[ecrea] CFP for BIANCO E NERO journal *Latin Lovers in Contemporary Italian Cinema*

Call for Papers: BIANCO E NERO journal, n. 3/2017

*Latin Lovers in Contemporary Italian Cinema*

Edited by Enrico Biasin and Catherine O’Rawe

In March 1994 Silvio Berlusconi, then a businessman, was elected to the 
Italian parliament, becoming immediately Prime Minister (Ginsborg, 
Asquer 2011). The presence of the Mediaset boss at the apex of 
governmental power has been perhaps most widely discussed in terms of 
its carnivalesque aspects, and Berlusconi’s political persona has been 
most frequently understood as a contemporary variation of the Latin 
Lover archetype (Rodotà 2005). His tenure saw a series of tensions 
emerge, between Berlusconi as supporter of Family Days and as 
protagonist of the murky bunga bunga parties at his Arcore residence 
(cf. Travaglio, Gomez, Lillo 2009). Berlusconi removed distinctions 
between the public sphere and the domestic one, endangering his 
‘bourgeois respectability’ (Mosse 1985, 1998), and compromising his 
gender identity in two major ways: firstly, by showcasing his sexual and 
emotional difficulties, he contributed to the ‘feminization’ of Italian 
popular culture. Secondly, by exaggerating his reputation as a lover, he 
contributed to the excessive ‘masculinization’ of the private sphere.

Bearing in mind this reshaping of the masculinity of one of the most 
high-profile figures of the Italian social scene of the last two 
decades, a similar process, activated by contemporary Italian popular 
film with regard to its male protagonists, can be noted. The reluctant 
spearhead of a national cinema ‘in transition’ (Zagarrio 2000), and 
marked by an endemic lack of a robust industrial structure (Zagarrio, 
2006), popular production – in particular the lucrative filone of the 
cinepanettone (O’Leary 2013) – seems to illustrate one possible pitfall 
that Mediterranean virility encounters: ‘A machismo which denies even a 
suspicion of femininity in males [but that] often oscillates with 
festivals of male transvestism or with other manifestations of an 
insecure male identity’ (Gilmore 1982). In this way the emblematic 
figure of the Latin seducer – ‘a model of masculine identification so 
widely disseminated by the media as to become a cliché through which 
Italians and non-Italians understand one another’ (Malossi 1996) – 
undergoes a dynamic reconfiguration (cfr. Reich 2000; Reich 2006; O’Rawe 
2014; Reich and O’Rawe 2015). The Latin Lover of contemporary Italian 
cinema battles ever-present threats to his phallic supremacy, and must 
engage in a bitter struggle against himself, as well as against hostile 
societal and cultural forces, giving rise to a ‘masquerade’, which, to 
paraphrase Joan Rivière (1986 [1929]), aims to conceal his femininity 
and to escape the repercussions that its discovery might bring.

This issue of BIANCO E NERO n. 3/2017 brings together articles that have 
as their focus the figure of the Latin Lover in Italian cinema since the 
1980s. Without wishing to limit prospective analyses, some possible 
topics for exploration are:

- Textual representations of the Latin Lover. Ways in which films 
represent, parody, and rework the figure of the Latin Lover, drawing on 
acting styles from the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s (from Rossano Brazzi to 
Marcello Mastroianni, from Adriano Celentano to Jerry Calà, from Diego 
Abatantuomo to Guido Nicheli and Christian De Sica).

- Gender performance through a national lens. The notion of ‘male 
masquerade’ in relation to cultural features conventionally associated 
with the Latin Lover tradition, and to their function in disavowing the 
anxiety of the contemporary Italian male.

- Star performances. The construction of models of male stardom (Jerry 
Calà, Diego Abatantuomo, Andrea Roncato, Christian De Sica, Ezio 
Greggio, Massimo Ghini, Alessandro Siani, Raoul Bova) centred on the 
figure of the Latin Lover and on the negotiation of the industrial 
dynamics of cinematic, television and media production.

- Intermedial dimensions of the actor. The historical overlap through 
different media forms of acting styles associated with the Latin Lover 
character, with specific focus on the connections between cinema, 
television and variety shows. //

- Social, political and class dimensions. The possibile relationship 
between the figure of the Latin Lover as constructed by cinema, and 
political, social and class-based discourses – see, for example, Renato 
Vallanzasca/Kim Rossi Stuart in “Vallanzasca: Angels of Evil” (2010) by 
Michele Placido.

- Gossip, magazines, paratexts//as venues for the articulation of 
socio-cultural discourses around the Latin Lover, focused on the 
permeability between private and public, and fuelled by digital gossip 
sites and tabloid journalism (“Chi”, “Gente», “Novella 2000”, “Eva 
3000”, “Grand Hotel”, “Vip”, “DiTutto”).

- Fans, memorabilia, collecting. Items and products (such as diaries or 
informal writing, tertiary texts, fan scrapbooks, digital remediations 
etc.) that testify to spectators’ authentic engagement with the figure 
of the Latin Lover and his media representation.

Bibliography

David D. Gilmore, Anthropology of the Mediterranean Area, “Annual Review 
of Anthropology”, vol. 11, n. 11, 1982, pp. 175-205.

Paul Ginsborg, Enrica Asquer (eds.), Berlusconismo. Analisi di un 
sistema di potere, Laterza, Rome-Bari 2011.

Giannino Malossi (ed.), Latin Lover. A sud della passione, Charta, Milan 
1996.

George L. Mosse, The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity, 
Oxford University Press, New York 1998.

George L. Mosse, Nationalism and Sexuality: Respectability and Abnormal 
Sexuality in Modern Europe, Howard Fertig, New York 1985.

Alan O’Leary, Fenomenologia del cinepanettone, Rubettino, Soveria 
Mannelli 2013.

Catherine O’Rawe, Stars and Masculinities in Contemporary Italian 
Cinema, Palgrave MacMillan, London 2014.

Jacqueline Reich, Undressing the Latin Lover: Marcello Mastroianni, 
Fashion, and La dolce vita, in Stella Bruzzi, Pamela Church Gibson 
(eds.), Fashion Culture, Routledge, London 2000, pp. 209-220.

Jacqueline Reich, Beyond the Latin Lover: Marcello Mastroianni, 
Masculinity, and Italian Cinema, Indiana University Press, 
Bloomingtom-Indianapolis 2006.

Jacqueline Reich, Catherine O’Rawe, Divi. La mascolinità nel cinema 
italiano, Donzelli/Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia – Cineteca 
Nazionale, Rome 2015.

Joan Riviere, Womanliness as a Masquerade, in Victor Burgin, James 
Donald, Cora Kaplan (eds.), Formations of Fantasy, Methuen, London 1986, 
pp. 35-44.

Maria Laura Rodotà, La finnica e l’ultimo latin lover, “Corriere della 
Sera”, 23 giugno 2005, 
http://www.corriere.it/Primo_Piano/Esteri/2005/06_Giugno/23/gaffe.shtml.

Marco Travaglio, Peter Gomez, Marco Lillo, Papi. Uno scandalo politico, 
Chiarelettere, Milan 2009.

Vito Zagarrio (ed.), Il cinema della transizione. Scenari italiani degli 
anni Novanta, Marsilio, Venice 2000.

Vito Zagarrio (ed.), La meglio gioventù. Nuovo cinema italiano 
2000-2006, Marsilio, Venice 2006.

Proposals – consisting of a brief abstract (no more than 200 words), 
five keywords and a concise author biography – should be sent by 28 
February 2017 to the following email addresses: 
<(biancoenero /at/ fondazionecsc.it) <mailto:(biancoenero /at/ fondazionecsc.it)>>; 
<(e.biasin /at/ libero.it) <mailto:(e.biasin /at/ libero.it)>>; 
<(c.g.orawe /at/ bristol.ac.uk) <mailto:(c.g.orawe /at/ bristol.ac.uk)>>. Once the 
proposal has been approved, the deadline for the complete essay will be 
31 May 2017. The issue will be published on December 2017. Articles 
should be between 20,000 and 25,000 characters, and they will undergo a 
double blind peer review.

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