Catwalks

Usually the summer months marked by the migration of millions of Italians towards tourist resorts to enjoy the well-deserved and carefree holiday period, mark a marked decline in daily television consumption. The head is elsewhere, thoughts and worries are reset and the cathode ray tube often remains silent and closed in the house to boil in the heat. Only the magical appeal of the various news programs remains almost unchanged, the events of the day are the daily bread that Italians cannot give up: it may be habit, hunger for information, cult of gossip or pure and simple habit, but the evening appointment remains a cult for generations.

The war in Ukraine and the justified concerns that it raises with the new block on wheat exports have had a permanent place in the lineup for more than a year, Italy first burned by Charon and then scourged by a hail capable of damaging the turbines, piercing the wings and forcing a Boeing 767 to make an emergency landing, in the absence of sensational last-minute news, opens the cover of every news programme, but the real novelty/revelation of each edition is the image of the politicians of the current government. It is clear that, compared to the more or less seaside ones of the past, the current team is decidedly aiming for a much more sober and institutional look, with the summer heat political activity seems to have undergone a surge in clear contrast with the period of relaxation, prime ministers and ministers are intercepted and promptly brought back to work on various national and international tables in a succession of initiatives, high-level summits and proposals that apparently know no summer truce, first and foremost impeccable clothes. Only Salvini goes on video every day showing off sweaty and unbuttoned shirts, perpetually "on the move" followed by the cameras and his loyalists, he proceeds with the breathless pace of which he is constantly busy and is very keen to make it noticed while he shoots his annual proposals in the summer heat of amnesty to make the holidays of the many tax evaders who vote for him happier and lighter.

It seems like the usual catwalk for television, the photograph posed to calm and reassure the great electorate, but with a few more quirks compared to past seasons; the government of action has objectively managed to build itself and earn a media spotlight precisely in the critical period of maximum disruption, to place itself in the right perspective of those who aspire and can set a good example without making it weigh... it remains to be hoped that it is not just a good operation of television marketing, and that many words can be followed by concrete actions.


Michelangelo Dotta
NP August / September 2023