Alec Messino

The Economic Miracle and Women in Italian Style Comedy

Introduction:
The variously distinct roles that women have held in Italian society are shown immensely

throughout Italian Style Comedy. These representations of women in cinema were only
further

complicated after the economic miracle. The increase of prosperity throughout Italy allowed for

films to become more excessive in their content. No longer were films about physical survival,

such as disease, starvation, and war, but now the issue mostly represented moral and social

issues. This shift of women characters in Italian society was portrayed directly through Italian

Cinema and in Italian Style Comedy specifically. There are three representations of women
most

dominant in Italy during the period during and after the economic boom. As Antonio
Vitti

highlights in his piece “The Critics Swept Away By Wertmuller’s Sexual Politics”,
these

representations vary by cultural background, political beliefs, and social class. (Vitti 121​122)

These representations or “stereotypes” can be interpreted as: the wife/mother figure, the whore,

and the savior. In this paper, I will examine these representations and the effect that
the

economic miracle had in producing them in three films: La dolce vita (Fellini, 1960),
Divorzio

all’italiana (Germi, 1961), and Le streghe (1967). Within the film ​Le streghe​, I will focus
solely

on the short film ​Una sera come tutte le altre ​directed by Vittorio
Sica.

Comedy in Italian
Cinema:
 Comedy has been a central part of Italian cinema since its beginnings. It has always been,

and remains, one of the most successful parts of the Italian film industry. Much discussion about

Italian Style Comedy has focused on the comedies’ relationship to the Italian filmmaking

tradition; in particular, the film's’ attention to everyday life, their representation of contemporary

social change and their use of realistic settings have led some commentators to view them as

continuing some of the concerns of neorealism. The director Ettore Scola, for example, has

described the genre as “the slightly degenerate offspring of neorealism.” (Pistagnesi 51) For

critic Jean Gili, the genre combined regional and variety theatre with the experience of

neorealism. (Gill 175) Others have traced Italian Style Comedy’s roots back through early Italian
film comedy, comedies made under fascism and the so​called ‘pink neorealism’ comedies of the

1950s. ​As Remi Lanzoni puts it: “These films used many of the stylistic devices of neorealism,

location shooting in recognizable places, working​class characters and themes, but heightened

the emotional charge of the narrative and ignored the socialist political agenda” A lot of people

in the industry had different definitions of what Italian Style Comedy really entailed, so there

wasn’t necessarily one concrete

definition.

Economic Miracle’s Effect on Italian

Cinema:

The economic miracle had vast effects on cinema. Neorealism, which had been a major

genre of Italian film in the prior period, was now struggling to hold on as consumers demanded

to see “less rags, more legs.” (Bizzarri 53) After a long cycle of fascist repression, poverty,

displacement, and unemployment, most Italians were ready to move on from the past and forget

the trauma that fascism and the war had brought. The war period also challenged gender roles

and the patriarchal society, as women entered the workforce and took on more dominant and

historically male roles. In response the church was on a crusade to stem the increasing
communist presence by reinforcing the traditional family roles: as Morris writes, ”the Vatican

used all the resources of the traditional parochial and hierarchical networks, and the new media,

to try to stem the communist threat by turning Italy into a model Christian country.” (Morris 53)

These parallel demands prompted a new type of cinema closer to the Hollywood style: a cinema

of comedy and romance. It also changed the ways in which women were represented in Italian

cinema and, more specifically, Italian Style Comedy. This was all a result of a changing of

gender roles in the modern world. Italian women had to enter the workforce to ensure the

economic survival of their family, which led to the portrayal of strong feminine characters
during

the war and post​war period​. ​These representations of strong feminine characters were

short​lived and soon again women in Italian Style Comedy would again be dependent on the

masculine.

Background: Women in Italian Families:

The post​war period resulted in many changes for Italian families. One important change

was the increase in isolation and solidarity of the family. While this brought greater autonomy to

the youth, it marginalized the women who were already in their typical socio​gender role as wife

or mother. Paul Ginsborg writes “the 1960s also saw a distinct shift in the woman’s role within

the family. With the new emphasis on house​based living and consumption, more Italian women
than ever before became full​time housewives.” (Page 244) The percentage of women in the

Italian workforce during this period was one of the lowest in Europe. (244) This served to

remove women from political and public life. While their male counterparts focused on

production outside of the home, the women focused on consumption inside the home. Thus, the

housewife became equated with consumerism, Günsberg states, “the status symbol of the

leisured, non​working wife, [was] soon to become stereotypically associated with a form of

parasitic consumption.” (Gunsberg 68) With more rights given to the younger generations, the
paternal influence became less stringent, leading to a crisis for the masculine figure in the

traditionally patriarchal society of Italy. This crisis is present in a variety of movies produced

after industrialization. The challenging of the patriarchal society that had always been a

dominant presence in Italy is what led to the manifestation of these gender roles in film.

However, they are at times contradictory. The wife/mother was the only remaining figure subject

to the masculine, but she is often represented negatively in the films of this period. These

representations all lie in the hindrances that are represented by the feminine as well as what the

feminine represents. The new material world, manifested in the consumerism of the wife,

becomes a threat to the male. It is her representation of the post​industrial world, the ability of

her to consume and live a life of luxury that is of a threat to the masculine, for the old patriarchal

structure has little place in the modern world. Many representations of this period depict women

in this traditional role as the consumer driven housewife, further solidifying society’s image of

women as “parasitic
consumers.”

Una sera come tutte le altra ​ Le streghe (1967):

​ e encounter Giovanna played by

In the short film ​Una sera come tutte le altre, w
Silvana

Mangano; a housewife who is no longer happy in her role as her husband and Carlo, played by

Clint Eastwood, who has desexualized Giovanna. The film begins with Giovanna imagining

Carlo enticing her to come to bed, telling her “I want to swallow you.” It is an intensely sexual

moment for Giovanna, but Carlo barely registers what is being said to him as she recounts her

fantasy. For the first three minutes of the film, Giovanna is in the kitchen cleaning while Carlo

inhabits the living room, where he is lounging. While in the living room, he barely bothers to

acknowledge her. Here in this scene, there is an absence of the generally persistent masculine

gaze of the feminine. Giovanna wishes to be seen, wishes to exhibit herself, but her husband will
not look at her. As a wife she becomes undesirable: as Cottino​Jones writes “the woman is the
man’s exclusive property and her asexuality the site of his honor” (Cottino​Jones 132). Giovanna

is isolated in this film, stuck inside the house while Carlo is able to leave the house to work, and

she is made to be asexual, as her husband has no sexual desire for her. The film is a compilation

of Giovanna’s brief interactions with Carlo and her exhibitionist fantasies. It is the absence of the

gaze that births Giovanna’s consumerism, as it is only in her fantasies that the viewer is made

aware of it. In one of her many fantasies Giovanna recounts the dissemination of herself as a

sexual object to her husband. In this fantasy she is still confined to the bedroom, but in every

scene she is wearing different lingerie: a clear signal of superfluous

consumerism.

It is through her fantasies and frustration with her husband that the viewer is allowed a

true taste of the isolation felt by housewives brought by the new prosperity following the

economic miracle. Giovanna’s narrative voice speaks to the viewer of her frustration of being a

slave to a sultan, her husband. Furthermore she is not only a slave to her husband, but she is a

slave to a husband who is effeminate himself, which debases her further. Where a man once had

dignity, he is now slave to a man in a suit. Unlike Emma and Rosalia, who will be discussed

later, Giovanna is not happy with her “kitchen and bedroom” lifestyle. Maybe she would be

happy if she ​had a​ n active bedroom life. Giovanna wishes to be seen as a sexual object but her

husband will not allow this, Giovanna tries to hold the gaze of her husband, she plays to

masculine desire but she is incapable of holding the look. It is not the masculine that subjects her

to the gaze, it is she herself who subjects herself to the gaze. As a wife, a mother, she is no

longer sexually desirable to her mate, a theme common in Italian films of this period. Though it

was still taboo at this time to discuss the sexuality of a woman the subject is at the forefront in

this film. It is interesting to note that in films where the point of view is inhabited by the man, the

woman or women in the film act merely as an agent in the progression of the story of the male
protagonist. Budd Boetticher states “What counts is what the heroine provokes, or rather what

she represents. She is the one, or rather the love or fear she inspires in the hero, or else the

concern he feels for her, who makes him act the way he does. In herself the woman has not the

slightest importance.” (Mulvey 27)

In this short film, though the woman is the protagonist, she is not the leader of the plot

line and it is not the male who is simply there to serve her needs, as the feminine character would

do in a male generated plot. The woman is still the one serving the needs of the male. It is the

lack of action of the male figure that spurs along the plot line. Though the film may be
progressive, as it is told from the feminine perspective, it is still the male who guides the scene

and the plot. It is his actions that spur her narrative, her fantasy, their love in the bedroom, and

even the end of the film, as it is over when he, not she, falls asleep.

La dolce
vita:

The wife figure in ​La dolce vita i​ s also undesirable to her mate. Emma, played by

Yvonne Furneaux, inhabits the role of wife/mother as she is Marcello’s long​time girlfriend.

Marcello criticizes her “kitchen and bedroom” view of life. It is the excess in her nurturing and

her concern for Marcello that make her so undesirable. Though she encompasses all that a male

could seem to desire, it is the fact that she dotes on Marcello that repulses him. To Marcello,

Emma’s suffocation is what hinders him from finding the pleasure, or moral fulfillment that he

seeks. Emma does prove to get in the way of his work on two occasions. The first time the

viewer encounters Emma it is after she has attempted suicide and Marcello must take her to the

hospital. The second time is when Emma insists on accompanying Marcello to the miracle

sequence. It is the hindrance that the wife/mother figure represents that makes her so undesirable

to her mate. Her hindrance is also reminiscent of the new prosperity enjoyed by Italy. A woman

previously would not have had the time to incessantly worry about the love afforded to her by
her lover; she would have been busy working, taking care of her family, and trying to survive.

Her excess of emotion is a manifest of the economic miracle.

Emma constantly overwhelms Marcello. She is portrayed by a very beautiful actress and

we often see her in her undergarments. It is obvious to the gazing viewer that Emma is an

attractive sexual being. However, this is no longer obvious to Marcello. Once a woman is made

into a wife/mother figure she is no longer permitted to be desirable, Mulvey asserts: “she [the

wife/mother] is isolated, glamorous, on display, sexualized. But as the narrative progresses she

falls in love with the main male protagonist and becomes his property, losing her outward

glamorous characteristics, her generalized sexuality.” (Mulvey 29) As the camera allows the

voyeuristic viewer to gaze at Emma this is not something done by Marcello, who constantly

avoids her throughout the film. This is especially clear in the sequence when Emma and

Marcello are on their way to the miracle. Emma dotes on Marcello, acting as the quintessential

nurturing wife and mother figure. However, Marcello obviously doesn’t want this, and he rejects

of all that she offers him: the coffee, the banana, the hard​boiled egg also serve as a

representation of their relationship; for, Marcello also rejects Emma. Emma is not what Marcello
wants, and as hard as she fights he will never be faithful to her. Because Emma is over​nurturing

her love cannot be reciprocated, because it detracts from Marcello. And at the end of the day,

Marcello is the man and it is his needs that need to be

satisfied.

Divorzio
all’italiana

The wife/mother figure is also represented as naïve, unattractive, and overbearing in

Divorzio all’italiana​. Just as Emma restricts the pleasure that Marcello seeks, Rosalia, the wife

in ​Divorzio all’italiana ​impedes Fefé from achieving his desire. It is the masculine pleasure, and

the masculine search for moral and self​fulfillment, that is important to these films, not the
feminine. ​Rosalia is also represented as having a “kitchen and bedroom” lifestyle. She has no

other

concern in the world outside of Fefé and her home. ​Divorzio all’italiana ​is filmed from the point

of view of Fefé, the male protagonist and husband of Rosalia. It is due to this representation that

the viewer sees Rosalia as unattractive and unintelligent. Fefé minimizes Rosalia because he no

longer finds her sexually attractive and is ready to move on to someone he finds more sexually

enticing. This is the tale of an aristocrat who wants a divorce from his wife. However, divorce

was not made legal in Italy until 1974. Fefé devises a plan to get his wife to cheat on him so that

he may find her in a compromising position, and therefore not have his honor jeopardized. Italy

still had a law that gave sentences of only 3​7 years if a man killed his wife, sister, mother, or

daughter to protect his own honor. The same opportunity was not given to women. However, the

humorous treatment of this movie allows for a social commentary, on both the feminine

condition and the absurdity of Italian societies. It is a society that only recently had become

industrialized but whose societal norms were still old​fashioned. Cottino​Jones writes, “the film

delivers an important lesson of social criticism, by making its audience very aware of the

contradictions and unfairness of a social system that concentrates all authority, and even the

power of life and death, in such a despicable character” (Cottino​Jones 132). ​Divorzio

all’italiana ​may represent stereotypical feminine characters, but these characters offer a social

critique of the Italian relationship between men and women: women can be wives, whores, and

saviors; but never all three. Your wife can’t be sexual, and your mistress can’t be nurturing.

Through the absurdity of the situation and the portrayal of Fefé the viewer is made to question

the social and especially feminine condition in

Italy.
This focus on women inside the home was only possible because of the change in the
economic situation in Italy. Before the economic miracle, Italian films, and the women in them,

focused on issues of survival. In this new era, women are inside the home. Italian woman outside

the aristocracy had never before had the opportunity to be housewives: they were mothers who

had to work in fields, farms, and factories. This new society of consumerism was what allowed

for and created these films. There was a shift in focus from survival, to pleasure. Emma and

Rosalia are modern characters because they play the role of ​casalinga, ​but they cannot be

portrayed in a positive light because they represent consumerism and also hinder the masculine

goal or journey.

The Mother/Wife, The Whore, The Savior:

La dolce vita i​ s a commentary on the moral decay of Italian society after the economic

miracle. Bondanella, in his piece “The Cinema of Federico Fellini​”, ​writes that“​La dolce vita i​ s
a

contemporary world cut adrift from traditional values and symbols, especially those of

Christianity, and bereft of any dominant cultural center...a world of public relations, press

conferences, paparazzi, empty religious rites, meaningless love affairs.” (Bondanella 147) It is

truly a film of excess. Maddalena, one of Marcello’s acquaintances, is also defined by her

excess. While the wife figure is defined and characterized by her consumerism inside the home,

the whore figure is defined by her excesses outside the home. These excesses are both materialist

and sexual. When the viewer first encounters Maddalena at the nightclub she is a strong,

independent woman. She walks into the club by herself and orders a drink, Cottino​Jones says of

Maddalena “as soon as she appears on the screen framed in full​length shots, she shows a clearly

masculine bearing.” (Cottino​Jones 108) Her face masked by her glasses signify both her

powerful masculine role and her material excess. Maddalena wears these sunglasses at night

inside, clearly their role is merely for style, they are unnecessary. As Cottino​Jones affirms, “she

also uses her gaze from behind dark sunglasses in a masculine way.” (Cottino​Jones 108) The
gaze, however, is focused on Maddalena in this scene, but not in a sexual way. She commands

the shot. This continues throughout our first meeting with Maddalena. She and Marcello leave

the club and it is Maddalena, not Marcello who drives. The role of the driver is typically

associated with power, with the masculine. Maddalena picks up a prostitute on her drive around

Rome with Marcello. It is still Maddalena who commands the scene, it is still Maddalena who

the gaze is thrust upon, in such a way that it connotes power and not sexuality.

This is Maddalena holding the power and the

gaze.

However, along with this power and independence, Maddalena is also set up as a whore,

more so than the literal prostitute. In fact, it is she who sleeps with Marcello in the bedroom of

the prostitute. The viewer is allowed to feel sympathy for the uneducated prostitute who is

doomed to live in poverty, because for her there is no other choice. It is not sympathy the viewer

feels for Maddalena, who acts as a whore merely out of boredom, not out of necessity. A woman

cannot have power without being a whore. And it is the power that Maddalena commands that

ultimately unravels her.

The next time the viewer encounters Maddalena is at an aristocratic party outside of

Rome. Again, it is Maddalena who takes control from the start. It is she who initiates contact

with Marcello, “[Maddalena] playfully sneaks close to [Marcello] from the back and covers his

face with a veil, in defiance of the traditional use reserved to veils... one may read Maddalena’s

action toward Marcello as an attempt to... suffocate his masculinity.” (Cottino​Jones 109)

Maddalena also separates herself from Marcello when they later have a serious discussion. It is
Marcello who in these scenes portrays the role of the feminine lover. It is in this final scene that

Maddalena finally loses her power, and succumbs to a man. Not only does she do this, she

professes herself as a whore. Previously Maddalena had held the shot, and the gaze but in her

final scenes we see her vulnerable, succumbing to another man’s will. Finally, in her last

moment, her face is completely obscured by the man. It is her role as an independent woman that

necessitates her demise. It is as if a woman simply cannot be in control in a man’s

world.

Maddalena also poses a threat to the father figure. Maddalena is autonomous because her

father is wealthy. However, unlike women in the pre​war period, a father’s wealth wouldn’t

signify an autonomous daughter. The new Italian society allowed for women to be independent

from their fathers. Ginsborg confirms this by saying, “for the young, urban life offered many

opportunities not previously available... the young found that they enjoyed greater freedoms
than previously... authority structures within the family became less rigid, as did paternal control

over the family’s finances.” (Ginsborg 243) Maddalena does not only pose a threat to a male

lover by encapsulating the masculine gender role, she also poses a threat by being an

autonomous daughter. Her father even laments her independence in the movie. Because her

father’s face is never seen, the Italian male viewer is able to commiserate with him and his

jeopardized
condition.

The role of the savior is often characterized by her purity, connection to nature, or her

religious affiliations. In Italian film the role of the savior does not have to represent sexual

purity, in fact she may be the embodiment of desire. Such is the role of Sylvia in ​La dolce vita.

Sylvia is a Hollywood actress. Her blonde hair and nice body is sexually appealing, but it is a

body of a woman and a body to be desired for by men. It is not the strong, slender body of

Maddalena, but Sylvia represents salvation for Marcello. Sylvia inhabits the traditional
characteristics given to a woman. She is beautiful, well endowed, and plays on her assumed lack

of intelligence. Sylvia is also repeatedly shown as being close to nature. She wanders through the

streets of Rome with a kitten that meanders from her arms to her head. She howls with the

wolves. Sylvia is most comfortable in nature, it is here where she stops acting and starts being

herself. Sylvia wades into the Trevi fountain in Rome, and it is here where Fellini lets his viewer

know that Sylvia offers Marcello some sort of salvation. As Marcello takes off his shoes to get

into the fountain with Sylvia he says to himself “She is right! I am doing everything wrong. We

are all doing everything wrong”. He reaches Sylvia, who reaches out to him with water in her

hands. It is almost as if she is baptizing him. But alas, the water turns off and the moment is over,

Bondanella declares “Paradoxically, this blond bombshell actually personifies the very essence

of spontaneous and innocent sensuality, but when Marcello joins her in the fountain, it

mysteriously ceases to flow, a clear sign of his spiritual impotence.” (Bondanella 147) Sylvia,

however, cannot be saved by the masculine world. Even she isn’t close enough to the ideal

feminine figure to be saved in ​La dolce vita. I​ t is her femininity, and her awareness of it, that
gets

in the way of the happiness of her jealous lover Robie. And therefore, she too must be put back

into her
place.

The only woman in ​La dolce vita ​who is saved from excesses, and therefore makes it

through the film, is Paola. It is Paola’s face that we see at the end of the film, not Marcello’s.

This signals both the hope and purity of Paola. Paola represents the final salvation for Marcello.
She is both pure from materiality and from sensuality, “with her beautiful and angelic face, she

stands for innocence and self​reliance, an authentic breath of fresh, clean air, within the corrupt

and useless existence of Marcello and his debauchee friends.” (Cottino​Jones 115) She

encompasses the ideal woman for a Christian Italian man. Hope is given to Paola at the end of
the film, which ends with a framing of her face because she embodies the perfect feminine

characteristics. She is beautiful, quiet, and submissive. Unlike Emma or Rosalia, she does not try

to push her desires onto the masculine, but she is there if he wants her.

Angela represents salvation, but she also represents the whore. From the point of view of

Fefé, Angela is his salvation. Angela has the ability to save him from his uneventful life. For

Fefé Angela is the embodiment of the perfect feminine character. She is religious, as she goes to

school with nuns. She is pure, as she has yet to be touched by a male. And she loves him, as he

surmises from her own words in the garden and then from the letters she sends him once she is

taken back to school. What Fefé doesn’t realize, however, is that he also represents salvation for

Angela. Angela is the daughter of a controlling and jealous father who subjects her to

gynecological examinations by nuns to ensure her virginity. She too needs to be saved, and she

needs Fefé just as much as Fefé needs her. Fefé cannot see this, as is clear from the narrative, but

the viewer is skeptical from the very beginning. Angela does not give kind glances toward Fefé

and at times she seems to be faking her love for him. Finally at the end, the viewer is

gratified and Angela is shown in her true whorish light. As Fefé kisses Angela, she caresses the

foot of the young Sailor. Unlike Fellini’s ​La dolce vita, t​ hough the woman may be absent from

the film, her character is not used simply for the gratification of the masculine, she is also

self​gratifying.

Angela and Fefe as Newlyweds

 Angela caressing the foot of the young sailor

Through the condemnation of these feminine figures materialism, excess, and greed
are

also condemned. The Italian society after the economic miracle was seen as immoral and lacking

religiosity by many filmmakers of the time. There was a call for a reformation of society. The

characters of the wife/mother figure are largely fated due to their ties with consumerism: their

excess is observed in their overwhelming relationships with their husbands. The whore is

doomed because of her sexual and material excesses. What all these characteristics have
in

common is that they are also dangerous to a patriarchal structure. Underlying all of
these

negative portrayals is the need to condemn a woman and society for the crisis in their power. The

wives hinder the male from succeeding in finding fulfillment. This fulfillment can be for

pleasure, morality, or sometimes both. They also portray this new social structure in which the

male power is in jeopardy, for the housewife is a symbol of consumerism and industrial society.

Representing a powerful woman as a whore is another way to condemn this new society
and

press for traditional gender roles. It is the danger to the masculine dominance posed by
the

feminine that necessitates these negative representations of women. At the root of these new

feminine figures is the economic miracle, which is what ultimately initiated and empowered a

change in the role of the feminine, whether it is mother/wife, the whore, or the saint.
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