You are or you are not part of the Eurogeneration? To find that out, check out this commercial!
Have you seen that? Right, you do not speak German. In that case, my colleague Katharina, will explain to you what all the fuss is about:
“We are in Germany. A client of Media Markt, of blatant Italian origins, called Toni, asks a shop assistant in a strong Italian accent:
- A man, finally a man! Well, if you want to buy a TV set, to watch the football match for instance, you always need a man! Why? Because only a man knows about the technique and football. Women instead do not know anything about it!
Then a gorgeous female sales assistant passes by and our man changes his mind:
- I am sorry, "un attimo"
And talking to the beautiful girl he says:
- "Scusi", can you please tell me how that appliance works?”
So, how would you define this commercial?
1. Racist and offensive. I approve the official complaint letter sent by the Italian ambassador in Berlin, Antonio Puri Purini, I will support the boycott of the Media Markt products as Laura Garavini, Pd deputy elected in Germany, invites us to do. I am glad that Media Markt has decided to stop broadcasting the aforementioned commercial.
2. Simply amusing. I have travelled and lived abroad, I have got plenty of friends from all over Europe, and all these stereotyped jokes should not be taken personally. According to my experience, as an Italian, I was always greeted and welcomed with warmth.
Obviously this blog goes for the second answer and firmly condemns this curfew atmosphere everybody has been able to experience in Italy lately. Ours, from the outside, looks like a country under siege. And not only on commercials. A minister (Maroni) who would like to renegotiate the Schengen agreement on the free circulation of people to tackle the problem of Roma immigrants. The anger of many after the world’s surprise on the management of the rubbish in Naples. The deafening silence by the Democratic Party (centre-left) on the xenophobia accusations after the publication of the Security bill approved by the Government. Anti-Roma populist billboards belonging to the Democratic Party. Bottom line, Donadoni, might as well make as many efforts as it takes to deploy an aggressive Italy at the European Cup due to start soon… but the Italy of politics and the Italian society is freaking out on a more and more defensive position. It is the curfew politics!
Traduzione Alessandro Mancosu
Massimo has been pizza maker in Paris since 1970. At that time passport was still compulsory to travel between Italy and France. Travel or rather, immigrate! As all moving was, back then, far more definitive compared to the one we are used to nowadays. For Massimo, the conditions of the past do not seem to have changed a big deal: « Naples? I go back every two or three years. But every time I cannot stay there for more than one week. Last time I was not able to find anyone, the streets of the Spanish Borough (Quartieri Spagnoli) in Naples were deserted. Later I was told that everybody had been arrested!».
Massimo’s case might look too extreme, but for most of the immigrants, words such as «free circulation of people», «Schengen area», «Euro», «low-cost flights», «modern mass media» or «skype» - in short, twenty years of Euro-revolution and globalisation – do not mean much. Nothing like all those people who, by choice or by need, pack up their stuff and leave, to travel or to immigrate. E-migrants , with an «e» very fashion that rhymes with email, but that proceeds from afar...the Latin «ex».
Now back to our pizza maker. Massimo tunes up Naples songs from the fifties, songs that he knows by heart or a sparkling Laura Pausini in her best performance ("Marco se n'è andato..."), and even an Eros Ramazzotti with his distinctive flu-like voice ("Ed ho imparaaaaatooo che nella vitàààà...), while kneading the pizza paste with a Neapolitan know-how (unfortunately the mozzarella is from France!). But this does not prevent him from mixing up Italian and French, as much as he does with this tasteless over salted tomato that he mixes with artichokes dipping in vinegar, tasteless stuff that he pulls out an anonymous pot made in - God knows where !
This past Christmas my father offered me a Garzanti dictionary, just to take the piss, because he claims that, having spent a few years in France, I forgot my Italian. But next time, I will take you, dad, to Massimo’s and you will have to admit that his mistakes are far more blatant than those of the E-migrants, as big as a wooden oven !
© 2007 Decovich&Maccarinelli/ 
© 2007 Decovich&Maccarinelli/ 
© 2007 Decovich&Maccarinelli/ 
© 2007 Decovich&Maccarinelli/ 
© 2007 Decovich&Maccarinelli/ 
© 2007 Decovich&Maccarinelli/ 
© 2007 Decovich&Maccarinelli/ 
Adriano