Mina All New: An Unmarried Mother on Italian Television in the Early 1960s

Abstract

In 1960s Italy, mass culture played an important role in the circulation of ideas as tens-of-millions of people read magazines, listened to music, and watched television. In 1963, Mina – one of Italy’s most popular singers and a variety television star – had an illegitimate child. Despite this public moral lapse, her records continued to sell, magazines reported on her situation, and advertisers continued to use her to promote products. While the Italian state and the Catholic Church sought to guide the public and slow the pace of social change by restricting mass culture, Mina’s case reveals cracks in the mediation of moral content by the state broadcaster and demonstrates the growing influence of middle-class audiences by the end of Italy’s economic ‘miracle’. The article uses magazine and television content, market research, and viewer surveys to argue that Mina’s case shows the importance of mass culture in social change and new limits to church and state control over audiences. Mina’s career recovery would have been unthinkable a few years earlier. Her return to television variety in 1965 demonstrated the importance of mass culture in social change, and a new role for audiences, advertisers and enterprises in setting Italy’s moral codes.