Stereotypes

Analysis of a video clip.

Europe and the Italians is an animated cartoon made by Bruno Bozzeto, an Italian producer who makes lot of funny videos about varied subjects sporting drawings made by him. He won some prizes for his animations like the Golden Bear , a video called “Mister Tao” and in 1991, he also had an Oscar indication with “Grasshoppers”.

This particular mocks the Italian lifestyle by comparing Italians to Europeans. He first criticizes the way that the Italians drive, second their politics and finally their relationship with the others.

In the first part of the video we have a lot of European cars represented by rectangles with the E.U symbol on a highway and the Italians in the same situation. The Europeans are portrayed as being calm and respectful of the laws, driving carefully and at the same speed, . On the other hand, we have the Italian drivers who drive like crazy, crashing into each other and not respecting the distance between the cars …

The political part shows us that all the Europeans have an opinion that does not change when a president of a different party is elected unlike the Italians who switch political sides according to the ones in power.
The last part of the video, the social part, shows the Italians as being complex and sophisticated in their life style. We have a bar with 6 places. For the Europeans who come one by one to have a cup of coffee, they all ask the same one: “café please” but the Italians with their infinite variety of coffee ask all of the 6 a different one.

In my opinion this video is not really funny. I love Italians and I don’t think these stereotypes are right. Generalizing is not a good thing but in this video we can see that this generalization was made by an Italian, he is laughing about his way of life, of his compatriots and his country. And this is not like the stereotypes in general that hurt a lot of people.