Developing Middlebrow Culture in Fascist Italy: The Case of Rizzoli’s Illustrated Magazines/Développer la culture moyenne dans l'Italie fasciste: le cas des magazines illustrés de Rizzoli
Abstract
Angelo Rizzoli was one of Italy’s leading publishers in the interwar period and beyond, thanks to his business intuition and daring investments in the popular periodicals sector. In the 1920s and 1930s he published a galaxy of illustrated magazines aimed at the urban middle classes, which prove paradigmatic of a new form of Italian weeklies. The article posits that Rizzoli’s rotocalchi, based on entertaining content and photojournalism, were mediators par excellence in three areas. First, in publishing middlebrow fiction. Second, in translating short stories from linguistic and cultural milieus with a deliberate selection of specific literary genres, settings, and character types — a branding that emerges from investigating the weeklies Novella and Lei. Third, in the creation of a platform for interchange between literature, photography, and cinema, mainly in Cinema Illustrazione Presenta. Notwithstanding the obstacles put in their way by the Fascist regime and the censorship system, Rizzoli’s illustrated magazines introduced and spread models of female conduct that did not coincide with those proposed by the Fascists, while adapting them to common Italian cultural values and exploiting them for commercial purposes. As a typical expression of middlebrow culture based on leisure, respectability, and consumption, they repurposed messages from other media and foreign contexts, facilitating the penetration of modern behaviour patterns in Italy.
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Angelo Rizzoli fut un des principaux éditeurs italiens dans l’entre-deux-guerres et au-delà grâce à son flair commercial et à ses investissements audacieux dans le secteur des périodiques populaires. Entre les années vingt et trente, il a créé une pléiade de magazines illustrés, exemplaires de la nouvelle forme des hebdomadaires italiens destinés à la classe urbaine moyenne. L’article postule que les rotocalchi de Rizzoli, fondés sur un contenu divertissant et le photo-journalisme, étaient des médiateurs d’excellence dans trois domaines. Premièrement, dans la publication de fictions middlebrow. Deuxièmement, dans la traduction de nouvelles issues de milieux linguistiques et culturels renvoyant à un choix délibéré de genres littéraires, de décors et de personnages spécifiques — une sorte de marquage (branding) qui ressort de l’enquête sur les hebdomadaires Novella et Lei. Troisièmement, dans la création d’une plate-forme pour des échanges entre littérature, photographie et cinéma, principalement dans Cinema Illustrazione Presenta. Malgré les obstacles que leur opposèrent le régime fasciste et le système de censure, les magazines illustrés de Rizzoli ont présenté et diffusé des modèles de comportement féminin qui ne coïncidaient pas avec ceux proposés par les fascistes tout en les adaptant aux valeurs culturelles italiennes communes et en les exploitant à des fins commerciales. Expression typique de la culture middlebrow fondée sur les loisirs, la respectabilité et la consommation, ils réutilisaient des messages provenant d’autres médias et de xtes étrangers en facilitant la pénétration de comportements modernes en Italie.
Copyright (c) 2019 Fabio Guidali

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