One hundred years have passed, but Italy doesn’t seem to want to get rid of a cumbersome surname: Mussolini. The fact that in the centenary of the “very fascist laws” a Mussolini returns to the forefront of the nation could appear to be a dire omen, especially if the Government has a party that is struggling to free itself from certain ideological shadows and outside the parliamentary chamber a Generalissimo (Vannacci) is growing in consensus. But in reality, in this case, we can rest assured: the analogy is above all onomastic, or rather patronymic: for her niece Alessandra, who wins the “Big Brother VIP” televoting, democratically designated queen of a certain rubbish TV with 56% of the tele-preferencesagainst Antonella Elia stuck at 44%, the surname has always been a cross and a delight.
He certainly benefited from it, like an income, to intertwine, in almost fifty years of career, with cinema (his debut, at fifteen, in a few shots next to his aunt Sophia Loren in that masterpiece which is A special day) politics, spanning roles and parties and above all popular television, from a Baudesque Sunday in the 1980s to the disguises of Such and Which Show, up to reality shows and Big Brother. History repeats itself twice, the first time as a tragedy, the second as a farce.
From the gravity of the twentieth century we are catapulted into its overthrow, with the Duce’s granddaughter triumphing in the Canale 5 televoting. From speeches to the crowd at Palazzo Venezia or from her grandfather’s shirtless threshing of wheat to shouting with Antonella Elia in front of her granddaughter’s dishes to wash: a Mussolini has entered the basin of television trash and an Alessandra has emerged.
