Location
Stewart Center 318
Session Number
Session 09: MEDIA AND TERRORISM: AN ITALIAN PERSPECTIVE
Start Date
9-9-2011 9:00 AM
End Date
9-9-2011 10:30 AM
Abstract
This essay explores the representation of Italian terrorists in recent generational films set in the 1960s and 1970s. While they foreground the protagonists’ youth and celebrate it as a historically new condition, these coming-of-age narratives typically present radicalism either in terms of youthful idealism or youthful error, with corresponding nostalgic or revisionist approaches that obscure its ideological basis. An analysis of the selective generational appeal deployed by four recent films through narrative structure, style and casting highlights an alternative reading of the post-ideological approach to the representation of terrorism in the 21st century.
Rebels Without a Cause: Youth and Terrorism in Contemporary Italian Film
Stewart Center 318
This essay explores the representation of Italian terrorists in recent generational films set in the 1960s and 1970s. While they foreground the protagonists’ youth and celebrate it as a historically new condition, these coming-of-age narratives typically present radicalism either in terms of youthful idealism or youthful error, with corresponding nostalgic or revisionist approaches that obscure its ideological basis. An analysis of the selective generational appeal deployed by four recent films through narrative structure, style and casting highlights an alternative reading of the post-ideological approach to the representation of terrorism in the 21st century.