Fade to White: Cinematic Representations of Italian Whiteness

Abstract

Whereas the second chapter of this volume focused on the means by which Fascism attempted to reform Italian society by protecting it from the influence of foreign models, this chapter will examine how the conquest of Ethiopia was meant to enact “a disciplining process” (Ben-Ghiat 1996, 111) for both the Italian colonists in Africa and the citizens at home, and how the process of creating a racial consciousness served to redefine and control the roles of women and Italian labor forces. Narrative strategies for curbing the desire for emancipation within potentially subversive sectors of Italian society, particularly among women and the working class, can be found in films like Augusto Genina’s Lo squadrone bianco (1936) and Guido Brignone’s Sotto la croce del sud (1938). These cinematic works, both of which aim to preserve existing social and gender hierarchies by providing viewers with a highly controlled access to the geographically remote regions of the colony through the mediated perspective of the lens, reveal the need to maintain societal order and tradition and to warn Italian audiences of the dangerous nature of desires that conflicted with the Fascist sense of discipline.