No Laughing Matter

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Roberto Benigni was in great form last Thursday night, frantically pacing the stage in search of "one thing, just one thing!" that Silvio Berlusconi has done for Italy since becoming Prime Minister in 2001. The Oscar-winning film director and comedian was a guest on RockPolitik, an irreverent mix of song, satire and sermonizing hosted by Italy's most popular entertainer, Adriano Celentano. After sitting down to write a mock letter of apology to Berlusconi, the odd couple racked their brains for something positive to say. Drawing a blank, the scrawny comic then feigned a call to a friend who works for the Prime Minister's party, but no luck there either. "Nothing," he told Celentano. "But he said he'll make some calls and get back to me in the morning."

The performance was vintage Benigni, a longtime leftist and frequent Berlusconi basher. But, above all, the spectacle was an awesome display of Celentano's media might. Since first airing two weeks ago, RockPolitik has smashed all ratings records; some 12.5 million Italians, a 49% audience share, tuned in to see last week's show. Celentano is pulling them in with his rocker roots (in the 1950s, he was Italy's Elvis Presley) and his biting critique of Berlusconi's private and political domination of Italian broadcasting. During the show's premiere, Celentano gave a sizzling monologue demanding a free press and declaring open season for satire. He flashed national rankings for freedom of expression on a giant screen: in one survey, Italy placed 77th, sandwiched between Bulgaria and Mongolia. Given Italy's sluggish economy, Berlusconi's bickering center-right coalition and his steady fall in the polls ahead of an April re-election bid, Celentano's show is the last thing the Prime Minister needs.

Celentano and Berlusconi both rose to fame from the outskirts of Milan, where in the late 1950s each wooed audiences with song. Berlusconi was a part-time crooner, singing French ballads for tips on Mediterranean cruise liners. Celentano was a guitar-plucking rebel in blue jeans who all but invented Italian rock 'n' roll. He went on to launch a successful film career, later rediscovered his Roman Catholic faith, and reached iconic status in part thanks to his periodic returns to television, where he mixes cabaret, celebrity chat and his own provocative monologues on everything from God to garbage management. "Celentano is the Italian heartland," says Carlo Freccero, a former producer for Berlusconi's Mediaset network who is one of RockPolitik's lead writers. "He's both innovator and conservative. You just can't classify him."

This time around, Celentano is taking direct aim at Berlusconi's conflict of interest. The billionaire Prime Minister already owned Italy's three main private TV stations when he was elected, and since then he's installed allies in key posts at two of the three state-owned channels. He called the shows of three popular critics of his polices "criminal" and they were soon cancelled. Celentano has responded by stacking his guest list with fierce Berlusconi opponents, including Michele Santoro, a talk-show host who had not been on state TV since Berlusconi denounced him in 2002.

Fedele Confalonieri, a lifelong pal of the Prime Minister who now runs his Mediaset network, says Celentano's idiosyncratic show is proof that Italian television is free and open to all. Besides, argues Confalonieri, political satire is just harmless fun: "Television is about entertainment. It's not the media who decides who wins elections; the voters judge the candidates on what they've done."

Maybe. But it can't be a good sign if a centrist like Celentano feels the need to take the Prime Minister on. Benigni had some advice for Berlusconi on Thursday night: "You can become a comedian. Then you can really say anything you want." Celentano would probably even give him airtime, as long as his opponents had it, too.