 1970s ultimately shows how the relationship between the popular media appropriation of emancipatory claims, emancipatory movements themselves and popular culture is far from monolithic and unidirectional, but it often takes unexpected directions. In addition to establishing the features of the giovane identity during the early 1970s, this chapter has investigated a period of transition beginning in the 1960s – when i giovani in popular media tended to be represented as rather homogeneous – and the second half of the 1970s, when the construction of the giovane identity started to be increasingly fragmented and diverse. During the second half of the 1970s, the global economic crisis resulted in high rates of unemployment amongst youth

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(Ginsborg, 1990: 381), a situation that also influenced popular media representations of i giovani. Italian media started to promote disco music and its culture to encourage the escapism of young people from the tense social and economic situation in the country. Television programmes such as Discoring (Moretti, 1977–89) hosted by Gianni Boncompagni, Discoteca teen (Pagano, 1977) and Piccolo slam (Testa, 1977–78) (Small Slam) hosted by Stefania Rotolo and Sammy Barbot, show how, starting in 1975, the image of i giovani offered by television tried to conceal representations of young people’s social and political activism: i giovani in these programmes danced in discotheque-like studios and never spoke. Young people’s partial withdrawal from public spaces coincided with their appropriation of spaces that were in themselves confined, namely discotheques, which were said by magazines to have become ‘i nuovi Beatles’ (Caffarelli, 1975: 32),88 namely as iconic and as representative for young people as the Liverpool band. Discotheques were spaces where young people could ‘ballare e dimenticare i loro problemi’ (Caffarelli, 1975: 32).89 At the same time, however, young people’s political activism circulated through a proliferation of self-produced popular media. For example, magazines such as Re nudo and Erba voglio (Desire) developed a national readership (Lumley, 1990: 297–8). Although similar magazines existed before 1975 – for example, the magazine Mondo Beat, discussed in Chapter 2 – they had never achieved large circulation. For young working-class people, these self-produced magazines were a substitute for the youth-oriented media analysed in this book, as they offered the same gathering function: they promoted their own festivals (such as the Parco Lambro Festival in Milan) and initiatives, such as squatting and self-reduction of pop concert tickets. In some cases, such as in the Re nudo article ‘Il nudo e le rose’ (1974: 12–13) (The Naked and the Roses), these magazines’ articles actively criticised magazines such as Ciao 2001 and Qui giovani for their relatively moderate political positions and their traditionalist stances on young people’s sexuality. Another interesting phenomenon taking place in the late 1970s was that of the free radio stations, in which many self-produced small radio stations started to be set up by Italian young people after the 1975 Constitutional Court ruled the state monopoly of the airwaves to be illegal (Lumley, 1990: 304). The proliferation of self-produced youth media further contributed to the fragmentation of i giovani, as in these magazines and radio programmes young people were able to criticise the adult-generated media representations of them, and could reinvent their own giovane identity. From 1975, then, the homogenised media construction of the giovane identity that for more than fifteen years had undergone several transformations left room for the emergence of multiple giovani identities.

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Notes 1 (Hippies, too, were exploited for economic reasons. Broadway is full of hippieinspired shops. Huge malls where one can find the weirdest posters, jewels, tools, knick-knacks. What the good capelloni in Santa Maria di Trastevere create with talent and patience is produced serially here. Industry has replaced craftmanship. And young people buy.) 2 (Here revolution is limited to a flower drawn on the left buttock instead of on the right … Political apathy rules here, our protest became a freak show, and hippies are part of it.) 3 (The word ‘hippy’, which first emerged several years ago to describe a youth movement developing in both California and in England, has now lost most of its original meaning … Today ‘hippy’ has a broader meaning, which refers to youth in general, and in particular the least conventional youth, who adopt specific behaviours and trends that often have nothing to do with the ‘hippy’ ideals of three or four years ago.) 4 (there are no toilets, it’s filthy, the situation is oppressive.) 5 (Obviously, there are a lot of drugs at the Hilton Hotel, as one would imagine.) 6 (very few Italian guests.) 7 (that used to be full of beats and hippies, hosts now fewer and fewer of them.) 8 (to the edge of the fountains; they don’t rule the place any more, but are rather like odd creatures in a zoo, pointed at by passersby.) 9 (sadly on the leash of well-kept forty-year-old ladies in caftans.) 10 (return to the classic.) 11 (A stars-and-stripes flag, a baseball cap, a Pepsi bottle, jean trousers: these are the symbols that the United States have exported globally. Now, take all these symbols, mix them with a bit of fun and a pinch of madness, and you have a new trend.) 12 (Going back to short hairstyles is … today one of the most visible (and superficial) signs of young people’s reaction to their new identity crisis; that reflects the post-Woodstock trauma of seeing the system appropriating all those alternative ideals for whom young people fought.) 13 (‘The same society that we fight against … reshaped our behaviours and trends, and gave them back to the masses emptied of meaning. Now the sons of the bourgeois families have long hair … We don’t want to be mistaken for them, so we decided to cut our hair!’. ‘But in this way are you not scared that you will look like bank employees?’ ‘No, because our haircut is not as dressed-up as those of bourgeois people. We surely don’t go to the hairdresser’s, we cut our own hair in some way’.) 14 (a red handkerchief around their necks, Mao’s little red book in their hands.) 15 (had long hairstyles, wore necklaces and colourful pants. Young women would wear miniskirts and their appearance was, more or less, similar to that of our local hippies and capelloni.) 16 (leading cadres of the party.) 17 (modest and ordinary.)

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18 (Between working class people and hippies or capelloni there is no dialogue: the capellone is in fact a bourgeois product … The petit bourgeois thinks that by growing his hair and adorning it with flowers, he is rebelling against society, but this is a completely sterile, individualistic, hopeless kind of protest.) 19 (What did their hair say? It said, ‘… We are bank clerks, students, children of people who got rich working in oil companies … We are bourgeois: and our hair testifies to our international privileged modernity!’. The circle is complete. The ruling subculture has appropriated the opposing subculture and made it its own: with devilish skill, it has become a trend that, if it cannot be called fascist in its classic meaning, it belongs to a real ‘far right’.) 20 (What will fashion be like next summer? This time, you can choose. The big designers won’t impose a style on you: the choice is now yours. You can decide whether you will wear the black shirt and plus fours, or a Siberian maxi coat and ‘parabellum’ gun. Or, conversely, to keep on wearing what you wear now: your blue jeans, your cotton shirt which is so comfortable! … Neither fez nor fur hats. Democrazia Cristiana is freedom.) 21 (Did you see the shirt that your dad bought last week? Yes, your dad, who used to say that he was fed up with young people and their style … It looks as if the ideas that yesterday were exclusively young people’s are accepted and adopted by older people more and more … After having complained, conformists now have to accept (and appreciate) many of young people’s behaviours, like it or not.) 22 (the young ice-cream.) 23 (Stop everyone! This is a protest. We need to halt this trend of imitating young people. We always run after young people. We need to listen to them instead, start up a conversation with them. I’m protesting, yes, I’m protesting!) 24 (young people’s ice-cream.) 25 The programme portrays a reconciliation between i giovani and adults as the host, Vittorio Salvetti, did not introduce himself as a giovane like Arbore; he was instead an adult, and clearly distinguished from his audience by interpellating them with a ‘voi’ (you). 26 The choice of Naples as a common setting for musical films can be understood in light of the traditional canzone napoletana (Neapolitan song) and its relevance in Italian popular music. In the late 1950s, several Italian musical films centred on the canzone napoletana were also set in Naples (Buzzi, 2013: 68). 27 (So your magazine is written for the elite; it is classist, bourgeois … Is it possible that you never receive letters from a farmer, from a worker? Is it possible that, when it happens, they write in perfect Italian? If it is true, you are classist, if it is not, you are liars, because you are not showing things as they are.) 28 (no one makes language mistakes, maybe they are all educated, students, gentlemen?) 29 (the image of the young worker … progressively disappears in the second half of the 1960s. When … schooling becomes a common experience for the majority of young men and women, then the juxtaposition of the image of youth and that of the student … creates a homogeneous and coherent representation of youth.)

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30 Lumley (1990) explains, in detail, Marxist ideology in the Italian context, and its reception by students, workers and feminist movements. 31 (Dear Director, we the fascists, don’t understand if you’re afraid of our views, yes, because we keep sending you letters … You can keep on throwing them away, but one day you will find fascism under your bed! … Repeat after us: long live the dux, long live fascism! And: death to the people from Calabria, Black people, non-fascist Sicilians, left-wingers, Communist Vietnam, the losers, the junkies. You can find us, the fascists, here in our headquarters, come and see us, you will get what you deserve.) 32 (how many times have I heard people badmouthing southerners without realising that I was from the South. Have they ever been to Sicily? NO! Of course, if they go to the smallest village near Etna, they won’t find great wealth. But there are small villages in the North, too, but we judge the North by its big, modern cities like Milan and Genoa. Why is Sicily not judged by cities like Catania, Siracusa and Messina? Because criticising is fun, that’s why!) 33 (love[s] music, dancing, [Ciao] 2001 magazine, and in general all the big and small things girls my age love.) 34 (in Italy we all have the same skin colour, and it is easy to act superior over others that have a problem we don’t; but in Italy there are many waitresses, and I am one of them: a girl like many others, with a job like many others, but I am the victim of a stupid and inexplicable racism, that puts me in a category of someone not to hang out with, not to meet, not to say hello to … not to love. But why does this happen?) 35 (I buy one record every two or three months with my small savings.) 36 (one of those who likes money and bourgeois people.) 37 (what I want to say, is that now we are going too far with this idea that ‘we are all the same’. True, but young people are creating racism while fighting against it.) 38 (Italians are racist.) 39 (ANTONIO: Yours [Adamo’s] does not seem to me like a peculiar case. It seems to me that I, as a southerner coming to the North, encountered more difficulties than you: anyone who heard me speaking would call me terrone. QUESTION: Where are you from? ANTONIO: From Lecce. Now I’m used to being called terrone but when I first moved here it was very difficult to integrate: and my skin is white! … Now being Black is trendy.) 40 On Ernesto de Martino, see Forgacs (2014: 172–9). 41 Alessandro Carrera, in his book about music and young audiences (1980), describes the folk music revival in Italy as an appropriation of traditional music for political reasons, referring to protest songs co-opted by the student and worker movements, and to foreign folk (Bob Dylan, Inti Illimani); however, he doesn’t discuss the appropriation of folk music by pop music stars embodied by Orietta Berti, Al Bano and Marcella Bella, that I am discussing here. 42 On the revival of musica popolare (folk music), see Carrera (1980: 229–56).

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43 (The street where he was born is in Naples, and this brings us to other considerations … Naples is a cultural centre, but also a centre of poverty in the South; Naples is a centre of traditions, races, populations … All this is abundantly reflected in Edoardo’s music: his inspiration transforms blues into the lament of the ‘Neapolitan negro [sic]’, rock ’n’ roll becomes Italianised and expresses the rage of those who intrinsically love their homeland and want to do something to help it.) 44 (bowler hat, heavy makeup, a lot of jewellery (even in her nose): this is how Mia Martini likes to adorn herself, as if she wanted to mortify her beauty. Mia was born in Bagnara Calabra, but she grew up in Ancona. Her real name is Domenica Bertè.) 45 (southern woman.) 46 ([in 1967], while she was performing in Palermo, she was noticed by a presenter who invited her to Milan to audition. But … she was not lucky: a fault of her strong Sicilian accent. But she was not discouraged. As her accent was the reason for the failure of her recording career, she decided to start studying elocution, to improve her pronunciation.) 47 (a barrier that prevents many young workers from watching the programme.) 48 (We thought to include different voices (workers, for example) but we encountered many practical difficulties: shyness, fear of not being able to express themselves.) 49 For an introduction on the political development of feminist movements in 1970s Italy, see also Lumley (1990: 313–36). 50 (like boys.) 51 (the new year’s fashion will be based on masculine shirts, ties, waistcoats, male jackets and, above all, trousers.) 52 (for two reasons. First, because you always feel comfortable when wearing trousers, you don’t need to watch where or how you sit. And second, because now trousers are influenced by fantasy. The era of mannish trousers, in plain colours, where the only option was whether or not to roll the cuffs, is now over. Now there is much more choice.) 53 (this is the absurd side of female emancipation: to revolt against the social order – which, by the way, is repugnant and intolerable – she has to be so independent, free, and autonomous that she ends up being masculine … in other words: if women want to fight to the end for their freedom, their womanhood, they need to use energies that are anti-masculine, anti-sexual, anti-erotic.) 54 (A free, feminine, modern woman is one who accepts, and even desires, male aggressivity, which provides her with vigour, activity, initiative. But as it often happens, the woman, misled by centuries of emotional enslavement … ends up ultimately confused.) 55 (Feminism’s Reasons and Reasonings.) 56 (the majority of people, [that] feminism is a collective of crazy women who organise bra burnings.) 57 (feminists are absolutely like any other woman: someone has a husband, someone has a boyfriend, someone has children. Someone doesn’t have anyone and

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is happy anyway, because she is certain that for her it’s not important to be a ‘Miss’ or a ‘Mrs’, it is important to be a woman liberated from complexes. Feminism teaches one how to be free.) 58 (homosexual feminists are quite uncommon in Italy. Less uncommon in the United States.) 59 (Little by little, men see their usual tasks taken away from them. After having assisted to the slow but strong affirmation of the ‘second sex’ in activities that were previously reserved to men, now they are also excluded from the dance floors. The most recent dance out of Paris, in fact, can be danced exclusively by women! Its name is ‘Swichi-Swichi’, but someone has maliciously called it ‘Sappho 2000’. The rule is that partners have the lower part of their bodies touching, while the upper parts move … ‘But at this point’, a male member of the audience commented, ‘what are we here for? Soon, women will only consider us bulky ornaments’.) 60 (one of the functions of women in this society is to be an attractive sexual object, so outfits and makeup are their work tools. In this case, feminists say, the true consumer is the man, who uses the woman as a sexual object; fashion and cosmetics are thus directed more to men than to women, as they encourage men to think that women are their sexual slaves … Women allow men exploit them, in order to survive.) 61 For further details on the eroticisation of female beauty standards in cinema in the 1970s–90s, see Gundle (2007: 191–222). 62 (the power of women is in lingerie.) 63 (Correctly, Tina has been described in the USA as the figurative example of women’s liberation. At the Odeon, in London, I saw a huge audience of young and old, Black and white people who just hung on her every word, her suggestive sexual moves and her uncontrolled dance. It is unbelievable what she can do when she strokes her microphone and how many … bad thoughts she can create in her audience’s minds while at the same time maintaining the highest artistic level.) 64 (hang on her every word.) 65 And also, to the Italian tradition of naming female singers as felines because of their powerful singing, as is the case with Mina, la tigre di Cremona (the tiger of Cremona) and Milva, la pantera di Goro (the panther of Goro). 66 (She strokes the microphone and starts her slow, meticulous work of suggestion, gradually possessing her audience: creating desire, awakening the senses, offering and withholding herself, a supreme and refined erotic lure. The entire show is built around the desire that Tina needs to create, around the provocation of the Black woman, and therefore it is not surprising if, unlike the usual rhythm and blues audiences, Ike’s and Tina’s audience is essentially white: the perverse eroticism comes from an attraction to the ‘unknown’, to what is different.) 67 (When she was not yet a singer, arguments about her sexuality were in all the gossip magazines: next to Bowie, the man with an ambiguous sex, there was finally a woman with an ambiguous sex … I went to see Amanda Lear live,

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some time ago, under a circus tent. The crowd were screaming: ‘naked, naked …’; but it was not enough to scare our heroine, who, barely dressed, went down into the audience to talk … After having teased every single man in the audience, she went back onstage, showing everyone the long tiger tail now attached to her butt.) 68 (Alice in Obsceneland.) 69 (we do not want to be considered males or females, but human beings, citizens of planet earth.) 70 (the asexual clown.) 71 (all his costumes and his makeup are a joke for him, no hidden meaning.) 72 (Tall, slim as a anchovy, [Zero] walks like a model, and he declares that he is ready to accuse everything and everyone: the system of political parties, militarism, alienation, hypocrisy, hysteria … he declares that he is not a homosexual (actually, he has a very beautiful girlfriend) and that he likes drag for personal needs, the pleasure of putting on makeup, wearing glittery dresses, to create an alternative to a world in crisis.) 73 See for example ‘Al direttore: credo di essere omosessuale’ (1970: 3) and ‘Psicologia e psicanalisi: la paura di essere anormale’ (1971: 59). 74 (a sweet, I would say, poetic discovery.) 75 (a something in between, a ‘strange being from the future’.) 76 (It is strange, but in a moment like this, in which rock has reached the height of decadence, in which ‘divas’ like Bowie compete to show off costumes, makeup, and dance moves that are as ambiguous as possible, it is in this moment that ‘a man from the South’, a man coming from the countryside, from nature, who moved, thanks to his desire and his rage, to Milan, could became famous among ‘the wild beasts’, and still miraculously remain ‘uncontaminated’ by all the evolved, involved, progressive, decadent and avant-garde happening around him; he is doing his own ‘rock’ that not only continues to express all that rage and ‘virility’, but makes it the entire reason for its artistic existence … Yes, Adriano Pappalardo is the genuine article, authentic and instinctive, a ‘pastoral’ man that feels at ease in his terracotta armour.) 77 (It seems that for men, after two years of oblivion, the traditional suit, even with a waistcoat, has become fashionable again … Sales of three-piece suits – trousers, jacket and waistcoat – in dark colours, increased by 25%. Sales of floral and embroidered shirts have gone down to give way to increased sales of t-shirts and pullovers with colourful stripes.) 78 (the classic trend.) 79 (return to a more ‘restrained’ and less extravagant shapes and forms.) 80 (It has been six years now since men wanted to be trendy by growing their hair long, and by having crazy and artsy hairstyles, let’s say, and it is now time to update this ‘cliché’. Lately we have experienced a gradual homogenisation of male haircuts: long hair is decreasing, while tidier, mid-length … haircuts have started to prevail. A middle way that satisfies everyone – the most conservative and those who want to be trendy without being excessive and ridiculous.)

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81 (measured, casual (above all) tidy character that will be appropriate for men of every age.) 82 (the new male haircut has been created by thinking about the action-man of our times: an image of equilibrium and progress.) 83 (War to clashing colours, to folk, to extravagance.) 84 (Heels: yes, but how high? … Designers respond to those critical of heels that the gauchos and cowboys have always worn boots with heels, and no one has ever questioned their virility. Moreover, the heel makes walking more stable and stronger, and it aids in looking taller.) 85 (Enough with long hair, enough with a feminine appearance, enough with hippy clothes! It’s now time to be [a man] pleasant to look at, without any frivolousness!) 86 (Vidal trains you for big matches.) 87 (Italian men did not identify any more with a vision of the world that was rigidly patriarchal and traditionalist.) 88 (the new Beatles.) 89 (dance and forget their problems.)

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Coda: Noi, ragazzi di oggi

Noi, ragazzi di oggi, noi / Con tutto il mondo davanti a noi Viviamo nel sogno di poi Noi, siamo diversi ma tutti uguali / Abbiam bisogno di un paio d’ali E stimoli eccezionali … Devi venire con noi.1 ‘Noi, ragazzi di oggi’ (Minellono & Cutugno, 1985) In response to the gaps in the historiography about Italian youth outlined in the Introduction, this book has investigated the role of popular media in the construction of youth as a separate social subject in Italy, exploring how age became a fundamental identity feature in popular media representations from 1958 to 1975. The development of popular media aimed at an audience of young people from 1958 onwards contributed to the rise of an ‘imagined community’ of Italian youth and to overcoming the mere consideration of youth as a problem to solve in Italian society. It is important to again stress that youth here does not refer to a specific age, but is rather considered as a performatively constructed identity feature: popular media representations identified being giovane with specific practices, often connected to leisure activities and the consumption of specific goods. It is for this reason that the book has centred on representations of young people’s style trends: my aim was to show how, behind discourses promoting the consumption of goods such as fashion, popular media contributed to ideologically constructing i giovani. Discourses around the giovane style and bodily practices reveal larger issues concerning Italian youth during this period and underscore the fundamental role of popular culture in the definition of Italian young people’s identity. The homogenisation of representations of Italian youth was facilitated by the persistent media representation of young people in a group and the definition of specific practices that could distinguish i giovani from other social categories. The inclusion of ‘other’ identities in the community of i giovani in the first half of the 1970s is not a sign of the dissolution of this homogeneous construction, but rather it confirms the solidity of i giovani as

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an established group, which no longer needed definite generational boundaries to differentiate itself from ‘others’. From the second half of 1975, there was a proliferation of popular media for young people, and youth-oriented media content diversified to appeal to young people of different political orientation, class belonging, nationality and gender. This is why this research terminates in the mid-1970s: from this moment onwards, to speak of a unitary giovane identity becomes more complicated, as it would involve the consideration of multiple popular media forms and multiple giovani identities. However, the tendency of popular media to homogenise i giovani, assigning them specific labels, has not ceased. The 1985 song ‘Noi, ragazzi di oggi’2 (We, Today’s Youth) shows how mainstream media discourse has still tended to construct i giovani through references to leisure activities. Its lyrics, reported earlier, are very similar to those of the song ‘L’esercito del Surf’ presented in the Introduction, even though ‘Noi, ragazzi di oggi’ was written more than twenty years later. Indeed, in ‘Noi, ragazzi di oggi’ the (foreign) singer invites a young person to follow him, in order to join the community of i ragazzi di oggi. This community is described as made by people ‘different, but all the same’: although the lyrics acknowledge a difference within members of the community of i giovani, a certain homogenisation of i giovani is nevertheless underlined here, in the references to the similarity of young people’s lifestyles and desires. Given the constant homogenising tendency of media representations of youth, the methodology used in this work could be applied to explore the media construction of i giovani in more recent times, and to investigate its normative aim and subversive potential. This monograph has explored three overarching themes: the performative construction of i giovani through style, bodily practices and the creation of a giovane star system; the transnational inspiration of the Italian youthoriented style trends; and the media construction of giovani masculinities and femininities. The investigation of these three themes has highlighted three historical and cultural processes that shaped representations of youth in Italy in the period 1958–75. First, the analysis has demonstrated the significance of the giovane style in being both a commercial element and a vehicle used by young people to express social and political claims. The exploration of the media construction of Italian giovani through style problematises the neat distinction between ‘youth-as-fun’ and ‘youth-as-danger’ that often appears in accounts of post-war youth cultures. In particular, the Introduction highlighted how previous analyses of Italian youth have tended to distinguish between the generazione leggera of the period 1965–67 and the generazione politica of the Sessantotto and the Anni di piombo. Representations of young people’s

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style in popular media show that this differentiation is not clear-cut, as the ‘commercial’ and the ‘political’ are often intertwined: although the beats of the period 1965–67 were represented through leisure goods, and the generational struggle tended to be tempered in popular media representations, the giovane style often challenged traditional gender roles and adults’ authority over i giovani’s generational identity. The habit of representing the giovane identity as a performance, and therefore as a practice that could be easily adopted but also easily abandoned, in youth-oriented media reveals latent criticisms of the commercialisation of the beat style. Similarly, despite the anti-consumerist and anti-authoritarian inspiration of the hippy style, the fashion industry ultimately determined the trends that were advertised and discussed in youth-oriented magazines between 1967 and 1970. Even the authenticity of young stars promoted by youth-oriented magazines in this period was fabricated by the music industry and aimed to promote commercial products. Discourses around the giovane style also indicate that, despite preoccupations regarding young people as political subjects, throughout the 1960s young people’s politicisation was increasingly socially accepted. If media representations of i giovani in the period 1965–67 tended to conceal, or ‘foreignise’, politically active young people, then during the period 1967–70 discourses around the giovane style echoed the claims of political movements developing in Italy and abroad. The presence of advertisements for political parties in youth-oriented magazines demonstrates how in the early 1970s popular media not only acknowledged but also encouraged the political participation of youth. Still, a conflation between ‘commercial’ and ‘political’ discourses in the media construction of 1970s giovani is noticeable: indeed, young people’s political moderation was promoted by connecting it with commercial goods such as fashion. Arguably, these representations functioned to discourage young people’s political radicalisation, as a consequence of the preoccupations with the exacerbation of political struggle during the Anni di piombo. Second, this book has shown how, despite the inherently transnational inspiration of youth-oriented style trends, in the period 1958–75 popular culture offered a specifically Italian version of foreign youth cultures. In other words, the media construction of i giovani was influenced not only by the global history of youth cultures during the 1960s and the 1970s, but also by normative and subversive discourses circulating in Italian society. The impact of foreign trends on Italian youth may suggest a cultural dependence on Western cultural influences, which were often seen as more ‘modern’ than those of other countries, including Italy. However, it would be a mistake to regard the youth culture represented in Italian television programmes, films and magazines as ‘minor’ compared to that of other

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Western countries. Capussotti points out that ‘le espressioni culturali della gioventù italiana sono interpretate come “meno” ribelli di quelle statunitensi e inglesi, ma forse bisognerebbe dedicare maggiore attenzione al contesto in cui esse nascevano e contro il quale esse intrattenevano un rapporto polemico’ (2004: 266).3 In Italian popular media, the domestication of Western trends reveals the complex relationship between the modernisation of Italian society and the permanence of traditional values and stereotypes. Chapter 2 has shown that trends coming from other Western countries were either ‘mirrored’ or ‘othered’. On the one hand, the ‘mirroring’ of the most commercial aspects of foreign youth cultures shows the increasing social acceptance of the dynamics of capitalism and commercial globalisation. On the other hand, the foreignisation of aspects such as political participation and active sexuality demonstrates the persistence of stereotypical images of the foreign ‘Other’, and the power of religious and social values in Italian society. The process of appropriation of foreign trends also demonstrates how national and foreign discourses influenced each other in popular media representations of young people. For example, the Italian appropriation of the Afro style discussed in Chapter 3 demonstrates the permanence of colonialist and Orientalist discourses in 1960s Italian society. At the same time, representations of the emancipation of the internal ‘Other’ – the working-class and southern giovani – in the early 1970s were shaped by claims of global movements such as the American civil rights movement, as the persistent use of the term ‘racism’ to deal with this theme demonstrates. In other words, although the foreign ‘Other’ needs to be taken into consideration when looking at Italian youth cultures, one should not ignore the specificities of the context in which the domestication of the ‘Other’ was taking place and its effects on Italian society as a whole. The transnational inspiration for the giovane style ultimately reveals the instability of the notion of Italian-ness, and the contribution of both discourses around Italian youth and global youth cultures to the construction of Italian identity in the 1960s and the 1970s. Third, this monograph has discussed how the emergence of global emancipatory movements in the 1960s shaped popular media discourse around Italian young people: i giovani were constructed in opposition to or in conjunction with ‘other’ social groups, and therefore their representation reinforced, or contrasted with, pre-existing stereotypes. In order to reflect the multiple influences of political and social movements, the analysis of popular media representations of young people requires an intersectional approach, which takes into consideration not only age, but also other identity features such as ethnicity, gender and sexuality. In the period taken into consideration, the effect of emancipatory movements on discourses around

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youth was often not evident: popular media tended not to discuss political issues directly, and accounts of activist groups like the American and Italian gay rights movements did not emerge in popular media accounts. However, emancipatory movements introduced discourses that increasingly shaped and modified popular culture, and therefore popular media representations. This is particularly evident in the construction of i giovani’s gender identities, as the style and bodily practices promoted in youth-oriented popular media often challenged traditional gender roles and notions of respectability. Youth-oriented trends, which played with the reconfiguration of genderspecific style and beauty standards, proposed new standards of femininity and masculinity to the young audience. Popular media tended to maintain a very normative position that reflected the strong gender divide in Italian society. Indeed, the main anxieties emerging from the media construction of giovani masculinities and femininities concerned the preservation of a demarcation between ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ practices, and the sexual purity of young women. However, popular culture offered numerous subversive models for its audience. For instance, young stars often disrupted gender norms – Rita Pavone and Caterina Caselli – and notions of female respectability – Patty Pravo – and virile masculinity – Shel Shapiro, Maurizio Arcieri and Renato Zero. Similarly, popular dances – like the Shake, the Yum-Yum and the Swichi-Swichi – challenged traditional ideas of romantic and sexual relationships between young men and young women. A comment also needs to be made on the specific types of popular media taken into consideration. Youth-oriented popular culture offers multiple points of view regarding the construction of youth, which speak not only to the target audience of these media forms, but also to wider audiences. For young people, youth-oriented media were useful in the construction of their own generational identity. Magazines in particular allowed both a virtual and real encounter amongst young people of differing backgrounds and geographical origins, for example through music festivals and meetings, which they organised, and through virtual spaces for discussion, such as the correspondence columns published in magazines. Letters to youth-oriented magazines showcased young people’s criticism of adults, the industry and even the media. The significant role of popular media in creating an ‘imagined community’ of young people should be further investigated by actively interviewing the readers and viewers of the magazines, TV programmes and films discussed here. Youth-oriented media, however, also had an impact on adults: while constructing i giovani, adults could invent an alternate history of their own youth, which had happened in most cases during the Fascist regime. In other words, the construction of i giovani also had a retrospective effect, which was beneficial for adults to negotiate their own giovane identity.

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In Italian popular culture, i giovani degli anni Sessanta (1960s young people) have become an established myth, arguably because today’s cultural, social and political ruling class was in their youth during the period explored in this book. This myth has certainly influenced the construction of i giovani in the following generations. Further research should analyse the extent to which i giovani degli anni Sessanta have become an ‘invented tradition’ for today’s youth, especially for those young people who consider themselves ‘political’ and have to confront the legacy of Sessantotto and the multiple ways in which it has been constructed over time. An analysis of how 1960s and 1970s youths have renegotiated their own identity would also be significant, particularly as some of them appear to still be giovani regardless of their actual age. Probably the most well-known example is singer Gianni Morandi, who is nicknamed l’eterno ragazzo della canzone italiana.4 The absence of the ‘growing up’ of some of these stars signals the solidity of the myth of i giovani degli anni Sessanta, to which the media construction of i giovani has certainly contributed. Besides its contribution to the cultural history of Italian young people, this monograph has highlighted the significant role of popular culture in shaping and transforming identities and their relationships with the ‘Other’ in Italian society. The analysis conducted here has demonstrated how popular media’s impact on society cannot be limited to a mere commercial and normative function, as this overlooks its subversive potential. For example, popular media discourses around i giovani as a community have reinforced the desire of youth to speak up for themselves and challenge the disengaged representation that often emerges from depictions made by adults. The naturalisation of youth as a social category in popular media has allowed the creation of a ‘reverse discourse’, or ‘a point of resistance and the starting point for an opposing strategy’ through which young people have started to ask for their own legitimacy as a group (Foucault, 1978: 101). This reverse discourse, which was already present in letters written to youth-oriented magazines before 1975, proliferated through media selfproduced by young people from the mid-1970s. However, its emergence could not have been possible without the popular media discourse around youth in the period 1958–75 that is analysed in this monograph. Popular culture’s subversive power needs to be further acknowledged in the Italian studies context, where a prejudice on the academic relevance of popular cultural forms sometimes prevents scholars from critically engaging with them. To this end, Umberto Eco’s suggestion to undertake an ‘indagine costruttiva’ (constructive examination) of mass culture, instead of hesitating ‘di fronte al prefigurarsi di un … panorama umano del quale è difficile individuare i confini, la forma, le tendenze di sviluppo’ is still valuable today (1999: 31).5 This book has demonstrated how, far from being uniquely a

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repressive instrument, popular culture is a site of struggle, and it can shed light on the contradictory and multiple power relations between institutions, social groups and individuals in Italian society.

Notes 1 (We, today’s youth / We have the world ahead of us / We live in the dream of tomorrow / We, we are different but all the same / We need a pair of wings / And exceptional stimuli … you have to come with us.) 2 The song was performed by the young Mexican singer Luis Miguel at Sanremo Festival in 1985; it ranked second. 3 (Italian youth cultures are interpreted as ‘less’ rebellious than those emerging in the United States and in the United Kingdom, but perhaps we should give more attention to the context in which they emerged and with which they had a polemical relationship.) 4 (the eternal giovane of Italian music.) 5 (when looking at the prefiguration of a human landscape of which it is difficult to see the boundaries, the shapes, the tendencies of development.)

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Index

Note: ‘n.’ after a page reference indicates the number of a note on that page. Titles of Musicarelli films, magazines and television programmes can be found under each category’s entry. Other media/literary works are listed per title. adults 19, 87, 99, 127–8 young people’s difference from 61–70 as young people’s helpers 41–2 young people’s opposition to 8–11, 13, 23 young people’s reconciliation with 88–9, 126, 167–70, 198–9, 204n.25 advertisements 48, 61, 65–6, 68, 112, 115, 139–40, 148, 166–9, 191, 200 Al Bano (singer) 179–80, 182, 205n.41 America 14, 31–2, 38, 40, 125–6, 129–30, 134, 164, 199 Americanisation 5, 15–16 United States 188, 196 amici (Italian appropriation of French copains) 25, 47–52 androgyny 82, 90–2, 146 see also gender, ‘gender bending’; style animalisation 163, 193, 207n.65 of Black bodies see ‘Cannella’; Turner, Tina Anni di piombo 161–2, 170, 201 anti-consumerism 110–11, 114–15, 118 see also consumerism Apulia (southern Italian region) 176, 179–80, 196 Arbore, Renzo (TV host) 119, 153n.30, 182 Arcieri, Maurizio (singer) 145–6 authenticity 94–5, 117–23, 143–4 ‘bambola, La’ (song) 143

battaglia di Valle Giulia 111, 151n.5 see also Sessantotto Battisti, Lucio (singer) 120–1 Beatles, the (band) 75, 77–9 beatniks 83–4, 100n.8 see also beats beats beat (Italian appropriation) 58–60, 98–9 critiques to 110 music 59 as a performance 70–5 style 60–4 subculture 14, 58–9 see also beatniks Bella, Marcella (singer) 180–2 Bennato, Edoardo (singer) 178 Bonnie and Clyde (film) 123, 125, 127 borghesi 165–6, 173, 175–6 Bouquin, Jean (fashion designer) 115–16 Bowie, David (singer) 193–6 ‘Cannella’ (song) 134–5 ‘canzone di consumo, La’ (essay) 34 capelloni 21, 28n.19, 84–8, 105n.79, 106n.90, 118, 148–9, 162, 165–6 see also ‘“discorso” dei capelli, Il’; Piazza di Spagna; ‘Serenata’ Caselli, Caterina (singer) 13, 18, 22, 69, 72–3, 93–6, 141, 157n.77 Celentano, Adriano (singer) 22, 32, 36, 47, 103n.52 Cinquetti, Gigliola (singer) 34, 54n.4

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Index civil rights movement 60, 129–30, 136, 175–7, 201, 214 class 41, 44, 106n.96, 164–6, 171–3, 175–6 see also ‘Otherness’ clubs 36, 37, 68–70, 74, 99, 103n.46 Piper club 68–70, 141 collective identity 7–9 colonialism 129, 132 Comizi d’amore (film) 90 complessi (Italian beat bands) 77 consumerism 5, 30–1, 49, 147 see also anti-consumerism contraceptive pill 27n.12, 137, 142 see also sex education Cooper, Alice (singer) 195 copains (French subculture) 9, 45–7 Courrèges, André (fashion designer) 92 cultural translation 15, 76–7, 81, 172 see also ‘mirroring’; ‘othering’ dancing 11, 65–8, 127–8, 202 Shake (dance) 65–8 Swichi-Swichi (dance) 189–90 Yum-Yum (dance) 139 De Martino, Ernesto (anthropologist) 177, 205n.40 Democrazia Cristiana (political party) 5, 20, 27n.16, 37, 43, 79, 166–8 ‘“discorso” dei capelli, Il’ (article) 166 see also capelloni discourse 7 discrimination 171, 173, 175–7, 183, 196, 201 Driscoll, Julie (singer) 114 Efrikian, Laura (actress) 88, 95–6 Eno, Brian (singer) 195 Equipe 84 (band) 59, 78 ‘L’esercito del Surf’ (song) 1 ethnicity see race Falana, Lola (dancer) 135 Fascism anti-fascist demonstrations 35 and bodies 126–8 colonial legacy 132, 136, 156n.56 and fashion 80, 167 neofascism 161, 166–7, 173–4, 182–3 and nostalgia 99, 127–8, 214 and women 90, 126–7 and youth 3, 95, 107n.111

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fashion 11 colours in 62–3 second-hand 114–15 unisex see style youth-oriented 4–5, 60–4 see also style femininities 17–18 masculinisation of women 94–5, 185–90 see also gender feminist movements 17, 27n.11, 184, 188–9, 201, 206n.49 and objectification of female body 190–1 femme fatale 141 see also Pravo, Patty folk (music) 177–9, 205nn.41–2 foreignisation 85, 141, 161–3, 189, 193, 195–6 see also ‘othering’ Foucault, Michel (philosopher) 7, 11, 215 France 9, 17, 27n.7, 27n.13, 50–1 see also copains; magazines, Salut les copains F.U.O.R.I. (gay rights movement) 184, 189 ‘geghegè, Il’ (song) 64–5, 102n.27 gender 16–19, 214 ‘gender bending’ 81, 194–5 see also androgyny; style see also femininities; masculinities; performativity generation commercial vs. political 5–6, 212 giovani degli anni Sessanta, I (book) 33 glam rock (music genre) 194–7 Guglielmi, Gene (singer) 88 hairstyles Afro 121, 129–30 long, for men see capelloni; ‘“discorso” dei capelli, Il’ short, for men 164–5, 198–9 short, for women 90–1 Hallyday, Johnny (singer) 47, 50–1 Hebdige, Dick (sociologist) 11, 29 hippies counterculture 111–12, 152n.6 hippy (Italian appropriation) 110, 113, 151n.1 critiques to 162–3 style 114–16, 150

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Hollywood 14, 40, 123, 127 homogenisation of Italian youth 4, 53, 70, 99, 210 homosexuality 18–19, 87, 95–6, 147, 184–5, 189–90, 194–6 see also F.U.O.R.I.; gender hot pants 190 imagined community 8, 63, 123 of youth 61, 67, 72, 160, 175, 210 inclusion 177–8, 182–3, 210–11 interpellation 6–7 invented tradition 128–9, 215 Italian youth, history of 3–6 in the early 1960s 34–5 in the post-war period 30–3 John, Elton (singer) 195 language 9, 14, 36, 63–5, 79, 131, 139, 172 Lear, Amanda (singer) 193–4 Leydi, Roberto (ethnomusicologist) 177 Little Tony (singer) 86 London 50, 75–6, 79, 81–2 Carnaby Street see Via Margutta ‘Swinging London’ 76 Loy, Nanni (actor) 169 ‘Ma che freddo fa’ (song) 121 magazines 23–4 Big: il settimanale giovane 23 Ciao 2001 23, 120 Ciao amici 23, 47–8 Ciao Big 23 Giovani 23 Mondo Beat 58, 100n.6 Qui giovani 24, 188 Re nudo 25, 202 Salut les copains 45–6 Zanzara, La 85, 89–90 Malanima, Nada (singer) 121–2 Martini, Mia (singer) 179 Marxist ideology 173, 205n.30 see also ‘New Left’ Masculin Féminin (film) 27n.13 masculinities 18–19 crisis of 19, 185, 200 and effeminacy 18, 87, 144–50, 194–7 see also homosexuality; virility see also gender

Matusa 102n.37 Miguel, Louis (singer) 216n.2 Milan 35, 58–9, 68–70, 89, 114, 161, 174, 184, 202 Mina (singer) 22, 32, 37, 41, 47, 92, 207n.65 miniskirt 96–8, 138 ‘mirroring’ 15, 76–81, 112, 114, 119, 172, 213 see also ‘othering’ modernisation 164, 166 mods and rockers 49–50 Morandi, Gianni (singer) 22, 34, 88–9, 119–20, 123, 215 Musicarello (film genre) 2, 20, 22–3, 27n.2, 28n.20, 35–6, 43–4, 71–2, 103n.46 Cuore matto 86 L’immensità 72 In ginocchio da te 88–9 Io bacio… tu baci 36–45 Io non protesto, io amo 71–2 Nessuno mi può giudicare 95 Non son degno di te 88 Non stuzzicate la zanzara 67, 91–2 L’oro del mondo 179–80 Perdono 95–6 I ragazzi del juke box 36–45 Rita la figlia americana 67, 71, 78, 92, 103n.46 Rita la zanzara 91–2, 103n.46, 106n.100 Se non avessi più te 88 Stasera mi butto 135, 152n.8 Urlatori alla sbarra 36–45 Naples 89, 171, 178, 204n.26 ‘Nel sole’ (song) 182 ‘Nessuno mi può giudicare’ (song) 93–4 ‘New Left’ (political movements) 165–6, 173 see also Marxist ideology ‘Noi, ragazzi di oggi’ (song) 210–11 ‘Non è difficile fare lo shake’ (song) 102n.36 ‘Non ho l’età (per amarti)’ (song) 34 Nuovo canzoniere italiano (cultural organisation) 178 Orientalism 130–1 ‘othering’ 15, 76–7, 81–5, 99, 112, 172, 213

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Index see also foreignisation; ‘mirroring’ ‘Otherness’ 12, 15 and the Black body 132–6, 192–3 and class 182 see also racism pacifism 100, 109–10, 113–14 Palermo 74, 180 Pappalardo, Adriano (singer) 196–8 ‘partita di pallone, La’ (song) 34 Pasolini, Pier Paolo (writer and director) 90, 106n.96, 151n.5, 166 Pavone, Rita (singer) 18, 22, 34–5, 47, 60, 64–5, 67–9, 91–3, 157n.77, 169 ‘pelle nera, La’ (song) 134 performativity 9–10, 17 and performance 70–1, 74, 103n.51 Piazza di Spagna 59, 70, 83–4, 105n.74 see also capelloni ‘plip, Il’ (song) 67 politics 48, 112, 147, 161–2, 166–7, 183 and moderation 162–70 politicisation of youth 110, 161–7 Polnareff, Michel (singer) 86 popular culture, youth-oriented 19–24, 214 self-produced 25, 202, 215 see also magazines; Musicarello; radio; television programmes Pravo, Patty (singer) 18, 26, 123, 150 as hippy femme fatale 141–4 protest media recuperation of 112–13, 119–20, 169 Quant, Mary (fashion designer) 75, 79, 97 race 129–30, 132–5 see also ‘Cannella’; Falana, Lola; ‘Otherness’; ‘pelle nera, La’; Roberts, Rocky; Turner, Tina racism 175–7 see also race radio 20, 22, 25, 202 ‘ragazzo col ciuffo, Il’ (song) 86 RAI (Italian national television) 20–1, 25 Ranieri, Massimo (singer) 122–3 Rebel Without a Cause (film) 31 Renegades, the (band) 87

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Roberts, Rocky (singer) 132–3, 135 rock ’n’ roll (music and culture) 31–2, 45–6, 53 Italian recuperation of 32–3 see also urlatori Rokes, the (band) 77–9 Rome 58–9, 61, 111, 163, 184 see also clubs, Piper club; Piazza di Spagna; Via Margutta ‘Serenata’ (song) 84, 103n.52 see also capelloni Sessantotto 6, 58, 110–11, 151n.3, 151n.5, 165, 211, 215 see also battaglia di Valle Giulia sex education 16, 89, 137–8 see also contraceptive pill sexual emancipation 16–17, 90–1, 96–8, 138–41, 184–8, 191 see also sexual liberation sexualisation of Black female body see ‘Cannella’; Falana, Lola; Turner, Tina of female body 140, 148–9, 190–1, 200 see also hot pants sexual liberation 138, 185–6, 191–2 see also sexual emancipation; trousers Shapiro, Shel (singer) 86 Sicily (southern Italian region) 148–9 ‘Sole che nasce, sole che muore’ (song) 182 Sommer, Elke (actress) 36, 37, 41 southern Italy 90, 174, 177–8 southern-ness 171, 179, 197 and youth 74, 174–5, 178–82 see also Apulia; De Martino, Ernesto; Leydi, Roberto; Naples; Nuovo canzoniere italiano; Palermo; Sicily Spaak, Catherine (singer) 1, 47, 51 spaces 68–70, 163, 202 see also clubs stars 12–14, 119–20, 122–3 style 2, 10–11, 211–12 1930s-inspired 124–8, 155nn.46–7 Afro 121, 128–36 Americanised 38, 163–4 anti-authoritarian 60, 115–17 classic trend 197–200 ethnic 124, 129

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Index

flower-power 113–14, 123, 125 see also pacifism normalisation of 162–6 politicisation of 165 see also politics toning down of see style, normalisation of unisex 16–17, 81–3, 146 see also androgyny; gender; Pavone, Rita; trousers see also fashion; hairstyles television programmes 20–1 Alta pressione 33–4 Caroselli 22, 28n.22, 105n.79, 169 Diamoci del tu 21, 69 Giochiamo agli anni Trenta 155n.47 giornalino di Gian Burrasca, Il 34 Mia 179 Noi maggiorenni 99 Speciale per voi 21, 118–20, 122, 127–8, 169–70, 182 Speciale tre milioni 178 Stasera Patty Pravo 143, 150 Stasera Rita 21, 69 Studio uno 91 Tutto è pop 21, 170, 180 Under 20 172, 188 teppismo 4, 30–1, 38, 43–4

terrorism see Anni di piombo Totò (actor) 71 transnationalism 14–16 transnational influences of youthoriented culture 75–6, 123–36, 212–13 see also cultural translation; foreignisation; ‘mirroring’; ‘othering’ trousers (for women) 185–6 Turner, Tina (singer) 191–3 United Kingdom 50, 83, 92, 129, 196 British Invasion 75, 77 see also London ‘L’uomo d’oro’ (song) 93 urlatori 22, 32, 35–45 Vandelli, Maurizio (singer) 59 Via Margutta 79 Villa, Claudio (singer) 36, 169–70 Viola, Franca 85, 89–90 virility 147–9, 197–200 see also homosexuality; masculinities ‘Yesterday’ (song) 150 yé-yé (music) 46–7, 50–1, 65 Zero, Renato (singer) 195