PROPAGANDA
IN
FASCIST ITALY
Deregnaucourt, Agustina; Gomez Coll, Camila; Mieres, Manuel
Gaining public support
“He packed his anti parliamentary, anti-communist
nationalism in a rhetoric about heroism, courage, and
sacrifice. He created a cult of leadership around himself
(...) and promised leadership that would change the
peace treaty and the economic crisis.” (p. 569, Hause &
Maltby, 2004)
Fascism
““Fascism is not only a system of government
but also and above all a system of thought.”
(p. 3, Mussolini, 1933)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
01 02 03
CINEMA SPORTS MAGAZINES
Showing and concealing The athletic nation. Racial discrimination and
realities. anti-semitism.
01
CINEMA
Giornale Luce
How women and men are
portrayed in Luce news
VOLUNTEERS HEROES
Heroism
“Fascism believes now and always in sanctity and
heroism, that is to say in acts in which no economic
motive - remote or immediate - is at work.” (p. 11,
Mussolini, 1933)
Some news that were not shown
● Bombings.
● Women on strike.
● Economic situation.
02
SPORTS
Fascist influence through
sports.
Sports
“Making the Italian people idealistic and
physically perfect was a task for sport in its many
forms, as it demands discipline, order, rigour,
sacrifice, a spirit of dedication and healthy morals,
while engendering in the individual a desire for the
struggle for victory”
Martin, Simon D. (2003)
“Physically perfect”
POWERF
UL
STRON
G Men = Heroes /
Protectors
Women = Strong
mothers
YOUNG
Sports
“Making the Italian people idealistic and
physically perfect was a task for sport in its many
forms, as it demands discipline, order, rigour,
sacrifice, a spirit of dedication and healthy morals,
while engendering in the individual a desire for the
struggle for victory”
Martin, Simon D. (2003)
Motivations
● GUIDING ● INFLUENCI ● PREPARE
HABITS NG MASSES FOR WAR
● CONTROL ● NATIONAL ● VICTORY
OVER PRIDE AND
OPPONENTS BOND
MEASURES
Physical Education
in Schools
Sports and Clubs and
Gymnasia Fields National Teams
MEDI
A
03
MAGAZINE
S
La Difesa della Razza: Scienza,
Documentazione, Polemica.
(1938-1943)
Race
“[W]e have to clarify the racial positions that
provoked the racial laws, and give them scientific
and historic justifications [through] scientific
disclosure, precious documentation, and lively
controversy” (Interlandi, 1939)
Color
● Danger
● Alien
● Foreign
● Vulgar
● Primitive
● Racial impurity
● Miscegenation
Chromo
phobia
● Classical greco-
roman
● Racial purity
● Homogeneity
Anti-Semitism
“When facing the impossibility of visualizing the
“invisible Jew” that Interlandi so feared, La difesa
turned to parasitic and zoomorphic caricature.”
(Maldari, 2019)
Zoomorphic
imagery
& Parasitic
symbols
● The invisible Jew
● Making of monsters
● Anti-semitic discourse
● Dehumanization and
hatred
● The semitic “other”
● Jew’s Physiognomy
● Hat-wearing Jew
● Stereotypes
●
REFERENCES
Belloni, E. (2010). The Birth of the sport nation: sports and mass media in Fascist Italy. Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 15(4), 471-485.
● Coronado Ruiz, C (2013) Mujeres en guerra: la imagen de la mujer italiana en los noticiarios Luce durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial
(1940-1945)
● Cronin, M. (1996). The Fascist Olympics: Sport, Politics and Propaganda in the 1930s. Oxford: Berg Publishers.
● Dlugos, Andrea (2012) “Virile, Yet Feminine: Sport, Gender, and Representation in Fascist Italy,” Historical Perspectives: Santa Clara
University Undergraduate Journal of History, Series II: Vol. 17, Article 12
● Hause, S. & Maltby, W. (2004). Western civilization. A history of European society. Thomson Wadsworth
● Landoni, E. (2017). Propaganda and Information Serving the Italian Sports Movement: The Case of the Periodical Lo Sport Fascista
(1928‒43). Journal of Sport History, 44(2), 163-177.
● Maldari, L. (2019). Dismantling an Art History of Eugenics: Fascist Propaganda and Visual Rhetoric in La difesa della razza. In
Proceedings of the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) 2019. Kennesaw, GA: Kennesaw State University.
● Martin, S. (2010). Mussolini’s Football. Retrieved from
https://sites.duke.edu/wcwp/research-projects/football-and-politics-in-europe-1930s-1950s/mussolinis-football/
● Mergulhao, M. (2018, May 20). When fascist propaganda masqueraded as football extravaganza in Italy. The Times of India. Retrieved
from
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sports/football/fifa-world-cup/when-fascist-propaganda-masqueraded-as-football-extravaganza-in-italy
/articleshow/64200427.cms
● Mussolini, B. (1933). “The doctrine of Fascism”. Trans. Jane Soames. The Living Age, Nov 1 1933, 235-244.
● Telesio Interlandi, La difesa della razza, August 5, 1939, 4.
