HIST 635 MODERNITY, REVOLUTION AND TOTALITARIANISM Written Assignment Vitalie Sprinceana Falasca-Zamponi, Simonetta. 1997.

Fascist spectacle: the aesthetics of power in Mussolinis Italy. University of California Press. In her book Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution (1984), Lynn Hunt points out to a major innovation brought by the French Revolution politics: the politicization of the everyday life. Politics, she writes, was not confined to verbal expression, to the selection of deputies, or to the public debates in clubs, newspapers, and assemblies. (p.53) Art, symbols, myths, rituals, clothes, colors, language everything becomes import and everything becomes a field of political struggle. Aesthetics becomes politics. A somewhat strange reversal occurs in the Fascist Italy. There, if we were to believe Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi, politics becomes art, but it still maintains the all encompassing character. In the established by Mussolini regime, politics starts to be less concerned with the act of governing people in an efficient way solving their economic problems, for instance. Instead, it is focused more on the spectacle of power, on the visual and impressive display of symbols, myths and rituals. Verbal and non-verbal forms of discourse are more than mere means of political legitimation they are fundamental to the construction of the power of the regime. Politics itself assumes the form of an artistic act to govern means to Mussolini to create (a new man, a new Nation, a new Empire), and Mussolini views himself as the creative soul of the nation, the guide to a future renewal of the country, the propeller of new ways of living. (p.16) In terms of everyday life this aestheticization of political power takes the shape of a domination of form - visual appearance, effects over the content. It also means that politics ceases to be measured by political criteria. It is interesting in this regard to examine the figure of Mussolini himself as the central character, the main protagonist and creator of the fascist spectacle. He succeeds to access the

rank of a demigod, not surprisingly with the massive help of the Catholic Church, the institution that has helped put Mussolini in close proximity to the sacred high spheres. Omnipotence (exceptional working abilities, fearless, heroic, excelling at different kinds of sport, endowed with the superhuman abilities to start a rain, to stop a volcano), immortality and eternal youth (able to survive a series of assassination attempts), omnipresence (the continuous visibility through photographs, graffiti, radio and cinema) these are the ingredients used by propaganda to construct the mythical figure of Mussolini. Through this process of sacralization of Mussolinis power the propaganda succeeds to identify the fate of Italy itself with the Duces figure. Mussolini becomes Italy, Italy becomes Mussolini. It appears that there is a significant difference between fascist Italy and Nazi Germany regarding the role of the spectacle in the political process. If in Germany the spectacle is strictly subordinated to political interests and Goebbels propaganda skillfully exploits it in order to create legitimation and support for the political regime, in fascist Italy it seems that politics is itself a spectacle, and in certain sense it is subordinated to the spectacle. If, roughly speaking, Nazi rituals have followed pragmatic goals the minimization of opposition inside and outside the party, intimidation of the enemies, in Mussolinis Italy the exercise of power follows mostly aesthetic goals to impress and inspire, to regenerate the Nation, to fascinate, and to give style.