Author: admin

Let me tell you from someone who knows John Oliver quite well, living in the United States for years and following him since he worked alongside Jon Stewart on the Daily Show.
Other than that: “He's just a comedian!”. Oliver's episode on Italy is a political speech: otherwise it wouldn't be possible to explain why whoever shared it didn't do so with the informal spirit of someone who wants to have a laugh (“Hey raga, feel how strong this is!”) but with the sacred attitude of someone who has just come into possession of a shocking international document and is preparing to reveal the “Truth” to a people incapable of seeing beyond a veil of tricolor Maya.
The well-known Freudian perversion of Italians, who enjoy when they are spoken badly of abroad in order to be able to give free rein to anathemas against their fellow countrymen (with the premise, let's be clear, but they are different), it has something to do with it up to a certain point.
In recent times, all the American newspapers venerated in Europe as custodians of the Absolute Truth such as New York Times, il New Yorker or the Washington Post they dealt with Italy, now telling of a country subjected to Putin's fake news, now prey to a rogue nostalgia for fascism by virtue of which it refuses to kick down the buildings built during the Twenty Years, now immoral to the point of insisting on trying those accused of sexual harassment in court and not in a newspaper.
Nevertheless, these contents have had a very modest circulation in our countryand even the analysis of an authoritative figure like the former editor of the Economist Bill Emmot was greeted with a shrug of the shoulders.
Despite talking about the same things – fake news, fascism and bunga-bunga as the country's main evils – Oliver instead breaks the screen and overflows feed of tens of thousands of people who relaunch it with the same pleasure with which Binetti wore the hair shirt.
The speed of the story, the perfect comic timing, the bars alternate with numbers, data, authoritative sources: combining fun with reflection, Oliver's monologue is a summation of that "committed fun" which is somewhat of the magic formula of today's entertainment society, and that allows you to always get by, even in the face of certain monumental blunders that would never be tolerated in journalism (let alone politics).
For example: at some point, Oliver shows a photo of Trump with Salvini – just introduced to the public as a fascist eager for ethnic cleansing – presenting it as evidence of a endorsement of The Donald at the Felpa di Ferro. After all, the host continues, it's no surprise: Trump is “the Forrest Gump of human misery”.
The joke is fantastic, the audience in the theater explodes in laughter and so does the audience at home. Too bad it's all fake news, designed by Salvini himself.
As reported by all the progressive newspapers at the time (who Republic) Trump had no idea who that guy next to him was, at least at the time of the photo. It was a "photo opportunity” where anyone could take the opportunity to take a photo with the then candidate for President. Strengthened by his past as a famous crasher in the Milan to drink, Salvini didn't have to be told twice, e obtained the precious shot, he had resold it on social media passing it off as an endorsement, only to then be fantastically exposed by the Hollywood Reporter.
A Barbine figure for Salvini, but a fact that has little or nothing to do with Trump: yet in Oliver's story here is the American President and the leader of the League, accused of fascism, they become friends.

A show like Oliver's is written and controlled by around twenty writers and producers who represent the best in the world; he himself has repeatedly spoken about the exhausting research work (“I basically have to watch everything”) which he undergoes weekly. It's impossible, Therefore, that it was an oversight, just as it is impossible that the editorial staff were unaware of the functioning of the Italian parliamentary political system; or who didn't know that "Striscia la Notizia" is not only the showgirls program but also the one where a woman, the correspondent Stefania Petyx, he comes threatened by the mafia for her services against the mafia done for Striscia; or that “pasta primavera” is a typical dish at Fiorello, the Italian American den in front of the Lincoln Center in New York, a stone's throw from the studios, but not so popular in Italian restaurants.
Simply, these facts were not useful to the comic story, they were not functional in the television era and were therefore cleverly omitted (“comb your hair”, as Carlo Freccero would say) to meet the needs of the program authors.
It works a bit like with the "Report" episodes or the "Iene" services: when we know nothing about the topic being discussed, we are indignant and would like to beat the interviewee. However, when we have even just a smattering of information, we are amazed by the bias of the interviewer.
This wouldn't be a problem if we lived in the 1970s, when the language of entertainment and that of politics traveled on distinct and separate tracks; however, it is a very serious problem today, in an era in which political debate takes place on social media, without any type of filter, and the languages ​​are all mixed together.
It doesn't matter if the author doesn't intend to produce a political speech: at a time when entertainment personalities enter politics on a daily basis, exploiting the visibility capital gained elsewhere (exactly like Trump) then every speech that deals with politics becomes - unfortunately for the comedian – politico, because it is received as such. Exactly the reason why in our country programs of this kind are careful not to host politicians or controversial figures.
This isn't exactly a new topic, at least in the USA: In the 2006 a study from Indiana University (mentioned on the page Wikipedia del Daily Show) demonstrated that the amount of information produced by the comic broadcast(similar to the one Oliver hosts today on HBO) and from the main national news programs it was exactly the same.

In the 2009, a Time poll asked who was the most authoritative speaker on American television news: Jon Stewart won with the 44% of votes, il 15% more than the one who came second.
In the 2016 Jimmy Fallon was literally massacred, complete with death threats, for an interview with Trump in which he was accused of the terrible crime of "making him nice".
Not bad for shows that are simply supposed to be “comedic”, no?
Let's be clear: the problem is not the criticism of Italy and the worst electoral campaign in Western history – which has been criticized in these parts without making concessions to anyone. On the contrary: God only knows how much the country needs it and how much the lack of it is the cause of the current situation.
The problem, but, it is when criticism subjects the facts to a preconceived thesis to better please the target audience, regardless of the purpose of the operation. When this happens, we leave the dimension of criticism to enter a much less noble world: that of populism.
And in fact – for a mocking retaliation – who looked at Oliver and today thinks that Trump and Salvini are friends, perhaps complimenting "the Americans' extraordinary fact-checking work", in reality he was a victim, precisely because of Oliver, of the fake news cooked up by the Northern League leader (nullifying the Italian fact-checking carried out by Repubblica: what a joke!).

Saying that Trump supported Salvini when the reality of that photo is different, it means purposely exploit social indignation, the breast from which populists of all colors drink, to increase views. Exactly like mentioning fake news or the return of fascism – instead of the mafia or youth unemployment – ​​as Italy's main problems.
The John Oliver method, that taking plausible facts and mixing them with true facts, presenting them in a fun way, it is exactly the same as used 10 years ago by another comedian, endowed with a different but equally prodigious talent like that of the British host.
Beppe Grillo he alternated hilarious jokes (“The Psychonan”) to real facts (judicial news is always full of scandals) telling a hyper-simplified reality, where every detail not functional to his story was purposely ignored; However, thanks to his ability as an entertainer, he hypnotized crowds until his story was truer than true, and thanks to this mechanism he simply built the first Italian party from scratch.
Whether you use it in an Italian square or in a television studio in Manhattan, whether it's a grumpy, sweaty Genoese or a subject of His Majesty in a suit and tie who does it, whether the aim is to create a Movement or make millions of dollars with YouTube views, the substance does not change: sI aim at people's bellies to sell my goods.
And then you enjoy the results obtained, while rubble is left around.