“I rebelled against the harassment, I found my photos on a porn site”. “There’s a critic who sends pictures of his penis to actresses and if you rebel, they’ll be slammed”. “When she realized I didn’t want it, she slammed me against a wall.” It is the typical phrase of female actresses victims of harassment. Every day the number of revelations increases. Nevertheless MeToo in Italy has never taken off. The movement that has marked the revolt of women in the United States against abuse in the world of entertainment has always struggled to take root in us. He left, in fact, alone Asia Argento the weight of battle. But it was still aimed at events that took place overseas, those that concerned the producer Harvey Weinstein.
The discussion was revived in the last few days by an interview with Republic Of Margaret Laterza, actress and daughter of the famous publisher Giuseppe. Margaret worked with Pupi Avati, Luca Barbareschi, Claudio Collovà, Sergio Rubini. That world knows him well. What did he explain? “After an audition, the director lets me know that it went very well and that he is in his office, who would like me to go and say hello” He insists, she replies: “I really care about that role, I auditioned, it went well, what’s missing? He replies that maybe I don’t understand how it works”.
Then he tries it with feelings: “He told me he was in love with me, that I was very good, he praised me in front of the crew. Then when he realized it wasn’t enough he got angry and started with psychological abuse, made of excessive reproaches, and physical ones. Once he slammed me against a wall ”. At the time, the actress still says, did not report. They were different times and different sensibilities. Margherita concludes: today things are no different. And she gives another example: “In another production a director had a complex and fragile personality, he needed constant recognition. He was so nervous that a colleague came to ask me to sleep with him, he said to me: do it for all of us ”.
But if Me Too has never exploded in the media in Italy, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t those who have decided to assert themselves. Cinzia Spanò, president ofHamlet association which was created to spread the issue of harassment in the world of entertainment. Collect testimonials. Not only actresses, but also screenwriters, costume designers, photographers. More than a hundred. It’s not easy to act. Because after a year, certain crimes become statute-barred. Because there is still so much fear of retaliation in the environment. The accuser fears being left out of the loop. Some harassments also come from the worlds closest to entertainment: “The critic who sends photos of his penis to actresses is a well-known story”. But too many, says Spanò, laugh about it. And whoever tried to rebel has received only slating from that moment on.
Today there are half a dozen proceedings pending against acts of predation by filmmakers in Italy, Spanò explains to Republic. A seventy-year-old director has ended up in the crosshairs of dozens of professionals: they said they were touched, kissed and penetrated without consent. Victims of the power of the role and manipulated. There are also those who have found themselves the victim of revenge. Of a case of revenge porn. Unbeknownst to him, the protagonist of a video passed off as porn. It happened when one of the staff uploaded nude scenes from a Shakespearean production onto a well-known red light portal, accompanied by vulgar and humiliating descriptions. The site ignores takedown requests. “A friend saw her and she warned me. But when I told the director about it, she just said: I’m sorry ”.