Last November, I found myself in a glass elevator speeding to the top of the Mole Antonelliana tower in Turin. I wasn’t there for the view: I had exactly 59 seconds to persuade Antonio Pennacchi, one of Italy’s most important writers, to read my novel. Even more nerve-racking: My elevator pitch was live on camera.
Months earlier I’d quit a well-paying marketing job in Milan to pursue my dream of becoming a published author. I’d gone from high-achieving to surviving on soup in record time; I’d write one page and delete three. My friends advised me to quit. “Nobody reads anymore,” they said.
And then along came “Masterpiece,” Italy’s first reality TV show for writers. Responding to an open call, I submitted a draft of my book and was selected along with some 70 other contestants.
I spent the next few months running a bizarre, televised literary gantlet. I typed out responses to writing prompts as my words scrolled across a screen overhead; I wrote birthday cards for passers-by in the Turin streets. Last month, the winner received a book deal with Bompiani, a major Italian publishing house, including a 100,000-copy print run. I came in second. Unexpectedly, Bompiani decided to publish my book as well.
The show, which aired on Rai 3, a channel of RAI, Italy’s national public broadcasting company, earned only a modest 500,000 average viewers per episode. But it was popular on social networks and garnered an unusual amount of international press (admittedly, hardly all positive) for an Italian production. The Italian literati gleefully panned “Masterpiece” from its debut, arguing that its premise made a mockery of the writers’ craft: The solitary, often banal process can’t be turned into “challenges” or sound bites, they said. And of course, they’re right. But these criticisms miss the bigger picture: In post-Berlusconi Italy, maybe it will take a TV show to make books cool again.
Today, on average, Italians watch TV for over four hours a day; about one-third have made at least one application to a televised quiz show. Italy’s rate of TV viewership is among the highest globally, behind that of the United States. But America is also by far the world’s largest national book market, by publishers’ revenues. In Italy in 2013, according to the country’s National Institute of Statistics, 57 percent of the population hadn’t read one book for nonacademic or nonprofessional reasons. Some 10 percent of Italian households did not own a single book. According to the 2013 Survey of Adult Skills by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, nearly 70 percent of the country of Dante and di Lampedusa is unable to “understand and respond appropriately to dense or lengthy texts.”
At the government level, however, no steps are being taken to promote a literary culture. Italy’s culture budget was cut by over 50 percent between 2000 and 2011, particularly following the economic crisis, when arts funding was first on the government chopping block. Programs like France’s National Book Center, which awards grants to writers who have published at least one book, and Missions Stendhal, which helps young authors travel abroad, are glaringly absent. Instead, Italians have television.
In its early days, TV played a significant, unifying role in a country with deep but diverse cultural pockets and a short political history. Says Aldo Grasso, a professor of radio and television history at Catholic University in Milan, “Since its birth, television was the main source of information and knowledge for most Italians.”
In the 1960s, when widely divergent Italian dialects predominated, TV helped popularize an “official” version of the language. A show called “It’s Never Too Late” taught basic literacy, hosted by a schoolteacher and supported by the Ministry of Public Education. The program followed the national elementary school curriculum and was augmented by books and materials published by RAI.
Over time, however, RAI began to move away from public service, introducing a lineup designed to compete with private channels launched in the late 1970s and ’80s. Most of these stations were soon scooped up by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his Mediaset group, which eventually became the country’s largest commercial network. In the 1980s, sexist representations of women proliferated, notoriously including the veline: young, attractive women who served as window-dressing for game shows and news programs. In the ’90s, there was nothing strange about seeing scantily clad women dancing on tables during prime time; a 2006 study indicated that over one-third of girls under 12 aspired to become a velina.
These days, the velina concept pervades Italian media. It is common for otherwise staid news articles to feature commentary on female politicians’ outfits, shoes and hair. Last year Laura Boldrini, the speaker of the lower house of Parliament, criticized the sexism of Italian television and advertisements; she received rape and death threats.
Even on “Masterpiece,” female contestants were much more readily typecast. Because I am a young woman, producers who hadn’t read my work called me the “chick lit” writer; my prose was praised because “usually when women write about feelings they use too many words.” Comments like these often left me discouraged by the road ahead in a country where writing by men still sets the standard (the Premio Strega, Italy’s major literary award, has gone to only 10 women since 1947, with the last in 2003). Still, the show respected my ambition to write; the judges critiqued my literary efforts, not my appearance. Given that women have for years most frequently appeared on the Italian small screen in various stages of undress, this is a noteworthy step.
In recent decades, television has become Italy’s national compass. The medium has done significant cultural damage, but its pervasiveness also makes it our most effective, and perhaps only, tool for change. “Masterpiece” is not perfect, but it may at least be a reminder to Italians that reading and writing are worthwhile endeavors — indeed, endeavors that still exist. Programs like it should be encouraged, not belittled; the alternative will only be worse.
Raffaella Silvestri is the author of the forthcoming novel, La Distanza da Helsinki.