In a way—which I’ll explain later—I like Mary Stracqualurso. Anyone who’s encountered her unmistakable prose even once in his or her life will, I believe, be able to sympathize.
When I’m channel-surfing through the local TV networks and I run into her in the middle of a guest spot on a news broadcast or in the act of bestowing a pearl of wisdom on a working beat reporter, who extends his microphone to her in the belief that he’s drinking at the fount of a venerable old glory of Italian journalism, there’s nothing I can do, I have to listen right through to the end.
I delight in her goatish ignorance, the way she’s chronically misinformed on any and all subjects, the inurbane diction that is so distinctly her own, the chilling nonchalance with which she says d when she means t, c when she means g, f when she means v, p when she means b, and z when she means s.
I am filled with an unidentifiable but pleasant lassitude in the presence of the disarming obviousness of her opinions, the mediocre moralism, the baseless conceit with which she will pontificate on any topic without knowing anything about it, the saliva-sprays that accompany her bilabial occlusive consonants, often forcing her interlocutor to move out of their range with cranial jerks that are as sudden as they are ridiculous (she has certain unresolved issues with her dental adhesive), the fact that she thinks herself irrestrainably amusing and wise (a conviction that she bases essentially on the fact that when she makes a wisecrack she laughs at it herself, often even before saying it), the congenital cowardice, the way she never speaks the name of anyone powerful, unless it’s to kiss an ass that may one day prove useful to her.
And for the five minutes following her performance I sit there crying crocodile tears in front of the television set, satisfied and responsible for the harm I do to myself, a little bit like a diabetic secretly binging on Nutella.
The constitutive torment driving my perversion is the fact that I can’t understand such a phenomenon. I watch Mary Stracqualurso to figure out if she really exists, and how she interacts with reality.
But beyond (and even more important than) the metaphysical inquiry, there’s a part of me (of all of us—and there are many of us—who are incapable of resisting the fascinating impunity of the illiterate), more instinctive and immediate, that responds symptomatologically to the Stracqualursian stimulus. All it takes for me is an “In that gase,” an “Exacdly,” an “Obfiously,” and I’m glued to the screen and turning up the volume, dropping everything else I might have been doing at the time.
Don’t think I’m an impassioned fan of trash TV. I hate trash TV. I don’t have a taste for bad taste. I’m clear-minded enough to realize that if, the minute I come across Mary Stracqualurso on TV, I stop watching any other program and stick with her, it must mean I like her.
Even those who are sublime connoisseurs of trash TV actually like trash TV, but they just won’t admit it. They’re like closeted gay guys who pretend they like to watch mainstream porn films but concentrate on the cocks.
Now, if I don’t like something, I just try to avoid it. The sublime connoisseurs of trash TV, the ones who systematically critique the contestants on Big Brother, are transformed into editors of the Accademia della Crusca Italian Dictionary as soon as the moderator of a talk show hesitates in his use of a subjunctive, issue report cards on the etiquette of the rich and famous, judge the way they hold a fork or match the colors of their clothes—those are people I consider assholes.
Let’s be perfectly clear: if I hear a public speaker slip on a verbal banana peel, I’m the first one to laugh. But I’m not an illiterate-hunter; I’m not that sadistic.
Among other things, if we’re being completely honest, if you want to critique someone—even if it’s a contestant on Big Brother—then you have to have accomplished something in your own life. And if you take a look at the average profile of a fan of trash TV, nine times out of ten you’ll find a frustrated member of the petty bourgeoisie, with a family that depends on him but who is in turn dependent on his family (frequently on his wife), devoid of talent but generically cultured and educated, with artistic and/or intellectual aspirations that were predictably shipwrecked, and who, in response to the question: “I’m sorry, but what work is it that you said you do?” plunges into a tragic, dazed silence that he immediately however overcomes, piling on self-definitions that leave the hapless listener in the most claustrophobic state of awkward embarrassment.
Like a maniac throwing open his raincoat to offer unfortunate passersby the unasked-for spectacle of the pitable attributes he possesses, the impassioned fan of trash culture will demonstrate a thorough expertise on the topic of bad taste (especially with regard to television), in a desperate attempt to avenge himself on his biography. In other words, he suffers from a bad case of failure mange. Even though the facts (and especially his vital statistics) tell us the opposite, he is convinced that he is artistically gifted. A little bit like old people who feel young inside. He’s attempted various careers, always keeping one in reserve as an alibi (politician and, in second rank, journalist; rock star and, in second rank, music critic; poet and, in second rank, author; director and, in second rank, TV writer; and the list could go on and on), but the truth, pure and simple, is that he doesn’t know how to do a blessed fucking thing.
And it is precisely when faced with this elementary discovery that those suffering from failure mange perform their most memorable acrobatic moves, narrating their own failures as a demonstration of multifaceted artistic versatility, a generic aptitude at a Little Bit of Everything; much like those talentless musicians who appear each time with a different instrument but don’t really know how to play any of them.
As a result of this unfounded belief in a talent waiting to be specified, the object of fame to which those afflicted with failure mange aspire becomes practically incidental. They’d do anything—from neorealist film to cabaret—if an offer came in.
From this point of view, between them and a modern velina, or showgirl, for whom a bit part in an Italian-made Christmas screwball comedy and a cabinet-level position as a head of a ministry are equivalent career objectives, there is no difference. But a modern velina has recently turned eighteen and can afford to sport a miniskirt: not so for those suffering from failure mange.
Those afflicted with failure mange wind up spending their lives waiting for the opportunity that will change everything. They think that, if they were just given a chance, they could take on the world. But because the world shows not the slightest interest in them, they attack the world on the Internet, publishing (that’s exactly what they call it, when they pontificate on an online message board, convinced that that is the appropriate verb to describe the activity to which they devote themselves with such passion) pitiless reviews on topics having to do with every realm of human knowledge, from movies to television, from poetry to literature, from politics to everyday life, from techno to opera, and interior decorating to youth fashion (those with failure mange declare themselves to be formidable experts in this field in particular, even though they never spend any time with young people, and for that matter why on earth would young people ever want to spend time with them?); but given the fact that their desperate attempts make no impression save in the fraternity of online losers, each of whom they know individually (because those who have fallen into disgrace always seem ready to underwrite pacts of entente), the only option left to them is to go in search of wingnuts who at least, in comparison with them, have the defect of not speaking the Italian language correctly.
When we speak of Mary Stracqualurso, on the other hand, we must move past the mystifications of trash TV and the pathological deviations of failure mange and instead delve into a phenomenon that, as I said at the outset, truly smacks of the inexplicable.
Maria Antonietta Stracqualurso (stage name, Mary Stracqua) is a masterpiece of evolution. A contemporary classic. Living proof (complete with a speech impediment) that it’s possible to carve out a niche for oneself (or in her case, actually thrive for years) in the garden of local journalism and culture, even if you’re functionally illiterate.
Because Mary is not merely ignorant in this day and age, a carefree era that has by and large dismissed ignorance as an issue. She was already ignorant—and this is what counts most—in a time when being ignorant counted. When culture had a shared meaning. When the inability to speak proper Italian constituted a stumbling block that kept people from teaching, running for elective office, speaking in public, and writing.
Even in those times, she managed to infest newspaper city rooms, imposing her terrifying syntax on the reading public without anyone raising their voice in objection, without a single self-proclaimed public intellectual making the slightest effort to halt her misbegotten plans for expansion; even then, I was saying, she managed to make her presence felt at any public occasion where she could make her hulking, ill-clad figure known, in the self-engineered role of social crusader, blazing a shining path for later generations of illiterates who justifiably wondered: “If she can be a journalist, why not me?”
From this point of view, Mary Stracqua was an early pioneer of the modern shift with regard to the very concept of the career path, whereby, as we now realize, it is possible to establish oneself as a prominent public figure even in the complete absence of talent or skill.
Now, however, if the winner of Big Brother steps onto the public stage on a strictly prospective basis (many of the competitors on that immensely popular show, in fact, get nothing more than a walk-on role on a TV series or two or perhaps an appearance on a talk show, and most of them are quickly forgotten), Mary is an example of how one can exercise the noble profession of journalism without having even the vaguest notion of what a news story is, how to put one together, and how to broadcast it.
Today, Maestra Stracqualurso has decades of experience behind her, and she still wields considerable power in the cultural circles—and I use the term “cultural” with scare quotes and due reservations—of this city (in part because, obviously, not only is she a journalist, she is also a playwright, a poetess, a novelist, and no doubt other things as well—it’s odd that she hasn’t yet been given a tenured professorship at the university, now that I think about it), and she does so with impeccable frequency.
There’s not a local television news show or radio station that doesn’t reach out to her at least a couple of times a week for her commentary on current events. And she promptly responds, with a paternalistic egotism that she doesn’t even bother to conceal, interlarding her bloodcurdling pronouncements with such violent attacks visited upon the proper use of mood, tense, and agreement, with such a cascade of adverbs chosen and employed with ham-handed incompetence, that you ask yourself—but seriously, almost hoping for an answer, since this is something that matters to you on a personal level—for what un-fucking-fathomable reason does such an obviously inept and unlettered donkey continue to enjoy the use of public forums, where she is allowed to offend the intelligence of her fellow man with complete impunity.
Show up at any academic conference (“gonference,” she’d say), lecture, exhibition, paid author appearance, election campaign dinner, or press conference, and there you’ll find Mary Stracqualurso.
Little does it matter whether or not she actually received an invitation (if she did not, she will take umbrage and invite herself, and you can rest assured that she will always find someone happy to give up his or her front-row seat for her): she’ll be there no matter what, it wouldn’t be the same without her; Mary Stracqua is the city’s historical memory, a city that will never be able to separate her from itself (another of her rust-proof convictions is that nothing happens without her knowing about it).
But the most deeply inexplicable mystery concerns the atmosphere of collective intimidation and omertà that Mary has managed to create around herself, nipping in the bud any possibility of dissent. In this city that always looks the other way there is not a journalist, university professor, doctor, lawyer, engineer, or even failed artist who’s had the nerve to tell her to her face what everyone thinks, and that is that she’s an illiterate bum, incapable of stringing together three coherent words (much less of putting together an actual news story), organically servile with any representative of actual power with whom she comes into contact, whether it’s her condo board or the city council in town hall, and moreover that the news guild membership card that she carries with her says a great deal about the usefulness of what we smilingly call professional orders. Everyone, formally, respects her. And everyone, pragmatically, condones her. They all let her live, make her appearances, offer her commentary. Occasionally (even now), they let her write.
I know a couple of managing editors of local papers who, after being subjected to her weekly barrage of phone calls requesting publication of an editorial she’s scrawled, organize collective newsroom readings of her articles, where the staff split their sides with laughter for days at a time (some jot down the finest savagings of the language and then send them out by email, chain-letter-style); after that, however, once the great author’s spelling has been cleaned up and her ideas organized into something resembling a coherent whole, obviously, they always publish it.
See the way it works? We laugh at Mary Stracqua, and at the countless small and mid-sized parasites like her who infest the newsrooms of our nation’s press, the political secreteriats, the ministries, the television stations, the universities; but the truth is that we are all accountable for their survival. We allow them to set an example, instead of quashing that example. We perpetuate this collective intellectual conformism, this cultural hypocrisy that allows us, like the little professors of trash media, to point and jeer at the ignorant when they can’t hear us. We’re tolerant and accommodating. And when we stand by and watch them, we are taking part in an interactive spectacle. We’re tacitly approving a disgrace.
Look at what we’ve done, in our small way, to ruin the world.