Political Photoromances: The Italian Communist Party, Famiglia Cristiana, and the Struggle for Women’s Hearts

Abstract

This essay examines the Italian fotoromanzo (photoromance) as a case study, vis-à-vis questions of cultural hierarchies, gender representations, and governance. In particular, it focuses on the photoromances published by the Catholic magazine Famiglia Cristiana and by the Office of Propaganda of the Italian Communist Party in the late 1950s, in the context of the heated debate exploded in the press against the popular media. Italian journalists, film critics, Christian Democratic and Communist politicians alike blamed photoromances, published in women’s magazines such as Bolero Film and Grand Hotel, for corrupting or stultifying women. This essay highlights differences and continuities in social and cultural discourses, between the products of Catholic, Communist, and corporate publishers, with particular regard to femininity, womanhood, and consumer culture. In this way, it also explores similarities between Catholic and Communist models of social, sexual and moral conduct.