Italian TV Programs

Recently, I met a British lady who teaches English in Rome. She has been living in Rome for over a year. She told me that she misses watching her own country's TV programs. I perfectly understood her. I, myself, is a big fan of BBC. We started to discuss about Italian TV programs and reached a conclusion: we, being women, watching Italian women, no matter at what age, from 18 to 70,  on TV, wearing high heel shoes, mini skirts, exposing breasts(some natural - built, I believe, others man-made) as much as your eyeballs can take, heavely make-up like layers of cake. Worse of all, these women standing with male hosts on the stage are often as objects to be made fun of.

I have been watching a certain types of TV programs on Rai channels which I'd like to make comments on regarding different aspects.

The most common free broadcasting TV channels in Italy are Rai and Mediaset.

RAI – Radiotelevisione Italiana, known  as Radio Audizioni Italiane until 1954, is the Italian state owned public service broadcaster controlled by the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance. RAI is the biggest television company in Italy. It competes with three major private television companies, Mediaset, Telecom Italia Media, and Sky Italia.

News reporters on Rai often hold a 4-form size leaflet in hands and they drop their eyelids to read news on the papers. It's an act which I'm not used at all. I can't recall when and where I saw a news reporter read news like that for the very last time before moving to Rome, Italy. Thus, I did not reserve my curiosity to raise my question after I got to know an Italian friend named Cristina. She was surprised and confessed to me that news reading on TV doesn't bother her at all , even when I pointed it out to her now, she wouldn't consider a change is needed. Later on, I met a TV news reporter from Belgium and I mentioned to him the Italian way of reading news on TV. He stated that it's indeed a curious case but Italy does keep some specific features which are different from other EU countries.

Rai Channels, in general, hardly provide exciting nor interesting programs. But there is one program that impressed me deeply. It's on Rai 3, every Saturday evening from nine to eleven, seasonal. The name of the program is "Ulysse", and TV presentator is Alberto Angela. The first time I watched his program was some time in 2008. Today I still could recall the episode I watched then. It was about Pompeii, an ancient town well established long before it came under Roman hegemony.  On August 24, 79AD, Vesuvius unexpectedly awoke, and the violence of the eruptions brought one of the biggest disasters in the human history. Pompeii, one of the nearby towns which was hit the most terribly, entirely remained buried under a layer of  more than six meters deep, from which hardly any humans as well as animals were able to escape. Not until the18th century, the buried town was uncovered and came miraculously to light. Nowaday, the archaeological site of Pompeii attracts millions of visitors from all over the world. The three-hour long  documentary TV program showcased Pompeii with historical evidence as well as the technical method of modern research . It was a great film.

Since then, I followed some of the "Ulysse" episodes. Later on, I got to know an Austrian diplomat who is currently  posted in Rome. He told me that he had been watching Alberto Angela's program since he was a high school student in Austria, which means in the early 1990's. In fact, the program he watched then was called "Super Quak" which was more in the direction of science, created by Alberto's father Pietro. By the time when Alberto took over the program, history and human interaction blended into it, making it more a story-telling style. The Austrian diplomat was learning Italian when he started to watch the program. He is fluent in Italian after gratuating from college, majoring in Italian language and literature. Recently, he managed to get an autograph of Alberto by buying his newly published book on the Roman Empire.

 Ancient Pompeii uncovered, behind it stands Mt. Versuvius

I had no idea how to justify Italian humor until I started to watch the program of "I Soliti Idioti" (The usual idiots) on MTV Italia channel. It is an Italian sitcom (situation comedy)  broadcasted by MTV Italia. The protagonists are the various characters of the sitcom starring Francesco Mandelli and Fabrizio Biggio, transmitted for the first time on 12 February 2009, up to date airing 38 episodes in total.

Each episode consists of unique sketches in which each of the two protagonists appear, played by Mandelli and Biggio, with the appearance of extras that are sometimes inherent to the story but almost never interact directly with the main characters. They in general reflect daily life in Italy, i.e. father and son's relationship, routine office job, inefficient post office service, etc. Among these the two-gays sketch and the two catholic fathers sketch are the most extraordinary. A gay couple tries in every way to have a child, which results in ridicule as most of the time they ask the pharmacist for the meter to check for pregnancy.The other sketch consists of two men of the church (Father Boy and Father George) who work at the Vatican, showing other priests and the Pope the most extravagant ways to increase the consent of the public towards the Catholic church and Jesus Christ. 

In one way or another , humor could be the most effective weapon in mankind. Whatever humor, British, Chinese, Jewish, or Italian, it makes its people laugh, think and then perhaps change.

"I isoliti idioti" defintely made people who understand Italian society and culture laugh and think,  and probably a bit of change is happening. It's the hardest thing to measure.

In short, "Ulysse" is the program mainly focuses on culture and history, meanwhile "I isoliti idioti " showcasing daily life of Italians in an amusing way. For outisders, the above two programs are  the ideal combination to get a true glimpse of Italia.

Visiting Vatican Museum

Last Sunday morning, on the 26th June, I accompanied my mother, who is visiting me in Rome currently, to the Vatican Museum.

It was 10:30 when we arrived at the Vatican. I did not realize that it was the last Sunday of the month, when the museum opened to visitors free of charge, until I caught sight of people queueing along the tall wall of Vatican. It was a long long queue stretching from the museum entrance to the other end which almost reached St.Peter Square. Summer holidays just started, visitors from all over the world are pouring in.

On Sundays, the museum closes at 2:00 in the afternoon, and the last entrance admission is at 12:30. I did not think we would manage to get in the museum by queueing at the end of the line. While I was standing near the entrance trying to figure out the above mentioned entrance rules, my mother started a conversation with a group of five people who were queueing. My mother is the type of person who could break boundaries quickly with strangers. She is a naturally born diplomat. After a few minutes, she signalled me to approach the group and introduced me to them. They were seniors, coming from my home city Guangzhou, China. They were doing a European excursion. Eventually both my mother and I became part of the group and we entered the museum together at about 11:00 AM.

Vatican Museum is always a pleasurable place to visit. Such a treasure for the world to admire.

We strolled around until 1:30PM. We were exhausted, thirsty, and hungry. Vatican Museum always makes visitors feel this way at the end of the tour for there is so much to see, to absorb, and so many stairs to climb. Be prepared for it.

I was listening to my Ipod to keep my spirit up. After listening to all the uploaded songs, I switched to radio channel and it was one o'clock news, talking about the recent controversial debate between Italy and France. I read about it the day before in the news which the title was : "Florence requests Mona Lisa's return, Paris says no way":

Florence, 24 June (AKI) - Italy has launched a campaign to convince the Louvre Museum in Paris to lend the Mona Lisa painting to Florence's Uffizi Gallery in 2013 to mark the 100th anniversary of its recovery following one of history's most famous art thefts.

The Italian Culture Ministry and the Province of Florence have jointly launched an appeal to the French to lend them what may be the world's most famous masterpieces, but the prestigious French museum said the painting is not in the condition to withstand the trip south.

Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa was briefly displayed in the Uffizi in 1913 after being recovered in a Florence hotel two years after its theft from the Louvre.

That was the last time it appeared in Italy and only one of three times the work was displayed outside of the Louvre, according to a statement posted on Thursday on the Province of Florence website.

Starting with Italian politicians, the initiative aims to collect at least 100,000 signatures to be sent to France in around six months, the statement said.

"This is not a declaration of war against France. It's an appeal aimed at collaboration," said Silvano Vinceti, the head of an Italian Culture Ministry historical society jointly organising the petition along with Florence.

"The Gioconda has left the Louvre museum three times. It can do so again," he said, referring to the Italian name for the Mona Lisa.

On Friday the Louvre released a statement saying that Mona Lisa is "extremely fragile" making it 1,100-kilometer trip to the Tuscan museum "absolutely unimaginable."

Interesting cultural event,isn't it? Italy owns so much historical treasure, however, just the absence of one Mona Lisa makes Italy feel there is something missing in their culture.

long queue alongside the wall

queueing









At the Sistine Chapel, no flash is allowed.