Earlier this week, an Italian asked me, “Why are you watching Sanremo?”
My initial answer was, “Because it’s amazing,” (but delivered incredulously, like anyone who didn’t realise what was unfolding before their eyes was clearly lacking)
That was a glib answer, because my real answer was too long to pour out in the confines of a casual conversation. And that real answer is humor, and pathos, and beauty, and community.
“Community?” one might incredulously ask. “How can you find community in watching 25 hours of television in a language you don’t understand celebrating the music of a country that you don’t know full of references to cultural events that you don’t remember? Isn’t it like watching 25 hours of gibberish?”
Well, no. And that is thanks in no small part to Amadeus Sebastiani, an Italian television presenter and DJ who has, for the past few years, been the creative director of the Sanremo Festival.
What Amadeus has done is transformed it from a stodgy nostalgia-fest that my Italian acquaintances remember into something that is reflecting the current culture of Italy – from queer Neopolitan rappers to first generation immigrants reflecting on Italian identity to fun party music sung by energetic youth and their even more energetic grandparents. Yes, and one or two heartfelt canzones in the mix. Among the songs are tributes and acts to Italian music and culture, like it’s the classical music of Verdi or some EDM played on a boat docked just off the coast. There is literally something for every single person to enjoy during these 25+ hours of screentime.
And that’s not even counting the guest appearances. Aside from the faces that will be beloved by Italian audiences – Giovanni Allevi, Theresa Mannino, Lorella Cuccarini – there are also international names who show up to join in the fun – Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Prince Albert of Monaco, Russell Crowe, and John Travolta.
I should stress that none of these latter names had any reason to be at Sanremo this week. Unlike Dua Lipa or Hozier or One Direction – all musical guests at previous editions – they aren’t promoting projects, or trying to build an Italian audience. They just showed up because it’s fun! (Or, in the case of John Travolta, something that COULD have been fun if he had only been less serious.)
But they also showed up because it is the place to be. For one week, Sanremo is the centre of Italy’s cultural universe. Everything else ceases to be important. All the news will come from there, a tiny seaside resort which is suddenly overrun with tourists and reporters and singers and dancers and two guys with a collection of sofas.
Ah, the sofas. Yes – one of the sponsors of the telecast is a sofa company. I cannot remember their name, despite seeing ads for them every night. I just call them the ‘sofa guys.’ “THE SOFA GUYS!” I will scream and point, when they make their appearance in the Ariston, sofa awkwardly wedged between the rows of seats, as they joke about couches with Amadeus in between the songs. And in this universe, it is a normal, accepted thing.
Which gets me to the real attraction of Sanremo – its sheer, unbridled absurdity. It is wholly unpredictable, even with the detailed running order next to me. It is light entertainment as a performance art project. It is a place where an artist can show up with a manatee-like alien to make a statement about immigration, and another artist can wear statement suits every night to perform a high-energy dance song decrying war, and John Travolta can be snookered into doing a version of a children’s dance. It is a place where the show ends every night with the credits rolling into an immediate continuation of the show, where artists willingly perform loving parodies of their song with a comedian, and the interviews continue throughout the night. It is a sheer endurance test unfolding live on television, and the results are wholly unpredictable. Where else would a Pope impersonator be photographed with a Milanese rapper, learning how to do the dance moves of his song? Where else does a “Fuck the Patriarchy” message get to go out live and uncensored on television?
And this brings us back to community. If the real attraction of Sanremo is the fact that literally anything could happen on that stage, its real joy is watching it together with a community of people. Just as it takes over the cultural conversation in Italian life, doing the full Sanremo takes over one’s personal life. It is the marathon of national finals, and getting through it requires encouragement and support from others who are also making bad decisions involving sleep deprivation and caffeine consumption. It helps to have confirmation that what I’ve just viewed on screen is somehow not a hallucination. But Sanremo watchers are also brilliant at creating instant memes and making me cackle with delight. This year alone has added tons of content to the Eurovision iceberg – Stash’s face meme; Rich Ciolino; Santi Francesi eating the mic; Annalisa’s cheeky wink; Bigmama eating the stage; ALL of Covers night; LAH SAHD; Mahmood’s fits; Loredana Berte’s tiny purse; Ricchi e Poveri and their suspiciously high levels of energy; Tofu; Fiorello in an Ethan Torchio wig; Fiorello in a bodysuit; Fiorello as an AI construct; Fiorello being Fiorello.
My dream (aside from attending Sanremo in person one day) is to create an art work that consists just of stills of moments from the Sanremo Festival, while L’Italiano plays in the background (shifting between Toto Cutugno’s version and Ghali’s cover of it). Sanremo is the festival of Italian music, but for a small number of us outsiders, it’s also our annual festival of Italy, where for a week, we get to join in the fun.
It’s rumoured to be Amadeus’s last year as Creative Director of the festival, which makes me incredibly sad. (LAH SAHD.) Over the past five years, he’s been responsible for me falling in love with a variety of Italian musicians. He’s the reason I’ve been to Italy. I’m struggling though Duolingo Italian just so I can understand his patter at Sanremo. He is basically the only reaction gif I use on my phone. I can’t imagine a festival without him, and for all he’s done, I say “Grazie mille; grazie millie. I’d watch ten thousand hours more of television with you in it.”
dudepoints.fun 