“Things Change but the Amerecano Is Here to Stay”: America in Italian Popular Movies of the 1980s
Abstract
Sostene M. Zangari
University of Milan
Italy
“Things Change but the Amerecano Is Here to Stay”:
America in Italian Popular Movies of the 1980s
The article focuses on a number of film comedies of the early 1980s. In different ways, the movies rearticulate the relationship between Italy and the United States. In showing how Italians can beat Americans at sports, how they can indulge in conspicuous consumption and finally how even the United States are not alien to provincialism and backwardness, these movies express a new mood of confidence that was widely felt in Italian society at the time. However, these movies came at a moment when the Italian film industry was on the verge of its decline. Starting from the 1980s, in fact, American movies and distributors would colonize the Italian movie market and depress the Italian movie industry.
Keywords
talian popular film; 1980s; representation of America; film studies; Italian comedies; Italian cinema; comparative Italian American studies; cultural history
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Department of English, University of Milan Italy
Sostene Massimo Zangari holds a PhD in American Studies. His fields of specialization is ethnic literature and culture. He has published essays on Herman Melville, Richard Wright, Micheal Gold and James Ellory. He co-authored Americana. Storie e culture degli Stati Uniti dalla A alla Z (Il Saggiatore) and Letteratura degli Stati Uniti dal 1945 a oggi (Odoya). He currently teaches English language and literature at Liceo Classico “Omero” in Milano.
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