16 April 2010

Italian TV

Hey all, I am going to be in Cinque Terre this weekend, so I thought that rather than trying to rush my last Spain post, I'd pop in a post I've had up my sleeve for a rainy day. I present to you, my dissertation on Italian television.


I had a lot of fun with this one. :P

Italian TV is one of those weird phenomena. Like Bollywood. There really aren't that many channels, at least not compared to the 4-digit American digital colossus that the BCSP students are all used to. 

I thought I might share some with you, and see what you all think. Feel more than free to leave opinions.

 
A clip from the most-watched show on Italian television, Striscia la Notizia.

Two things:
1. When Michelle dances around in the opener, take a gander at those heels she's in.
2. Yes, the thing she's holding is literally a "Buttcheek Detector." She says it's to detect the "improper use of ciapett' [buttcheeks] on television." This is standard fare for Striscia la Notizia.

If you suspend your disbelief, it's really quite a lot of fun. In a lot of episodes, they have a puppy that hangs out on the desk with them, and generally makes a nuisance of himself. And there are always loads of unnecessary sound effects that add to the chaos. I can't tell if the strangeness is motivated by low budget or if it's cultural preference (Your opinion, Luca? :P). All I want to know is...How do Italian women stand up to this kind of pressure? It's a miracle all the 14-year-olds aren't having nervous breakdowns and developing bulemia.


Ms. Raffaela Fico from Cento x Cento, the game show we watch at dinner (roughly equivalent to Family Feud). Good gracious, woman. D:

If you don't have mile-long bare legs, six-inch heels, perfect hair, D-cups and a hot body, you're probably either 1) male or 2) supposed to be the ugly person. Hoo-boy! The Women's & Gender Studies majors would have a heart attack to see this stuff.

This commercial just weirds me out. It's for bidet gel. Perhaps it's my American sensibilities overreacting, but 0:10 just makes me uncomfortable on all sorts of levels, not the least of which is the fact that it looks just like those Neutrogena commercials with face-splashing shots...only it's not her face... >:S

Slightly lighter American fare. :3

In addition, I thought I'd share with you that I have officially watched and understood TWO un-subtitled movies in Italian--Inglourious Basterds was one, and recently, Dragon (Dragon-Trainer in Italian). I paid 13 jolly euro for it, too, to see it in 3D. The Italians only sell you -nice- 3D glasses. >>

Here's the trailer, anyhow. VERY cute movie. :B



BUT. I have to say, if I ever thought to complain about Italian TV, that promptly ended once I turned the TV on in Spain. It was about midnight, and I was waiting for my hair to dry since I didn't have a hairdryer, so I thought I'd surf the channels a bit. Here are my findings:

Total channels: 33 (Italy has 20 and change)
Channels that didn't work: 14

Channels that were hard-core pornography: 8-10


(After a horrified cycle through the channels, I just turned the thing off). Don't they censor these things at all? >: Highly unpleasant, really.

I really have grown to like Italian TV, though. The dubs are familiar (most of the voice actors are quite good, actually), and the original showsmake me laugh, always in good fun.

5 comments:

  1. While I can't really understand the first show, I can accept its existence like similar shows here. But how is that part of a game show? I just don't comprehend why (well, I guess I can, but still, seems completely irrelevant in something like Family Feud)

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  2. The game show part of Cento per Cento is a three-person game of guessing the popular opinion about a handful of random things, and then the two top people go head to head in a timed competition doing the same thing. They just happen to insert random segments of the girl doing little dances, when she's not doing her Vanna White thing.

    All sorts of shows have random women dancing for no other reason than to just have something attractive to look at, I suppose.

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  3. ...By the way, Nozzy, do we know each other? :)

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  4. We do in fact. I'd be the one waiting for you to go to an Italian theme park ^_^

    I guess I can understand it in the context of the whole (a Youtube compilation would seem random no matter what it was showing, now that I think about it) and can think of how we have similar things here as well. I had to stop watching most game shows since there's such a high spectacle to game ratio (not that I even watch TV anymore...).

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  5. Ah-ha! It took me a day or so, but I've figured out your mysterious identity. :P Although I think Italian theme-parks wouldn't nearly compare to the ones you're used to... There are a few that are close, one of which has nothing but dolphin shows, and the other called in Italian "Miracle-land," which I suspect is probably for five year-olds and their grandmothers.

    A really super-duper Six Flags would probably make a ton of money here in Italy, though--you should really get on that. You can probably fool the government into funding it, somehow...

    Don't worry, I don't really watch TV either, except occasionally for languagey practice, and to laugh at Chuck Norris dubs. ;D

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