Gender, Race and the Colonial Archive. Sexualized Exoticism and Gendered Racism in Contemporary Italy

Abstract

My article focuses on particular forms of exoticizing discursive practices produced and reproduced in Italy through the most popular and transgenerational media. Three television shows will be taken into consideration: Licia Colò’s Alle falde del Kilimangiaro, Bruno Vespa’s Porta a porta, and Alfonso Signorini’s Kalispéra!. The latter two are particularly well-known for their coverage of Berlusconi’s sex scandal involving the Italian-Moroccan under-age Karima el Mahroug alias Ruby ‘Rubacuori’. Alle falde del Kilimangiaro will be contrasted with the ferocious attacks in the media (video and newspaper) by a number of political forces and cultural opinion makers against former Italian Minister for Integration Cécile Kyenge (2013). This discussion will also analyze the discursive strategies employed by both El Mahroug and Kyenge against the exotizing and openly inferiorizing discourses built around them.