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Mediterranean masculinity in public space and an attempt to debunk the stereotype.
I
t
was the first true day of Spring, and although the Italian climate
had been fairly good to me since I had arrived there in mid-January,
I let no gorgeous day pass me by without taking full advantage. All I
had to think of were the unbearable, unmerciful days of the American
Northeast winter that I was missing back home and it was enough
motivation to inspire my adventurous, outdoor spirit. I was
independent, living in Italy and going to school. It was an
opportunity that any young adult would fully cherish and this day,
like any other, I planned to absorb all that I could.
Mercato
Centrale, the open food market flooded with vendors and consumers,
provided my girlfriend and me with delicious goodies for our
afternoon picnic. After several transactions and with our hands fully
occupied by plastic bags of fresh fruits and vegetables, homemade
Italian bread, and mozzarella we headed to our destination picnic
area which lay on the other side of the Arno, the long river that
divided the beautiful city of Florence. In order to complete our
journey, however, we were forced to walk back through the locally
famous San Lorenzo market, a milieu teeming with tourists in search
of local flavor and shopping. The pathway delineated by rows of carts
veered off into little side streets that seemed to stretch into the
horizon. It was a Mecca for market-goers but chaos to those who only
wished to pass through. Otherwise known as “the leather market,”
San Lorenzo wafted with the smell of processed dead skin. Quickly we
zigzagged in and out of the masses of people, intent on completing
our mission to have a relaxing picnic in the sun.
As
we crossed the bridge my apartment came into view from off in the
distance. It lay sandwiched between the Santo Spirito square and the
Pitti Palace, once home to one of the major ruling families of
Florence centuries ago. Today we had decided upon the palace as the
location for our long awaited lunch outdoors. Set slightly on a hill,
the palace’s front courtyard of stone provided a perfect picnic
spot. We set our blanket down and immediately tore apart the bread
and inside nestled chunks of mozzarella and juicy tomatoes,
generating the traditional mozzarella e pomodoro sandwich. My
friend and I ate in silence enjoying every ounce of pleasure we had
created. The tingling of our taste buds together with the warm
sensations penetrating our sun-deprived skin were enough to preoccupy
our minds on such a careless spring day. Faster than the sandwiches
were made we swallowed them. With our bellies overstuffed and our
minds at ease we adjusted the blankets and lay back with our faces
towards the warmth of the sunshine overhead. Relaxed, eyes closed and
skin brazing in the Spring air, I exhaled a breath that, for a
moment, relieved all my prior tensions and anxieties only to inhale
the poignant scent of a man’s cologne.
The
abrasive stench triggered a sense of discomfort and immediately
prompted me to reopen my eyes and re-evaluate my surroundings. As
soon as my eyes had time to readjust I found myself face to face with
a grinning male stranger. Though my uneasiness was easily detectable
and I showed no apprehension in displaying my annoyance, the intruder
did not move and instead readjusted his tight jeans, plopped himself
down as if we had invited him and confidently lowered his stylish
sunglasses. “Come ti chiami?” the male voice asked. I
looked in my friend’s direction for moral support though she did
not offer any clues as to how I could get myself out of such an
uncomfortable situation. Without any further insight I turned back
towards him and burst into a nervous laughter. “I don’t
understand Italian,” was the experimental response that week for
“Ways to get rid of an Italian.” My friend had claimed earlier
that week that the “we don’t speak the same language approach”
would dissuade the aggressive men from trying to seduce us in the
streets of Florence. We were clearly not looking for their attention
nor had we even cared to notice their presence. Regardless, these two
men were like flies; pestering us with remarks, invading our personal
space and simply unwelcome. No sooner had we informed him that we
could not speak Italian did he erupt into phrases of
barely-comprehensible English. “Sorry, I don’t understand you,”
I kept saying, although I couldn’t help but be amused at the new
version of English that was so confidently flowing from his mouth.
The amount of energy he was putting into his seduction techniques
could have graduated him from college.
As
time progressed and as we both realized his unfading determination
our responses grew colder and colder, but nothing seemed to dissuade
the performer from acting out the role of the Latin lover. He was on
a public stage for all the world to see, displaying all the favorable
qualities of a “real man”: fearless in the face of rejection, a
woman as the trophy. “Go away,” my friend spoke firmly. “Please
go away!” Our frustration was more than apparent but he trudged on.
“You are Julia Roberts, no? And you, you are Cameron Diaz?” We
were beyond the point of flattery but it was difficult to keep a
straight face with such odd commentary. With that he added, “I am
Johnny Depp.” This was the last straw that sent my friend bursting
into her slightly flawed but perfectly understandable Italian. Her
endless muddle of cursing finally ended with an ultimatum, “If you
don’t leave then we will!”
To
our dismay my friend’s outburst did nothing to dissuade the
pursuits of the men. Now they seemed more intrigued than ever by her
extensive knowledge of the Italian language. Not knowing whether to
laugh or cry we got up, swept our blanket from the cold stone ground,
gathered our belongings and left our sacred picnic spot. Defeated in
our seemingly simple attempt at a peaceful day in Florence we walked
off down the road. The events of the momentous Spring day in 2002
raised certain questions as well as problems for me. Upon revealing
my decision to travel to Italy in order to continue my college
studies I had been flooded with responses that revolved around a
similar theme: that of the artful seduction of Italian males. My
peers had forewarned me that I would be the object of prey for
Italian males and certainly the target of unwanted attention.
Invested in this stereotypical view of the Italian male was also an
idea that women could not resist their romantic gestures and
grotesquely explicit attempts at love. “Be careful, you might even
bring one home with you,” I can recall a fellow comrade saying.
These representations of the male population in Italy always took me
aback.
Being
a first generation American myself I took slight offense to any
overly simplified version of a people particularly because my
family’s history is engraved in the rich history and culture of the
Mediterranean. After all, with this line of reasoning my own father
would fall victim to the rigid stereotyped box and it is always
difficult to think of your own father in terms of his sexuality. In
fact, I was reminded of the story my parents often relay about their
initial meeting: my mother, a tourist, my father a local Greek who
ultimately did win her over. Perhaps this is the reason for me being
drawn to the topic. The way I came to be has deep-seeded roots in an
emphasized Mediterranean masculinity. If it were not for my father’s
relentless attempts at attracting the attention of my mother, thereby
successfully fulfilling his masculine role, I would not be here
today. It disturbed me, not only to think of my own father in these
terms, but having experienced such encounters myself I was
disillusioned as to how any meaningful relationship could develop
from such a seemingly superficial seduction game. Nonetheless,
perhaps out of a need to discover myself I immediately latched onto
the stereotype of the Mediterranean male as a topic to my senior year
thesis.
Conceivably,
in an attempt to unravel the phenomenon I could, too, lay to rest my
unease with certain values that I felt came into conflict through
such tourist/guest interactions. Upon landing on Italian soil I did
not know what to expect or what future encounters with the local
population would reveal. However, I was conscious of the perceptions
that already existed. The circumstance at Pitti Palace with the
Italian stranger conflicted with my attempts to move away from
stereotyping and had the overall effect of raising issues about the
process of stereotyping more broadly. How are stereotypes generated
in the first place? Where does the image of the “sexually
aggressive” Italian male come from and why do certain men carry on
their legacy so emphatically? Who, in particular, are these Italian
men and what makes their worldview different from those who step away
from the stereotype? Do the sexual pursuits of some Italian men
heighten their male self-identity? What does it mean to be “a man”
in contemporary Italian culture?
I
had been in Italy since January at the time of this particular
incident and so I had had many other encounters with Italian males.
The Italian male friends I had made stood apart from this
over-sexualized view of their population. In fact, I would
confidently say that the majority of men did not even fall near this
stereotyped perception and it is possible that these men could even
pass a unrepresentative slobs. A bipolar system of gender plagues
this misconception of Italian culture. Through the stereotypical
lens, Italian men embody all aspects attributed to masculinity:
fearlessness, risk seeking, adventure, and activity, while women
automatically inherit a passive, subordinate position. In an effort
to challenge these unrealistic representations of men and women in
Italy we must move away from thinking of gender in terms of binary
opposites. Identity and gender are not fixed categories and so should
not be treated as such. On the contrary, studies of gender relations
should account for diversity and subjectivity. Only then can the
complexity of Italian culture be unveiled and only then are we
exposed to the diversity of Italian masculine and feminine identities
that truly exist. Perhaps this is the gateway to conceiving of the
Italian population outside of the rigid framework proposed by the
stereotyped perception.
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