Homophobia as a Keyword in the Italian Liberal Press (1979–2007). Debating New Boundaries of Sexual Citizenship

ABSTRACT

This article examines the progressive inclusion of the term ‘homophobia’ on the pages of two relevant Italian liberal newspapers (Corriere della Sera and la Repubblica) between 1979 and 2007. Combining frequency analysis and critical discourse analysis, we aim at reconstructing when and how the term ‘homophobia’ became a keyword in various public debates on the country’s sexual modernization. Our analysis reveals the ambivalent encounter of liberal norms and anti-homophobic rhetoric in the considered newspapers, focusing on two main dynamics. The first one corresponds to the broadening of the practical meanings of ‘homophobia’ beyond the normative stances of the L.G.B.T. activism. The second one refers to the discursive linking of (anti)homophobia with Western ideas of sexual citizenship and the representation of otherness in a country where the political agenda of the L.G.B.T. movement has relatively failed.

RIASSUNTO

Questo articolo esamina l’inclusione del termine ‘omofobia’ nelle pagine di due importanti quotidiani liberali italiani (Corriere della Sera e la Repubblica) tra il 1979 e il 2007. Combinando analisi delle frequenze e analisi critica del discorso, miriamo a ricostruire quando e come la parola ‘omofobia’ diventa una parola chiave in vari dibattiti pubblici sulla modernizzazione sessuale del paese. L’analisi rivela le ambivalenze dell’incontro tra norme liberali e retoriche anti-omofobia nei giornali presi in esame, focalizzandosi su due dinamiche principali. La prima corrisponde all’ampliamento dei significati pratici del concetto di ‘omofobia’ oltre lo spazio discorsivo dell’attivismo L.G.B.T. La seconda si riferisce al legame tra discorsi sull’(anti)omofobia e ideali Occidentali di cittadinanza sessuale, e come questo ridefinisce la rappresentazione dell’alterità culturale in un paese in cui l’agenda politica del movimento L.G.B.T. ha relativamente fallito.

KEYWORDS:

• homophobia
• liberal press
• heteronormativity
• sexual citizenship

PAROLE CHIAVE:

• omofobia
• stampa liberale
• eteronormatività
• cittadinanza sessuale

Notes

1. Paolo Conti, La campagna contro l’omofobia. In quanti capiscono quella parola? [The campaign against homophobia. How many people understand the word?], Corriere della Sera (Roma), p.12, 20 November 2009.

2. Raid omofobo a Milano, scritte contro gay e pro Salvini. Il ministro: ‘Vigliacchi’ [Homophobic raid in Milan, writing against gays and pro-Salvini], Il Messaggero, 16 September 2018. The newspaper report refers to some schoolboys writing insults against gays and lesbians on the walls, along with swastikas and pro-Salvini slogans. Speaking as Minister of the Interior, Matteo Salvini declared: ‘homophobia, violence and racism are not part of the Italy I want and work for’.

Accessed 8 July 2019. https://www.ilmessaggero.it/primopiano/cronaca/milano_gay_scuola_popolare_scritte_salvini_vigliacchi-3977580.html

3. Accessed 8 July 2019. https://www.casapounditalia.org/p/le-faq-di-cpi.html.

4. Duggan (2003, 50) related the concept of ‘new homonormativity’ to ‘a politics that does not contest dominant heteronormative assumptions and institutions, but upholds and sustains them, while promising the possibility of a demobilized gay constituency and a privatized, depoliticized gay culture anchored in domesticity and consumption’. The concept of ‘homonationalism’ has been initially referred to‘a collusion between homosexuality and American nationalism that is generated both by national rhetorics of patriotic inclusion and by gay and queer subjects themselves’ (Puar 2007, 39). Later its use has been extended to problematize a ‘generalized western sexual exceptionalism, wherein the West and/or imperial powers are ascendant because of and in order to further their ostensible protection of gay rights’ (Schotten 2016, 360).

5. Some researchers have considered the use of national symbols during Pride parades or in anti-homophobia campaigns, criticizing the way Italian L.G.B.T. organizations have called for the inclusion of non-heterosexual citizens in the ‘body of the nation’ (Puar 2013; De Vivo and Dufour 2012; Ferrante 2014; Acquistapace et al. 2016; Ammaturo 2016; Colpani and Habed 2014). Others have investigated how the image of modernization that L.G.B.T. organizations contribute to strengthening is produced by excluding specific regions and cultures within the country (especially non-urban areas in southern Italy), which would consequently undergo a process of racialization and further marginalization (Acquistapace et al. 2016; Ammaturo 2019). Moreover, once imported in Italy, this debate seems to have focused more on the neo-liberal matrix of Western modernity than on stratifying L.G.B.T. subjectivities, or on hostility towards ethnic-national minorities (Trappolin and Gusmeroli 2019).

6. la Repubblica has a much shorter history than the Corriere della Sera. It was founded in Rome 1976 (exactly 100 years after the Corriere, founded in 1876) and became widespread as of the early 1980s. The online archives of la Repubblica can be consulted from 1984 onwards, while the Corriere covers its whole history (from 1876).

7. Our analysis seems fairly consistent with that of Daniel Borrillo (2001), who reported that it was only in 1998 that the term ‘homophobie’ was first included in a French dictionary, while it had appeared a few years earlier in a Dictionnaire Gay edited by Lionel Povert (1994).

8. In 2000 we collected 22 articles containing omofob* for the Corriere and 17 for la Repubblica. From then on, their numbers gradually increased, especially as of 2005. There was a distinct peak in 2007, with 167 articles in the Corriere della Sera, and 272 in la Repubblica. By the end of this long transition – excluding the newspapers’ local editions (which largely explain the range of frequencies between the two) – almost half (47 per cent) of the articles identified were situated in the sections dedicated to domestic politics.

9. The decree (DL 181/2007) concerns: Urgent provisions on the removal [of foreign people] from the national territory for public security reasons.

10. In the first half of 2007, in la Repubblica there were already 148 articles containing the lemma omofob*, compared with 87 in the whole of the previous year. The picture was the same in the Corriere della Sera, with 80 articles in six months to July 2007 as opposed to 63 in the whole of 2006.

11. The acronym stands for ‘diritti e doveri delle persone stabilmente conviventi’.

12. In the early 1990s the Italian political system underwent a radical transformation. Among many other events, it is worth recalling how the collapse of the Italian Christian Democratic Party reshaped, but did not diminish, the importance of Catholic ideals in the political life of the country (cf. Bolzonar 2016).

13. Costantino Muscau, Grillini: machismo omofobico. L’antropologo: contraddizioni isolane [Grillini: homophobic machoism. The anthropologist: contradictions of islands], Corriere della Sera, Cronache italiane, p.13, 18 May 1996.

14. The idea that anti-gay hostility makes people unsuitable for modern societies is a key feature of the psychological literature circulating at the end of the Sixties, from which the concept of homophobia emerged and was initially codified (Churchill 1967; Weinberg 1972; Herek 2004).

15. Luigi Manconi, ‘Onorevole, si sdrai sul lettino’. L’omofobia di AN [Right honorable, lie down on the couch. The homophobia of AN], Corriere della Sera, Lettere & Idee, p.39, 23 October 1994.

16. Costantino Muscau, ‘È un messaggio che semina intolleranza’ [This is a message that sows prejudice], Corriere della Sera, Cronache italiane, p.9, 21 February 1994.

17. Carlo Brambilla, ‘Il matrimonio delle coppie gay va contro la dignità umana’ [The marriage of gay couples goes against human dignity], la Repubblica, Cronaca, p.22, 27 June 1992.

18. Roberto Zuccolini, La parità scolastica spacca il PDS [Equal status for schools divides the Democrats’], Corriere della Sera, Cronache, p.13, 20 July 1997.

19. In an article in this journal by Cheles (2010), the issue of homophobia is recognized as having been crucial, during the 1990s, to shaping the new Italian right-wing political rhetoric linked to the birth of the Alleanza Nazionale party.

20. Lucia Annunziata, AN, dimenticare le leggi razziali [AN, forgetting the racial laws], Corriere della Sera, Primo piano, p.4, 27 January 1995.

21. See previous note.

22. In an article on the cultural history of homophobia in the US, Daniel Wickberg (2000, 43) clearly explains how this word ‘can be used to unpack an entire cultural sensibility’, and a ‘left-liberal’ one in particular.

23. Felice Saulino, Plebe: ‘macché incidente, è una sparata per recuperare i suoi elettori‘ [Plebe: It’s no accident. It’s showing off to retrieve his voters], Corriere della Sera, Primo piano, p.4, 10 April 1998.

24. The political exploitation by various actors of Pride parades to test adherence to European standards has often been mentioned in various Eastern European countries (see Moss 2014).

25. Marco Marozzi, ‘Siamo tre milioni’. Il gay power marcia verso il Giubileo [‘There are three million of us’. Gay power marches towards the Jubilee], la Repubblica, Cronaca, p.19, 28 October 1996.

26. Roberto Della Rovere, I gay: ‘Saremo un milione nel Duemila a invadere Roma’ [Gays: ‘A million of us will invade Rome in 2000’], Corriere della Sera (Roma), p.43, 17 March 1998.

27. (unsigned), L’Europa è dei gay. Cortei per 500mila [Europe belongs to gays. Marches for 500 thousand people], la Repubblica, Cronaca, p. 26, 27 June 1999.

28. Curzio Maltese, Il dottor Purtroppo [Mister Unfortunately], la Repubblica, Prima pagina, 25 May 2000. In commenting on his inability to stop the Pride parade, Prime Minister Giuliano Amato said: ‘Unfortunately, we must adapt to a situation in which the Constitution imposes constraints and rights’.

29. Goffredo Buccini, Clinton: giugno mese dell’orgoglio omosessuale, Corriere della Sera, Primo piano, p.5, 4 June 2000.

30. Alessandra Stanley, Dueling Festivals: Gay Pride and Vatican Collide, New York Times, Section A, p.4, 3 June 2000.

31. See note 30.

32. Michele Serra, Panico giubilare [Jubilee panic], la Repubblica, Prima pagina, 30 May 2000.

33. In 2004, a Catholic politician representing the Berlusconi government (Rocco Buttiglione) applies for the post of Commissioner for Italy, with the portfolios for freedom, security and justice. He is rejected partly because of a comment on homosexuality (‘I’m entitled to think homosexuality is a sin’). See Giuseppe Sarcina, Caso Buttiglione, sfida del PSE a Barroso [The case of Buttiglione, the PSE challenges Barroso], Corriere della Sera, Politica, p.13, 15 October 2004.

34. Massimo Nava, Una coltellata al sindaco di Parigi: ‘Odio i gay’ [Paris mayor stabbed: ‘I hate gays’], Corriere della Sera, Primo piano, p.5, 7 October 2002.

35. Francesco Battistini, ‘Non guardate a noi islamici, questo è un affare fra europei’ [Don’t look at us Muslims, this is an issue between Europeans], Corriere della Sera, Primo piano, p.9, 8 May 2002.

36. Stefano Montefiori, Politici e omosessualità fra consensi e pregiudizio [Politicians and homosexuality, amidst consensus and prejudice], Corriere della Sera, Primo piano, p.5, 7 October 2002.

37. The whole debate takes place in three different editions on the same daily paper.

See: Sergio Lo Giudice, Le persecuzioni [The persecutions], Corriere della Sera (Letters to the Editor), 8 May 2003; Giovanna Nuvoletti, Libertà da tutelare. Benevolenza gay nei confronti dei persecutori [Freedoms to protect. Gays’ benevolence in relation to their persecutors] Corriere della Sera (Letters to the Editor), 10 May 2003; Angelo Pezzana, Ma in medio oriente chi difende i diritti dei gay? [But who defends gay rights in the Middle East?], Corriere della Sera (Letters to the Editor), 12 May 2003.

38. Lorenzo Salvia, Buttiglione: ‘É vero, lì è peggio che in Italia’ [Buttiglione: ‘It’s true, it’s worse there than in Italy’], Corriere della Sera, Primo piano, p.9, 27 April 2007.

39. Marco Politi, Il Vaticano attacca la UE. ‘La Chiesa non è omofobica’ [The Vatican attacks the EU: ‘The Church is not homophobic’], la Repubblica, Cronaca, p.33, 27 April 2007.

40. Bruno Riccardo, Grillini: ‘Anche la sinistra non ha una cultura liberale’ [Grillini: ‘Not even the left has a liberal culture’], Corriere della Sera, Primo piano, p.5, 24 March 2001.

41. (unsigned) Risoluzione europea: va ridefinita la famiglia [European resolution: the family needs to be redefined], Corriere della Sera, Cronache, p.14, 20 June 2005.

42. Giovanna Casadio, ‘Siamo diversi dalla Spagna, puntiamo alle unioni di fatto’ [‘We’re different from Spain, let’s aim for de facto unions’], la Repubblica, Politica estera, p.14, 23 April 2005.

43. Fabrizio Peronaci, Dieci delitti senza colpevole. Paura nella comunità gay. ‘Intervenga il questore’ [Ten crimes without a perpetrator. Fear in the gay community. ‘The Chief of Police should intervene’] Corriere della Sera (Roma), p.47, 11 May 1996.

44. These expressions are drawn from the following articles published by the Corriere della Sera: L’ultima paura di Londra, le bande antigay [London’s latest worry, the antigay gangs], 8 November 2004; L’ex sarto ucciso, caccia a due sbandati [Ex-tailor killed, the hunt for two drifters], 25 October 2001; Delitto gay, una fiaccolata nel nome di Paolo [Crime against gays, a candlelight procession in Paolo’s name], 14 July 2005; I ragazzini che aggredivano gay e disabili [The kids who attacked gays and disabled people], 23 December 2004; Coppia di gay italiani aggredita in Dalmazia [Italian gay couple attacked in Dalmatia], 11 September 2007; Insulti e botte, aggrediti tre gay [Insults and blows, aggression on three gays], 3 November 2007.

45. (unsigned), Monsignor Bettazzi: ‘Accogliamo i diversi’ [Monsignor Bettazzi: ‘We should welcome people who are different‘], la Repubblica, no section, p.5, 3 August 2003.

46. The expression is attributed to Rocco Buttiglione (the politician already mentioned in note 33 and 38). His aim was to distinguish between homophobia and ‘a reasoned opposition to same-sex marriage’.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Paolo Gusmeroli

Paolo Gusmeroli is a Research Fellow at the University of Padua, he is working on L.G.B.T. ageing focusing on care, support networks and family practices. He teaches ‘Imaginaries of diversity’ at the same university. His research interests are focused on gender and sexuality, sociology of family, generations and ageing.

Luca Trappolin

Luca Trappolin is an Assistant Professor of sociology at the University of Padua. For several years he has worked on gender and sexuality studies. He is author of several papers on the social construction of homosexuality and homophobia, including ‘Confronting Homophobia in Europe. Social and legal perspectives’ (Trappolin, Gasparini and Wintemute 2012)