Gender and Commedia all'italiana

Gender and Commedia all’italiana Feminist film theory has been applied extensively to various films and film genres since the rise of the second wave of feminism in the 1960s and the 1975 groundbreaking essay by Laura Mulvey titled Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Alongside the feminist thought, the gender studies field has emerged and with it, the notion of gender as a social construct and the theory of social constructivism (see Berger and Luckmann 1966; West and Zimmerman 1987; Butler 1990). While a variety of definitions of the term ‘gender’ have been suggested, this paper will use the definition proposed by Judith Butler (1990: 43) who saw it as ‘the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being’. Indeed, Judith Butler’s idea of gender performativity is nowhere better visible than in the commedia all’italiana films which often engaged in a dialogue with the rapidly changing ‘sexual mores, the crisis of sexual identity, and the new openness with regard to everexpanding horizons of decency’ (Brunetta 2003: 184). There is a long tradition in Italy, of socially-involved cinema. As noticed by Mary P. Wood (2005: 181), Italian popular cinema since mid-1950s have been deeply engaged, although not always directly, with the problems of changing morals and values in the patriarchal society and the consequential threat posed by it to the figure of traditional Italian man. Although comedies are by definition a lighthearted genre, the commedia all’italiana movies dealt with important questions and themes, some of which are still valid in the 21st century Italy where violence against women and femicide rates are worryingly high (Karadole and Pramstrahler 2011). By looking closely and analyzing the Italian style comedies the sources of gender inequality and prejudice can be found and exposed. Thus, the aim of this paper is to investigate how commedia all’italiana movies present and perform gender roles and stereotypes. It will examine the way in which men and women behave in relation to each other and what happens when someone dares to transgress the boundaries of their gender’s role. The consequences of the rigid and pre-ascribed gender roles will also be discussed - for example violence towards women, inability to accept modernity and so on. Additionally, part of the aim of this work is to raise awareness of gender inequality persistent in European communities and to encourage gendered discussions and feminist approach to Italian cinema. 2 In order to do so, two movies were chosen in particular, namely Sedotta e abbandonata (Seduced and abandoned) directed by Pietro Germi and released in 1964, and La ragazza con la pistola (The Girl with the Pistol), a 1968 film by Mario Monicelli. They both share the main theme, that of a seduced and later abandoned woman, and they both deal with the consequences that follow extramarital sexual activities in the conservative society of Sicily. They differ, however, in their treatment of the topic, protagonists, the endings, and finally, the overall message and purpose. Sedotta can be seen as a sharp critique of the Italian society and its morals concerning family, gender roles and women, whereas La ragazza can be described not only as a critique of society but also a statement on social changes and rehearsal of new morals [CITATION]. By looking closely at these two examples one can find evidence that they tend to discuss common themes such as gender roles, struggle for control and power, contrasts between modernity and tradition, to name just a few. They use an array of cinematic techniques in order to convey their messages. The first section of this paper will examine the sexual encounters in the films, how they are presented and what consequences do they implicate. The second section will look at the gender roles and how they are performed by the characters; finally, the third section will focus on the disparities between the modern world and the traditional society of Sicily followed by closing conclusions. Main body 1960s were the Golden Age for the Italian cinema, and especially the comedies, in both quantity and quality of the works produced (Bondanella 1996: 142). Pietro Germi, first associated with neorealism, gave rise to the comedy ‘Sicilian style’ with his 1961 film Divorzio all’italiana (Divorce Italian Style). The worldwide success of his movie (including several Oscars) encouraged him to made Sedotta e abbandonata in 1964. Although considered of lesser quality than Divorzio (Micciché 1995: 102), it is nonetheless a brilliant and ironic satire on the traditional mores of Southern Italy. As stated by Roberta Di Carmine (2012: 463), ‘(…) Sedotta e abbandonata successfully staged the weakness, hypocrisy, masked cowardice, and ignorance of provincial Italy’. Similarly, Mario Monicelli’s 3 La ragazza con la pistola, was never considered a revolutionary or innovative film in his cinematic output. It was overshadowed by masterpieces such as I soliti ignoti (1958), considered the pioneering work in the filone of Italian comedy, La grande Guerra (1959), or Amici miei (1975). Nonetheless, it remains an interesting movie from the gender and feminist studies perspective for its unusual treatment of the protagonists and a twisted approach to the narrative with a rather surprising ending. Interestingly, Germi and Monicelli co-worked on several occasion throughout their careers and it culminated in Monicelli taking over Germi’s project and brainchild, Amici Miei, after his untimely death. Both movies discussed here share the common themes and open with the same narrative plot. But while La ragazza can be classified as Commedia al femminile, Sedotta is more of a Commedia antimatrimoniale, with both being gender-specific strands of Commedie di costume (Gunsberg 2005: 64). SEXUAL ENCOUNTERS In both Sedotta and La ragazza a similar statement is made at some point in connection with extramarital sexual intercourse – it is a man’s right to ask and a woman’s duty to refuse. This perfectly illustrates the unwritten codes of the Sicilian society and the controversial practices of fuitina and the following matrimonio riparatore. Fuitina in theory is an elopement of the young couple consensual on both sides. It opens however a way of potential abductions and rapes as it was for example in the famous case of Franca Viola in the 1960s. Both films loosely resemble the tragedy of Franca, who was kidnapped and raped but she refused to marry her abductor. The practice of rehabilitating marriage is widespread in patriarchal cultures, and recently in Turkey there has been protests opposing a bill that would pardon statuary rapist if they married their victims. In Sedotta, Germi manages to show the ridiculous laws of the 1960s Italy, when it is made clear that Peppino would be absolved of rape charges if he married Agense. It is worth mentioning that back then, rape was a crime against public morality and family order according to the Italian Code of Criminal Procedure, rather than a crime against a person. It was classified together with crimes such as carnal violence, adultery, 4 fornication, abortion and bigamy, and was only changed to a crime against a person in 1996 (Everhart 1998). Both movies base their plots on this conflict of extramarital sexual tryst followed by refusal (of either one or both sides) to marry. The seduction scene in Sedotta takes place inside the house of Don Ascalone. Agnese, a 15-year old school girl, is secretly in love with her sister’s fiancé who boldly takes advantage of it and seduces the young prtoganist. Interestingly, the scene is recounted twice in the movie, first time it is Agnese’s perspective as she confesses to the priest; the second time it is Peppino’s version given in front of the magistrate. Agnese’s version opens up with several shots of the sleeping family, they are resting after the pranzo, the only people awake are Peppino and Agnese who is studying. Here, the man is the active one, she approaches Agnese first, wooing her with poetry reciting. She is clearly uncomfortable with his advances and escapes to the kitchen; Peppino followes her and once cornered, he starts to forcibly embrace and kiss her. At the beginning reluctant, Agnese gives in to the passion and the couple retreat to the garden after accidently breaking a glass. In the later version, as recounted by Peppino, Agnese is depicted as an oversexualized seducer, smoking a cigarette and making clear advances towards uncomfortably behaving Peppino. A reversal of roles of sort follows, where she is the active part whereas the man is the passive and scared one. This imagined seductress, confident and sensuous, can be read more in terms of unfulfilled desires and dreams of Sicilian men rather than reality. The constant play between the lovers of staged refusal and shyness, and the hovering feeling of uncertainty of what really happened and whether the sex was consensual is emphasized by the local policeman’s utterance: ‘She says no and you put no? You think we’re in Treviso? This is Sicily, no could mean yes’. Additionally, Germi subtly but firmly points towards the role of Catholic Church too. Agnese not only confesses her sin to the priest, who does not seem to take the confession’s confidentiality too serious, she also repents harshly (see Image 1) and the omnipresence of the priest in all local matters of the town confirms its importance. It is also conveyed in some shots where religious artifacts play prominent or even dominant role (see Image 2). 5 Similarly to Sedotta, La ragazza begins with the act of dishonor, i.e. an extramarital sexual encounter between Assunta and Vincenzo. Here however, it does not take place inside the house but outside, Assunta is abducted by mistake (it was meant to be her plumper cousin) but she happily gives in to her kidnapper as she is secretly in love with him. The scene depicting their encounter follows a traditional pattern of a comedy – a mistake has been made but Assunta cannot immediately show her content, she firmly holds against Vincenzo, who on the other hand, steps into the role of macho. He assures her he prefers her cousin Concetta whereas she keeps on insisting she doesn't want him but since he has dishonored her by abducting her in front of the whole town he must now marry her. The beginning of the scene is shot in medium and long distance shots, gradually introducing more close-ups as the couple gets more intimate. Vincenzo offers a glass of water to Assunta, and Monicelli uses racking focus to move from a medium shot to a close-up of Assunta’s face as she gulps the water with apparent thirst. The stuffy heat of the South together with Assunta’s thirst stand symbolically for carnal passions and lust. Vincenzo then asserts once again his dominating male position by simply standing up and, again in a close-up, puffing cigarette smoke straight into Assunta’s face. Although her desire was already made obvious she must pretend in order to follow the social norms of a woman whose duty is to resist the lust of a man. Again, Monicelli manages to create a comical effect by make Vitti’s character slightly overdo her resistance, she acts in a slightly exaggerated manner and throws in phrases like ‘I am like a piece of ice’, just to give up instantly when Vincenzo asks her to hug him. The whole scene takes place outside the town, in an old abandoned farm where Vincenzo made his hiding place. He leaves Assunta while she is still asleep, and when she wakes up, she discovers to her horror that she has been abandoned. She returns to the village dishonored and faces the town crowd in disheveled clothes and messy hair. The previously empty town space now is full of men with Assunta’s female family members in the middle (see Image 3). The black clothing of the crowd stands out against the white walls. The scene resembles a theatre scene with silent townsfolk as the audience and the family as actors. But here it is not an ordinary theatre but the theatre of gender roles. Everybody has an already assigned 6 position in this drama. Despite this, Assunta’s fiancé refuses to avenge her, claiming that it is the duty of her male family members. In an almost farcical way, he blames the kidnapping on Assunta because she dared to go outside the house to buy aspirin with her cousin and mother. The female protagonist is forced to assume symbolically a male role and pursue her infidel lover on her own as she does not have any living male relatives. The narrative ventures outside of Italy and follows Assunta to Britain, a country well under the social revolution of the 1960s, where she transgresses the female role as defined by Sicilian norms. Already the title, The Girl with the Pistol, suggests something unusual - a woman possessing a gun. This phallic symbol of power, oppression and violence is eventually dismissed by Assunta who learns that justice can be achieved in different, more peaceful ways. She also symbolically asserts control over her body and her fate as she slowly changes her clothes, wigs and her overall style throughout the movie. She assumes the female role but not that of traditional Sicily but modern Britain. In the final scene Monicelli recreates the first scene but with reversed gender roles. Assunta takes her vengeance on Vincenzo by first seducing him and then leaving him alone as he did previously to her. He is not only put to shame because his lover left him but also because she put him into a female role – something shameful for a man coming from a traditional society. But also for Vincenzo, the UK becomes a sort of sexual paradise where he is free to engage with as many women as he wishes without having to marry them or face a vengeance from their families. Extramarital erotic activities are officially banned by sexual mores prevailing in Sicily, but unofficially, men are expected to engage in them whereas women, if they want to remain honorable, must refuse. Only marriage sanctions sex for women. Women are thus denied their sexual subjectivity and are reduced to being mothers depended on their husbands. Female desire is not to be fulfilled or even expressed. This attitude is reflected in the way women are handled by men, with much violence and little regard to their bodily freedom. Agnese’s and Assunta’s fault doesn’t lie in them having extramarital sex per se, rather in the failure to adhere to the rules guiding such transgressions and the consequent refusal of the women to marry their lovers. 7 GENDER ROLES Gender roles are clearly delineated in both films and only outside of Italy the character played by Vitti dares to overstep her prescribed role. Women are scarcely seen in public places; they are usually confined to domestic spaces. Agnese and her sisters are passive throughout almost entire movie whereas their father actively seeks out solution to his problems. Assunta in La ragazza only takes action because she is forced to do so by the circumstances. Already the opening scene of La ragazza establishes harsh divisions between the male and female spheres of life. While a modern 60s diegetic tune is played by a group of men dancing on a rooftop, women are hidden inside the house, behind the blinds, dancing too. Each group is strictly segregated by sex which results in a comic situation where men have to dance with other men while women stay apart from them. Monicelli exaggerates the comic angle by pairing the tall and handsome main antagonist with a short partner (see Image 4). It is telling that women are portrayed through the metaphorical bars of a window shutter as if it were a prison, they are enclosed by the window frame and again by the entire shot which portrays them from the outside (see Image 5). While women stay inside the house during the heat of a Sicilian day, men enjoy the outside with the view to the sea and light breeze. In Sedotta, Germi also shows clear spatial divisions between male and female environments. While women are depicted mainly inside houses engaged in domestic chores, men are seen outdoors, often in public or working spaces (see Image 6). When Agnese decides to take action in order to save Peppino’s life and goes to the police station to denounce her brother, she triggers a string of events that end up in front of the local magistrate. There, Agnese is unable to stand her ground in the presence of men, she becomes sidelined and overwhelmed by them and fails to give her own testimony of what had happened between her and Peppino. It is seen in the way the shots are framed, where Agnese is physically pushed out of the frames whereas the men take all the prime space, towering over the girl with their big bodies (see Image 7). 8 Sedotta opens with a scene that already firmly establishes both the socio-historical context and parameters of acceptable gender behavior enforced by the Sicilian society. To the tune of a non-diegetic song telling the spectator the story about to unfold on screen we see Agnese, the female protagonist, walk through deserted town together with a maid. For those familiar with Italian culture and traditions it is obvious that the setting is Sicily – it is betrayed by the women’s black outfits and the characteristic architecture. Agnese is on her way to the church in order to confess that she has sinned with her sister’s fiancé. It is telling in itself that she is accompanied by the maid. Indeed, throughout the movie, we barely ever see the female characters outside of the confinement of the house, and if, they are never alone. Women who are respected do not venture outside without a chaperon. The climax scene towards the end of the movie is a mirror-image of the first scene: Agnese is dishonored and though accompanied by her family (who are also dishonored by her behavior) she is not protected by her virtue anymore. A crowd of local men await them in the main square, in the following close-up shots the camera is shaky as if we were walking through the crowd, slowly moving through the mass of male faces smiling knowingly at the culprits. The blocking shot with Agnese’s face and body obfuscated by those of the men is a poignant commentary on the narrow-minded Sicilian society (see Image 8). The family struggle to get inside the house and Agnese is abducted by the men trying to prevent her from escaping her fate, which would be forced marriage, the only thing that could erase her wrongdoings and bring back her good name. Her helplessness and unfairness of the situation is most visible when even a young boy manages to stop her by imitating a cowboy’s pose (see Image 9). Agnese is hunted down like an animal, vividly depicting woman’s status in the Sicilian society – she can be whatever she wants to be as long as it is a traditional role of a daughter/mother/sister, with the only other choice being that of a whore, a puttana. This dichotomy has been researched by many, notably Fullwood (2015) who labels it a ‘Madonna/whore binary’. If a woman dares to transgress those imaginary boundaries, she is reduced to an object that needs to be put back in place. In what Marjorie Garber calls a ‘category crisis’ within the narrative, Agnese is corrected by the society, including her own mother who screams ‘Stop her’, so that the narrative can reach an ‘acceptable and expected 9 conclusion’ (Pichietti 2004: 116). She is brought back home, within the boundaries of her gender role, where she lies in a state of hysteria and expresses her wish to live in Milan, the faraway big city in the North. Ultimately, in Sedotta, the category crisis is overcome and the film ends in an expected manner – with the forced marriage of the young couple and Matilde, left with no one to marry her, joining a convent. Those ‘corrections’ do not happen in the void and they often involve quite brutal handling of the female body. Women are metaphorically and literally manhandled in order to keep the status quo and conform to the accepted social mores. Agnese is not only locked up as soon as her father learns about her pregnancy, she is also forced to be examined by a midwife, beaten up and shoved around. In a patriarchal society, where the man’s honor is defined through his woman’s physical purity and virginity is the prerequisite of marriage, ultimately women lose any control over their bodies and their privacy. Don Ascalone reads his daughters’ private correspondence on several occasions and he feels entitled to do so while their mother keeps detailed record of their menstrual cycles. Don Ascalone, Agnese’s father, is a rich and respectable member of the local community, and a well-connected too. He often resorts to sheer violence in order to achieve his goals and does not shy away from slapping and beating his daughters, his daughter’s fiancé, and even strangers. What is perhaps surprising to the modern spectator, is the fact that those brutal outbursts do not cause much stir among the onlookers and participants in the film. Men are expected to behave in this way, especially the pater familias, and Don Ascalone assumes his role with much vivacity. Already the first shot of him establishes his position of confidence and power (see Image 10). In a close-up shot we see a big and well-fed man, his size emphasized by the framing which cuts part of his head and broad shoulders. He is wearing glasses and reading aloud a letter to his family gathered around the table. As the reading is finished we learn that the letter is a private correspondence between his daughter and her fiancé, Peppino. This clearly shows Don Ascalone as the sole ruler of the minds and bodies of his family, he not only controls his daughters’ behavior, he also checks on their private activities. Don Ascalone is painted by Germi with a grotesque flair, most visible in the depiction of his body. He sweats constantly and his stoutness hinders his movements (see Image 11). Don 10 Ascalone’s outbursts of rage verge on the comical and his generous manners and loud behavior mimic those of stereotypical Southern characters. Despite his often brutal behavior he gains the spectator’s sympathy as a genuine and likeable father-like figure who desperately tries to protect his family. In opposition to this robust figure, his son is presented as an anti-thesis of what a man is supposed to be in the collective Southern psyche. Throughout the movie he is rather inept, quiet and unable to perform what is expected of him. His failure to adjust to the gender expectations culminates in the unsuccessful attempt at Peppino’s life. Antonio Ascalone does not manage to restore his family’s honor and thus fails as a man. Upon learning that he must kill Peppino he faints and falls ill. When he finally sets out to his task his pursuit of Peppino is almost farcical, with Peppino running away in church clothes and the coward Antonio finally throwing the pistol at him instead of shooting. While Don Ascalone is certainly an exaggerated persona, he does have traits of what could be called un Siciliano medio. The very last scene of the movie is a medium shot of a sculpted bust of him, most probably a cemetery one, with an inscription that reads ‘Famiglia e honore’, a legible display of Sicilian values embodied by Don Ascalone (see Image 12). The assumption that men are allowed, and even excepted, to have many sexual encounters whereas women have to remain ‘pure’ and its implicit double standards are best shown by Monicelli in the figure of Vincenzo. He is reminiscent of Don Ascalone in that he could be described as a stereotypical Southern man, with perfectly groomed moustache and profound belief in men’s superiority over women. When he calls Assunta for the first time in Scotland, he blames his escape on her because her ‘behaviour was not that of an honest woman’. He goes on to explain that she should have resisted him, he calls her several times puttana, but as soon as he hangs up he turns around and starts flirting with two young blondes. Even more interestingly, the Italian women in the film also seem to believe these outdated schemata. They fall into the trap where they keep reproducing the beliefs and stereotypes fed to them by the surrounding society, they reinforce them by labelling other women who dared to transgress the boundaries of their gender by words such as puttana (whore), svergognata (shameless), disonorata (dishonoured). 11 Although men also use these words in reference to women, it seems that women use them more often. It is most visible in Assunta’s behavior, who repeatedly calls British women puttane for their apparent lose morals. Already at the very beginning of her adventure in the UK she stops in shock when a couple passionately kiss in front of her on the street. Only gradually, she learns that what she was taught in Sicily was just one of many lifestyles existing in the world. She starts to understand what Simone de Beauvoir and Judith Butler described as constructed gender – that we are not born into our gender but instead we learn it. It is a social construct that differs between cultures and societies. In both movies gender roles are rigid and extremely traditional; women are mostly seen inside or in domestic environments performing tasks such as cooking, cleaning or sewing. Men, on the other hand, belong to the outer sphere, they gather in public places where they talk, smoke and gossip (as observed by Natalie Fullwood in Cinema, Gender and Everyday Space). On rare occasion both men and women gather together in either the town’s square or an office or church. It is usually to resolve a problem but even then, the bulk of the conversation and activities is done by men. MODERNITY AND TRADITION Contrasts between modernity and tradition, the coming of the new society where women are more emancipated, Sicily as the ultimate ‘backwards’ region of Italy. Also the issues of poverty and materialism of the economic boom (Italian maids in the UK), the clash between two different countries on the opposite poles of moral spectrum. The great transformation and how it changed the South, the economic boom. Exodus from the South towards the North and from the rural areas towards the cities (Ginsborg 1990: 32). La ragazza tells the story shared by many Italian women of the South who ventured to the UK in search of a job as maid. It is perhaps in this film that the differences between rural, traditional Sicily and the North of Europe are most striking. Monicelli throws his characters into a completely foreign setting of the UK where not only language is an obstacle for them but also customs. This obviously serves the comical purposes, for examples where Assunta shuts the door at a kilted Scotsman assuming he 12 must be some kind of pervert, but there is a deeper meaning to it. The characters’ behavior becomes visible out-of-place in the modern country that fully embraced the cultural revolution. The conservative ways do not belong there and cause much amusement and confusion. Probably the most visible change takes places in the sartorial department. Assunta arrives in the UK dressed all in black, with extremely long hair coiffed in a rather traditional braid. She is immediately confronted, and contrasted, with her future employer, who has short hair and is dressed in bright pink (see Image 13). However, as time goes by, Assunta’s style evolves and she becomes as fashionable as any other woman in the UK (see Images 14 & 15). The change in clothes reflects a more profound change that takes place inside Assunta. As she is confronted with the British society, she starts to see her own country from a different perspective. She no longer sees women who are free to sleep with men as whores, she in fact engages herself in an affair, and takes up a job in modelling. When her love interest, Dr Osborne, asks her how has she been doing, she answers by showing him her legs starring in an advert (see Image 16). This poignant comment on the bodily freedom of women is the director’s answer to the stifling moral rules of Sicily. The gigantic pair of female legs, followed later by an extreme close-up of Vitti’s lips (see Image 17), are a powerful symbol of the new era coming. Assunta’s transformation is completed with her abandoning the quest of avenging herself by killing Vincenzo, instead, in a subtler way, she repays him with the same coin he gave her. The film ends in a manner unusual for the Italian comedies, with no wedding but also no deaths. Assunta takes a ferry to rejoin Dr Osborne, Monicelli shots Vincenzo as he runs on the pier towards the departing ship, it is followed by a close-up of Assunta’s face puffing a cigarette, then the last shot of the film is a medium shot of Vincezno as he says: puttana eri, e puttana se rimasta. This scene can be read as a metaphor of Sicily, trying to catch up with the fastchanging morals and norms, but it ultimately fails as the mentality of people cannot be easily changed. The recurring vision-like dreams of Sicily in Assunta’s mind provide a powerful contrast to the modern Britain. As Assunta tries to reconcile the two worlds she is haunted by nightmares, where she returns back to Sicily only to be scolded by her family for missing the target. In this imagined Sicily, the sea is rough and the town is lashed by squally wind. Assunta is 13 dressed in a long lose black gown which resembles a tunic or a toga (see Image 18). She moves against the wind in theatrical movements evoking comparisons with the theatre of ancient Greece. She tries to shoot Vincenzo, who shows up suddenly, dressed in the Scottish kilt. The next shot shows Assunta now scantily dressed and with blonde wig on. She finds herself surrounded by the town’s women, all in black and with solemn faces (see Image 19). Separate from the women are the men, all in black trousers and white shirts. They throw offences at her, laughing at her shame. This again, harks back to the ancient theatre traditions, where the chorus provided comments to the play and acted as one entity. Here, the men and women of Sicily are metaphorical representations of the old ways of life, the guardians of the traditional values. They provide an exaggerate contrast for the very liberal lifestyle in the UK. In both films music plays an important role as an indicator of modernity. When Peppino rests in his room he is listening to modern tune ‘Guarda come dondolo’ by Edoardo Vianello. As he relaxes on his bed with a small radio in the background lures a big statue of Madonna, a visible contrast between the traditional values and religion and the modern revolution (see Image 20). The confusion and uncertainty that will come with the new gender roles and changing mores is reflected in Peppino’s rhetorical question asked to his reflection in the mirror – ‘who am I’? The opening scene of La ragazza is a close-up shot of a brand new portable audio player playing 1960s pop rock. In Sedotta, the clash with the modernity is doomed to fail from the beginning. The rigid social rules do not allow the tragic couple to follow their desires, they must fulfil the request of the tradition and get married although none of them wants that. The traditional way of life as presented in the films is obviously completely incompatible with the new changes coming. But what is more, and what Germi manages to show brilliantly, is the ultimate failure of the old ways to accommodate the needs and desires of either men or women. In the end, neither Peppino nor Agnese end up happy, and Don Ascalone dies trying to restore the status quo. Assunta, who at first rejects the modern morals and patterns of behavior, eventually gives in and embraces her new lifestyle in Britain. It is poignant that it is a female character who manages to adapt herself and ultimately enjoy the new lifestyle. Vincenzo, on the 14 other hand, although seemingly happy in the UK, does not open up to the new ideas of sexual liberty and female emancipation. Interestingly, it is also the female characters who tend to uphold and disseminate the old traditions (for example, Assunta expresses these several times in the movie: ‘The true man must show, and the true woman must defend’; ‘What is this woman? Puttana’; But you’re a man! Are you missing something in your head?). The traditions and customs of the South does not allow for sexual freedom. Everyone has to perform their gendered roles even if they do not agree with them. As pointed out by Di Carmine (2012: 465) ‘the characters of the commedie all’italiana desperately try to become part of the new, modern society, but they inevitably fail’. Conclusions The findings of this work suggest that in the comedy Italian style, especially in its certain strands, gender stereotypes were often reinforced to highlight inequality but also to create comic effects. Because of Italy’s conservative character it was impossible to address the issues of sexuality and sexual norms in a direct way, and commedia served as a great medium for presenting the issues without necessarily offending people’s sensitivities or drawing the Church’s censorship. In the case of La ragazza and Sedotta, the theme explored by the directors is that of the notion of honor and its links to female sexual purity and abstinence. Additionally, the place of women in the modern society is discussed, especially in La ragazza, and the problems of social changes are also present. The concept of a film that rehearses the new moral codes (La ragazza) and that which satirizes them (Sedotta) becomes confirmed in the way the two movies end and the disparities between the final fate of its female protagonists. Nonetheless, no matter how progressive, they are still films that show women from a male point of view and through the male gaze. Also, as noted by Andrew Higson (1989), European national cinemas tend to work from top till down and it involves the most progressive elements of the society. It is thus obvious that the cultural elites would be involved in fighting the outdated customs, with the rest of the society not necessarily following suit. 15 The rigid gender roles and codes in the oppressive patriarchal society lead to inequality between men and women, absurd situations and enforced unions that work to no one’s advantage. Monicelli seems to blame especially women’s inability to to take up work. It becomes visible that women’s inferior economic status and the link, especially in the South, between female entrepreneurship and prostitution were major hindrances in obtaining independence from men (Hipkins, 2016: 313) (for example, we do not know what would happen if Agnese had enough money of her own to actually escape to Milan). The extremely enlarged female body parts in La ragazza could actually be read in the context of paid work for women as associated with prostitution. Modelling was long regarded as a job for women with loose morals where models were often forced to perform sexual acts in order to advance their careers. Perhaps Monicelli is pointing here to the illusion of freedom in the Western developed countries, where on the surface the societies seem egalitarian but deep beneath they too remain sexist and exploit the newly found female freedom. Ultimately, these two movies become great satires of outdated customs that constrain not only women but also men and are often cause of grievances and problems that otherwise could be easily solved. These findings enhance our understanding of the links between gender, sex and moral codes and their use in commedia all’italiana. Although this work is based on a small sample of movies, it clearly demonstrates certain patterns in the use of gender roles and stereotypes in Italian films. Additionally, this research complements and adds to the already existing, but still rather small, pool of gender and feminist studies in Italian cinema. Due to spatial constraints this work has only examined two films within one genre, and did not venture outside it. While it makes the findings less generalizable, it also encourages other scholars to explore this issue and examine more closely Italian films from a gender perspective. 16 Filmography La ragazza con la pistola (1968), Mario Monicelli Sedotta e abbandonata (1964), Pietro Germi Bibliography Berger, P., L., Luckmann, T. (2011) The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York, USA: Open Road Media. Bondanella, P. (1996) Italian Cinema: From Neorealism to the Present. New Expanded Edition. New York: Continuum. Brunetta, G. P. 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(2005) Italian Cinema. Oxford, N.Y: Berg. 18 19 Appendix Image 1. Agnese’s penance. Image 2. Big cross in the middle of the town. 20 Image 3. Assunta covered in disgrace faces her family and townsfolk Image 4. Men dancing together to modern music. 21 Image 5. Women seen through the closed window blinds. Image 6. Women sewing together at home. 22 Image 7. Agnese overwhelmed and pushed aside by the men. Image 8. Agnese blocked by the crowd of local men. 23 Image 9. Cowboy and cattle Image 10. Don Ascalone as the head of the family. 24 Image 11. The grotesque body of Don Ascalone Image 12. Honor and family. 25 Tradition and modernity Image 13. Assunta arrives in Edinburgh. Image 14. New modern style. 26 Image 15. New hairstyle too. Image 16. Assunta’s legs in an advert. 27 Image 17. Assunta’s lips. Image 19. The ancient tragedy. 28 Image 19. The choir. Image 20. Peppino rests in his room. 29