Comics against corruption

John Hooper
Monday December 12, 2005

Guardian

Ask a silly question, and sometimes you get a very revealing answer. The Italian satirist, Beppe Grillo, recently put a full-page advertisement in the International Herald Tribune to promote a cause dear to his heart. In Italy, there is nothing to prevent convicted criminals from being members of parliament. And since the Italian political class is well stocked with convicted felons, quite a few are to be found either in the Rome legislature or the European parliament making laws to add to the ones they have broken.

Is there, asked Grillo, "another state in some part of the world in which 23 members of parliament have been convicted of a variety of crimes and yet are allowed to sit in parliament and represent their citizens?" (Apparently, there is: Uzbekistan.)

Admittedly, a few of the parliamentarians on Grillo's list were found guilty of crimes that might not bother the electorate, such as libel, which can be a penal offence in Italy. But that still left plenty convicted of corruption, and even one or two who had been convicted of corruption twice. All but five of the names on Grillo's list belong to MPs aligned with Silvio Berlusconi's rightwing coalition. Thirteen are members of his party, Forza Italia!

Arguably, the bigger scandal is that people like Grillo are forced to take out advertisements in foreign newspapers in order to air their ideas to their fellow-Italians. The comedian's blog, which he claims receives 50,000 hits a day, is the latest in a string of attempts by Italian satirists to get around the fact that they can no longer get on television. All six main channels are owned by, or answerable to, Italy's prime minister.

Daniele Luttazzi, who disappeared from the nation's screens after being criticised by Berlusconi three years ago, took to the stage with a review and made a DVD subtitled, "Bin Laden can get on TV, but I can't." Sabina Guzzanti, whose projected series was pulled by the state-owned Rai after the first programme in 2003, recycled her material into a show with which she toured the provincial theatre circuit.

Dario Fo, who never really left the stage, made a video of his satire of Berlusconi, L'Anomalo Bicefalo (The Two-headed Anomaly), in a bid to reach a wider audience. Grillo pioneered the blog and has been followed by Luttazzi, whose site also includes a podcast downloadable as an mp3 file.

The single exception to the rule that anyone with something rude to say about the Italian government needs to find an ingenious way of saying it is Adriano Celentano. A hugely popular, if ageing singer-songwriter, Celentano showed earlier this year that he had the clout to demand - and secure - freedom from censorship.

His series of four programmes on Rai was the media event of the year. Some 11.5 million viewers watched the first edition, in which he spotlighted his country's ranking in the annual Freedom House survey of press freedom. Italy came 77th, which was below several developing nations. In fact, it had the same score as ... you thought I was going to say Uzbekistan, didn't you? No. Don't be ridiculous. Mongolia.