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italian-studies: Scholarly discussions in any field of Italian studies Dear friends of JISC Italian Studies, I am Luca Martera and I’m an Italian media professional. Prof. Giuliana Muscio recommended me to write to you. I go back and forth between the US and Italy (Rome and Milan), and have done so since 2010. I make documentaries and TV specials on behalf of Italian TV networks involving lifestyles and current affairs tied to the history between the two countries (The Italian pioneers in the US, Fiorello La Guardia). I’m currently working on a reference book involving Italian movies released in the US from the Silent Age to the present. I have a media visa and I’m also looking for new job collaborations with US and European schools and universities. So, I’m writing to you because I would like to show your students my live documentary on how Italian cinema portrayed the US people from the Silent Age to now. It's a sort of hybrid between a stand up comedy show and an academic dissertation. I'll tell funny anecdotes about cultural differences between Italians and Americans, taking inspiration from Italian films. It will be a long journey through history, emigration, racism, sex, violence, music and comedy with a peculiar standpoint: Italian cynicism. Indeed, we adopted Hollywood stereotypes in our movies but “pimped them out,” so more sex, more violence, and above all more political incorrectness and never with traditional Happy Endings. The length of my live doc is flexible and I have material for an entire school semester. I analyzed thousands of Italian and American movies and documentaries, and maybe you might be interested in a multimedia research project to extend to other ethnic groups. So, how Hollywood and Cinecittà portrayed the Chinese, African-Americans, Mexicans, Germans etc. and vice versa. As a media maker, I can teach and develop a project according to your school programs. By the way, in doing my research, I realized that Italians were the first ethnic group to be shown as protagonist in Hollywood movies and not just in secondary roles. They have been exploited as have been African Americans and Asians as well, but because they are white (more and less) and they have more emotional and cinematic tools (mafioso, singer and latin lover set the stereotypes since the Movie Silent Age) than others, they have always been heroes and anti-heroes, from “Scarface” to “The Godfather,” from “Saturday Night Fever” to the “Sopranos.” Anyway, during my show I'll also screen recent examples of Hollywood stereotypes from the TV shows “SNL” and the TV series "Portlandia" to prove that Italians - in my opinion - are the only group to still be depicted in stereotypical ways, probably because the Italian anti-defamation league is weaker than those of Jewish, Black and Asian peoples. I hope you might be interested in developing this project with me. Here are the links to learn more about my show: English https://lucamartera.blogspot.it/2017/07/long-live-hollywood-stereotypes.html Italiano https://lucamartera.blogspot.it/2017/07/livedocamericanivistidaitaliani.html Thank you in advance for your consideration. Luca Martera ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: subscribe italian-studies YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, send the message: unsubscribe italian-studies to: [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/italian-studies