A Humorous Geographic Expression: North versus South in Italian Film

In 1814, statesman and diplomat Klemens von Metternich famously labeled Italy as “only a geographical expression,” by which he meant that unlike other European countries of the time, it consisted of a group of separate territories that happened to inhabit the same finger of land. Despite the country’s unification in 1860, a series of social traits specifically pertaining to individual regions endured in the public imaginary. These attributes include symbols, rituals, values, and, above all, dialects that became frozen in time to group together and categorize people from individual regions. From these very features, comic stereotypes that commonly appear in film comedy in Italy and abroad have emerged. The divide between the affluent north and the more deprived south has led to the frequent targeting of southerners as underdogs in Italian film comedy while outside Italy, Italians are portrayed with the clichéd characteristics of southerners; in other words, stereotypical southerners represent Italians tout court.