“There is a myth currently circulating about Italian masculinity. Italians do it better.”Considering Italy’s claim to legendary icons of virility like Casanova, Don Giovanni, and Maciste it’s no wonder. All Italian men are masculine, right? Well, it depends.

 

Through the medium of film, we will explore the ways in which patriarchal family structures, fascism, and mafia culture have influenced, and continue to inform, dominant conceptions of masculinity in Italy. Masculinity will be treated as a performative construct, shaped by evolving socio-cultural and political concerns. The films screened will span several decades and cross multiple genres in order to trace the various ways mediated performances of masculinity sustain, destabilize, satirize, and/or revise stereotypes of Italian masculine identity (the Latin lover, the mafioso, the maschio italiano, and the mammone). Students will deepen their knowledge of competing notions of masculinity through exposure to alternative ways of ‘being a man’. We will focus primarily on male protagonists in ‘crisis,’ especially men who perform ‘failing’ masculinities: absent fathers, fallen patriarchs, ‘feminized’ men, impotent lovers, and isolated elders.