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Rating: International cinematography has often played with the most famous Italian stereotypes and almost always the evil and mischievous fingers of directors, actors, and producers have revived - if we can say so - the plague of the mafia-cuisine-rurality triumph, with slight garnishes of art, culture, Leonardo, Renaissance, Dante, and Romanity. In short, Italians - in the eyes of reductionist films - are a people of silent mafiosi with a commendable penchant for good food (cheese, pizza, cured meats, pasta, wine), residing in picturesque rural villages far from innovation and modernity, who go out of their way every day to protect honor and vanity. Zooming in on animation and cartoons, Italian clichés have completely abandoned the dark, evil, cruel, and semi-apocalyptic side proposed by "adult" filmography and have focused on the tragicomic side of Italian affairs: thus remain the psychological and imaginary postcards taken in every corner of the Peninsula, however, they mix with an additional concentrate of absurdity, satire, humor, politically incorrect jokes, and whatever else that makes them even more improbable and more easily digestible by viewers without globes and travel guides.
There's no need to outline the history, success, and vast following of The Simpsons, probably the most influential animated series of the last twenty years which builds its skeleton of laughter and comedy on stereotypes and cultural reductionisms. The adventures of Homer, Marge, their offspring, and the Simpsons' ancestors, as well as the entire crass citizenship of Springfield, are nothing but the perfect ridicule of the American Way of Life so much vaunted by the Yankees and there destroyed by Groening's creative genius. It's no wonder, then, that a cartoon that destroys its own homeland in a handful of characters at the edge of implausibility should venture in "humiliating", although kindly, other contexts, intending to implement a double ridicule, namely the destruction of the stereotype through its hyperbolization.
The arrival - both physical and cultural - of the Simpsons in Italy is concretized in Il Bob Italiano (The Italian Bob, an impeccable allusion to the famous The Italian Job), the eighth episode from the seventeenth series released in 2005. The short narrates the misadventures of Homer and his family in Italy, tasked by the wicked, stingy nuclear magnate Montgomery Burns with retrieving his new Lamborgotti Spidirossa, a peculiar mix between a Lamborghini and a classic Ferrari. The family, taking advantage of the vehicle in their care, decides to tour the entire Peninsula, stopping in Pisa and Pompeii and heading towards Rome; however, the trip is ruined by a huge block of Mortadella that, from an overturned truck, crashes onto the Spidirossa's front body. Homer and family then proceed to Salsiccia, a charming Tuscan village, and, in search of a skilled mechanic, they run into the arch-enemy Sideshow Bob (the former assistant to Krusty the Clown determined to kill Bart as he thwarted one of his robbery attempts), who became the town's mayor thanks to his dexterity and talent in stomping Chianti grapes with his long feet. Bob, married to an animated Cucinotta (Francesca) and with a son almost identical to him, welcomes the Simpsons but unfortunately, his criminal identity is revealed by a Lisa befuddled by wine fumes. Expelled from Salsiccia, Sideshow Bob chases the Simpsons on a scooter (presumably a Vespa), with the precise aim of killing them, but the Simpsons manage to save themselves by staging an impromptu act of Pagliacci by Ruggero Leoncavallo along with the star Krusty.
The episode is a small masterpiece of humor and endless gags and manages to stage a delicious menu of charming Italian clichés without falling into aberration and obviousness (for example, not focusing on the overused dark, mafia-like, secretive Godfather-like demeanor). Notable are, just to mention a few, Homer gulping down a flask of Chianti in a McDonald's in Pisa with a terrace on Campo dei Miracoli (furthermore refusing to admire the famous Leaning Tower live as it was already pictured on a glass), the idealization of the local wine harvest where grapes are still stomped with feet, our passion for wine (which even infects a two-year-old with a bottle in hand, resounding burp and a tune of Mambo Italiano) and the improper use that the Simpson family head makes of monuments and cultural elements (driving over a Roman aqueduct, parking on Trajan's column, mistaking a Fellini film for a satellite navigator, recounting "on" the ways the events of national Unity). In any case, Il Bob Italiano represents a commendable attempt to play with the variety of Italian stereotypes by varying the content, not overusing them, and enriching the albeit limited views on Italy with so many artistic, musical, culinary, landscape and geographical aspects. The result is a varied animated panorama of gags and jokes where the cheerful and quirky family enjoys themselves without bumping into mafia shootouts, Provenzano-style clothing, and improper ridicule.
Finally, Il Bob Italiano is the battlefield presented with the rival creatures of Seth McFarlane, Family Guy and American Dad, whose protagonists (Peter Griffin and Stan Smith) are inserted into a list of wanted individuals and great criminals, with the charges respectively of "plagiarism" and "plagiarism of plagiarism": Groening, therefore, reinvigorated the accusation of copying Homer and company in rather amusing animations, however, much more raw, irreverent and "politically incorrect". Family Guy, in particular, has already had the opportunity with Peter’s, Stewie’s, and Brian’s flashback technique to stereotype Italy with mustachioed little men à la Super Mario or curly-haired Sicilians in tank tops and jeans who are adept at dialect verses. It’s pointless, in this context, to make a complete comparison between the series: if the Simpsons stay on the lines of "correct" braggadocio, Family Guy goes beyond, mocking without regard. Your preferences may vary.
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