London laughs at Berlusconi

Italy is no longer able to make real satire, or perhaps it's satire that does not find space on television. It is nothing new, because our politicians are the main objective of irony and television is controlled by politics. A dog that bites its tail. But we don't want to talk about the relationship between the world of entertainment and the political one (and the fact there is a link explains many things) but the way they do it abroad, ironically thanks to our politics.

Yesterday, on BBC2 (in England) was on, in prime time, Mock the week (conductors in photo on the left), one of the most important show of the network, which has been going now for seven years. Six comedians around a table talk freewheeling and, yesterday, at the center of the jokes was Silvio Berlusconi. For 15 minutes they said everything on our premier. They were ironically (it's easy in this period) mainly on Berlusconi sympathies to young girls. The nicest thing they said, that was not about a woman, was "short man".
The audience laughs in the background and even the comedians have difficulties going forward.
"Temperatures tomorrow will be between 16 and 24, but there won't be girls, so it's useless Berlusconi rush here," is just one of the less heavy jokes.
The view that have abroad on our premier, and even on all the Italians who vote for him, get out when comedians started to make fun of Gordon Brown. The English premier is dubbed while is greeting other European leaders and asks to everybody "Please, could you make a statement where you say I'm doing very well in the economic field?". But when Gordon Brown sees Berlusconi, tells him: "Please, say nothing, it's better."
Our premier initiative was shown when Berlusconi has some papers in his hands and from the mouth of comics he says: "Here we go, the party is already organized. What do you want? A girl or a boy? You can choose, we have something for everyone. "

But it's not only the English television show that, in some alternative way, continues to seek explanations on Italian world. The Canadian newspaper National Post tries to give its interpretation, too. It tells how on a New Year of 1986 there was an intercepted phone call in which Berlusconi, who had organized a party for his friend and chairman of the Council Bettino Craxi (the same who had legalized the television duopoly) complained of the absence of some girls of the tv-show Drive-In. Initially they accepted to come, but then they had not attended.
After 23 years very little has changed. The truth is that Italians have become accustomed to seeing their leaders plagued by scandal.
And the satire would only make them smile, not react.

Marianna Lepore

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Comments

batman

Puttanopoli stop, dai basta!

Thursday 04 March 2010, 19:27

32 inch tvs

I certainly laughed.

Wednesday 12 May 2010, 01:51

Stefany

You are right. Nowadays when Mass media is controlled by the politicians there is no place for satire. It seems to me it is very difficult for an artist who works on television to do what he is told to do but not what he wants. As for me, I like different funny events. I never miss a thing. I also like to go on different excursions and exhibitions. I usually find out about them with the help of event and venue search engine http://eventsearch.us . It helps me not to miss anything interesting what is going on the town I live

Sunday 04 July 2010, 22:34

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