Although a people of saints, poets and navigators, Italians are also a people of frustrated people.
Within hours of the start of our country's most important musical event, the comments were disparate. Enthusiasm, gratuitous anger, the irony of memes, impromptu music criticism, criticism on custom and decency (why not?), criticism on artistic direction from the top of some Armando Testa.
The mechanism is similar to what we can experience in the stands of the stadium:“Pull, damn it!”, “No he can't do it today.”, “Oh but you want me to take the field?!”. As an (occasional) frequenter of the Olympic Stadium in Rome I always wanted to answer “Yes, please come down, show us!”.
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Now and forever, in Italy the art of teaching without a title is the one most practised, and in the days of the Sanremo festival there is certainly no backing down. But there is something worse than populism and barroom chatter. The psychology of the Grinch.
That theory whereby not participating in events of various kinds but of great magnitude can represent an alternative point of view, against the system, definable “indie”.
“I don't watch Sanremo” which in the time span of the year comes shortly after “I don't vote in elections, it's all magna magna anyway”. E esattamente dopo “I don't care about Christmas”. This kind of demonstration indicative of a lack of affection for the beautiful and the just is surely a plague of our times.
The force of the Grinch's personality in these cases is around contempt for systems that in any case involve him. The results of an election involve all citizens, none excluded. The Sanremo festival generated an advertising revenue of 52 million euros this year and how could this news leave anyone indifferent? Money travels in the direction of the world and how could the destination not be of common interest?
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Sanremo, like any other event of great media importance, should unite and not divide, generate constructive debate and reconcile points of view. It should create participation and make people realise how important everyone's presence is and that hermitism is never a solution, let alone an elitist one.
Recalling a famous piece by Giorgio Gaber, it is good to keep in mind that participation makes one free and freedom should always be cherished as the most precious asset. Because we are a society and Sanremo is a metaphor.
Image Toa Heftiba on Unsplash
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