When the documentary on Fabrizio Corona was launched on Netflix, entitled “I am news”, it was also presented as a pretext to talk about the nineties: or rather, as an expedient to tell how much he was the product of the “President’s” TV. An interpretation that, in some way, ennobled the operation in the eyes of those who criticized the platform for being associated with such a controversial character. Then, once the series was released, critics predictably contested the result, accusing it of an excessive celebration of the former king of the paparazzi; but the documentary had – equally predictably – a great success: the one that achieves everything that has to do with the fascination of the forbidden.

Today, however, Netflix makes itself “forgiven”, at least in the eyes of the most pretentious. As? Launching – not surprisingly – another documentary which, this time, recounts the cultural decline of Berlusconi’s TV in a truly raw and merciless way. And it does it in just an hour and a half, without bothering the interminable six hours of “I am news”. It’s called “Videocracy – Just Appear”, was released in 2009, and acts as psychotherapy for those who have been – and, in part, still are – victims of that imagery: millennials, Generation Like Corona, precisely.

Once upon a time documentaries were documentaries and not self-promotional products

First of all, as we anticipated, it is worth underlining that the quality of Erik Gandini’s documentary – praised at the time by publications such as New York Times and the Guardian – takes us back to a time when documentaries were truly documentaries; and not, therefore, commercial products lacking in news, except those useful for promoting a character (we have seen too many: from Michelle Obama to the latest, discussed, on Melania Trump). With a critical and sensationally lucid gaze, Gandini has the merit of focusing – already in 2009 – on what we, fully immersed in that present, did not focus enough: that is, the gradual affirmation of a system of power based on image. Something that has been partly lost in customs, and which in other cases has survived, perhaps in new forms. And this is precisely the interesting point of seeing it again today: not so much understanding the Italy of the time, but measuring the distance, or continuity, with what we have become.

The parties on the Costa Smeralda, Lele Mora and the harem of young men, the auditions at Mediaset

We are precisely in 2009, Berlusconi is at the beginning of his declining phase, between the now chronic accusations of “conflict of interests” and the first unprecedented scandals about his private life. In any province of Northern Italy lives Ricky, a mechanic who dreams of becoming a star despite having no talents, emblem of the average man who aspires to “Big Brother”. With him we go behind the scenes of TV, between auditions and castings which always prove to be unsuccessful, but which Gandini uses to immerse us in a real sociological investigation with thriller outlines – in terms of aesthetics and music.

Thus we arrive in the room where Gianna Tani, historic Mediaset casting director, who has trained hundreds of artists, works. Then in the nabob villa of Lele Mora, in Sardinia, among young men gathered in harem: Mora, at the time manager of the most loved television faces, is immortalized as a mask of power, through shots that deform him in a parodic and disturbing way (exactly as happens in “I am news”, in short, but twenty years early). We thus immerse ourselves in the parties on the Costa Smeralda, where power and entertainment mix: where Tony Blair arrives but also the provincial girl who dreams of becoming “Miss Billionaire”, in homage to Flavio Briatore’s club. Then among the common people who, crowded outside the disco, try to photograph what at the time were profane deities. And, since “the devil is in the details”, Gandini finds him right here: in the girls, still children, who watch the casting of “Veline” and dream.

What will remain of these nineties

But what remains of all this today? And who have we become since then? My generation, that of the Millennials, thinks back to the Nineties with a sneer, as if it were something digested to the point of being able to laugh at it with detachment; Berlusconi is today “Silvio”, a tragicomic mask to be called by name. The following era, in fact, would have completely repudiated the previous one. It always happens like this, at least in words. But certain seeds, inevitably, continue to germinate.

If there is something that evidently no longer holds up (or at least it shouldn’t), it is undoubtedly the abuse of women’s bodies. I challenge anyone to watch the first twenty minutes of the documentary – where breasts, butts and legs mix together in a kaleidoscopic television slaughter – and not wince. Something alienating, seeing it again today, after the now nicknamed “fourth feminist wave”. Of course, for women entertainers, beauty is still an important social capital today, but there is a reason why, today, TV CEOs tremble when they pronounce the word “valetta”.

The myth of immediate success, however – what Ricky dreams of, in short – would remain there to keep us company for many more years, to reach (hopefully) saturation only recently. Gandini is targeting precisely this: the nobody who wants to become someone, even without talents. And it is the same mechanism that, in the following years, would explode with the influencer season. It is “sexism” elevated to a public story: Chiara Ferragni’s little letter to Sanremo, for example, where there wasn’t much to share other than the fact – exceptional only because it was transformed into a brand – of being born and raised, and on that basis of having become rich, very rich. Therefore: aspirational. Nothing different than those who framed Vitagliano in the square, in short. It is the idea of ​​”one is worth one”, which would later find its most complete – and, hopefully, now saturated – form in TikTok, capable of transforming anyone into a freak for 45 seconds.

But there is only one thing that has remained identical: Fabrizio Corona. And we who watch it

However, there is only one thing that has remained literally identical: Fabrizio Corona. And we who watch it. In the film’s most popular scene, the former king of the paparazzi is framed naked in the mirror, perfectly aware of the camera pointed at him. At the time he needed cameras, today a telephone is enough, but the center is still the same. And two sentences from Gandini are enough to say what he was and what he would become: “There is power in the society of the image”, explains the director, “but all this obsession with showing perfection creates tension in the country, giving life to dark forces, not willing to accept the rules”. Like Corona, exactly. Who in those years had ended up in prison for the first time. And who, having been released from prison for the first time, “prepares a 30-second comment that makes him reborn in the role of the victim, imprisoned for having revealed the irregular behavior of celebrities”.

And this is where “Videocracy” stops being past and becomes present. Because those words today sound like real-time news. Starting with those hosted in nightclubs paid thousands of euros: Gandini immortalized them in the documentary and, in fact, they continue to live today, bouncing in viral videos on TikTok. At the time, Corona was crowned by children; today too. Yes, those very guys who for years have been babbling about inclusiveness and rainbows are now going to ask the former king of the paparazzi if Maria De Filippi is really homosexual. Because the temptation to look through the keyhole remains stronger than any declaration of principle.

And so, beyond what Corona claims to denounce – that alleged “Signorini system” which, if it existed, it will be up to the competent authorities to ascertain – the most unexpected photograph is another: that of twenty-year-olds sneering at the sexual tastes of CEOs, as if that were still the news. So no: in some ways, we never moved from there. We just changed the screen.

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