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This would be funny, if it weren’t so sad.

… only not quite the same thing. Women across Italy are organizing against Berlusconi and the culture of chauvinism and disrespect that he embodies. While the oversexualization and denigration of the female gender hurts Italian women directly (as evidenced by the documentary I previously reference here), Berlusconi and his racist, homophobic, misogynistic, and quite frankly creepy buffoonery hurts all Italians, in Italy and abroad. Emboldened by events around the world, it’s good to see women speaking out, but at the end of the day, as the article reminds us, Italians will make their choice at the polls.

My sadness is doubled by the fact that the girl was from a city a couple of hours away from where the Italian half of me from. If you haven’t watched this yet, you should.

It’s bumming me out that I can’t embed this video directly, but I’m hoping some of you will follow the link to this interesting and depressing documentary. It’s short, the quality isn’t great and the English translation is far from phenomenal (I’m really selling this, huh?), but it opens a window into a bizarre and distorted cultural phenomenon that has had a grip on Italy for decades.

Italian women, even intelligent and powerful ones, are valued almost exclusively on their looks. Appearance is everything for women in Italy, whose culture is highly conformist and conservative (although perhaps not in the way you might expect, from viewing this video). As such, women’s bodies are used for ornamentation and exploitation at almost every turn, from advertising (which we in North America are no strangers to), to silly television game shows and even serious news & science magazines (not discussed in the documentary, but something that has always bothered me personally).

Bear in mind, the clips used in this documentary are primarily from daytime and primetime programming, mostly from the ubiquitous and brain-numbing variety shows that form the bulk of Italian programming (the rest of it is infomercials, American shows dubbed into Italian, and Italian versions of reality shows like Big Brother). I say this to underline the point that these shows often accompany family mealtimes in Italy, where three or four generations will watch the same “entertainment”. To say that the portrayal of women as dumb, pornified objects is normalized in Italy is a grand understatement.

The film also unflinchingly shows what havoc plastic surgery has wreaked on the stars of Italian television. Many of these women are truly frightening looking, and yet, as this becomes more and more prevalent, it is likely that their looks will also become normalized.

Finally, for all you non-Italians who may be confused, the final shot of the film is from the Italian version of Candid Camera. The girl on the meathook’s behind is being treated as if it is a prosciutto, that staple of the Italian deli. A more literal metaphor of women’s place in Italian pop culture cannot be created.