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    The Divo and the Duce

    Promoting Film Stardom and Political Leadership in 1920s America

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    Author(s)
    Bertellini, Giorgio
    Collection
    Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem (TOME)
    Language
    English
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    Abstract
    In the climate of isolationism, nativism, democratic expansion of civic rights, and consumerism that America experienced after the First World War, Italian-born movie star Rudolph Valentino and Italy’s dictator, Benito Mussolini, became surprisingly appealing emblems of authoritarian male power. Drawing on extensive research in the United States and Italy, Bertellini’s work shows how the political and erotic popularity of Valentino, the Divo, and Mussolini, the Duce, was not just the result of spontaneous popular enthusiasm. Instead, Bertellini argues, it also depended on the efforts of public opinion managers, including publicists, journalists, and even ambassadors. As such, the fame of the Divo and the Duce reveals both the converging publicity work undertaken in Hollywood and Washington since the Great War and the extent to which their foreignness was put to work in managing postwar anxieties about democratic governance. Beyond the democratic celebrations of the Jazz Age, this promotion of charismatic masculinity, while short-lived, inaugurated the now-familiar convergence of popular celebrity and political authority.
    URI
    http://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/25825
    Keywords
    silent cinema; fascism; celebrity; film stardom; dictatorship; democracy; promotion; publicity; charisma
    DOI
    10.1525/luminos.62
    ISBN
    9780520301368
    OCN
    1048014934
    Publisher
    University of California Press
    Publisher website
    https://www.ucpress.edu/
    Publication date and place
    Oakland, 2019
    Classification
    History
    Media studies
    Pages
    329
    Rights
    http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
    • Imported or submitted locally

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    License

    • If not noted otherwise all contents are available under Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

    Credits

    • logo EU
    • This project received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 683680, 810640, 871069 and 964352.

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