The Violence of Lying

Who wants to be a TV showgirl? Auditions, talent and taste in contemporary popular Italian cinema

“…This is a process in which much Italian feminist criticism seems unwittingly complicit, in its failure to ascribe any form of agency or awareness to a certain group of young women associated with 'velinismo': 'la condizione di subordinazione simbolica e materiale in cui vivono le donne di oggi, pronte a vendersi come "prestatrici d'immagine", non è nemmeno percepita,' recounts Guaraldo confidently, basing her conclusions on a handful of media interviews. 50 As sociologist Anna Lisa Tota has observed, gender studies has struggled to gain a secure institutional footing in Italy, and 'la scarsa diffusione di tutto l'approccio culturalista agli studi di genere' is striking. 51 Until the introduction of the journal Studi culturali (Il Mulino) in 2004, Italy had therefore barely seen the turn towards Cultural Studies that marked UK feminist criticism in the 1970s and 1980s, making space for popular, mass tastes in the cultural canon.…”