Are they jealous?

A few weeks ago I wrote about the news story on tomatoes on the evening news.
This even whilst the water for the pasta was boiling on the stove, I flicked the telly on. Dodging the evening game shows is no easy matter, so when I saw the news onMediaset's Channel 4 discussing a Financial Times article, my finger paused on the remote.
Not a coverage of world conflict, the Japan earthquake or the tensions between Russia and the UK, the article under discussion was about a criticism in the FT Magazine at the weekend, about the portrayal of women in Italy. Skimpily dressed at best, the use of semi-naked dancing girls with no plot motivation is something that I remarked upon a lot when I was first here - as you will see if you scroll back a bit on the blog to the beginning.
Naked Ambition by the paper's Milan correspondent Adrian Michaels, bemoans the lack of progress in women's rights in Italy, and especially the use of sex to sell. In other parts of the world the article points out, people would complain about this stuff, but here in italy its de rigueur. I hear you Adrian! It is unusual by international standards!
I have spoken with friends about it. The girls mainly laugh and shake their heads, the guys look surprised that I would see anything strange in it. My friend Wally, who studied communication science and must therefore know about these things (!) said it is a practice that was exacerbated by Silvio Berlusconi, (Mediaset's owner) who wanted to keep people tuned into the TV. And that specifically it was something that he did to lure people away from the boring national channels. (Wally's words, not mine!)
But the opinion of the anchorman on Channel 4 was that the problem was not in the showing of the barely-dressed ladies. Rather the problem lies with poor Adrian himself. Who is, after all, English.
The photographer who had been summoned via phone to comment agreed.
The English, it appears, are just jealous of the Italian men. The problem is just that the English women are no where near as attractive as their Italian sisters!
Perhaps to underline the point, the story, the last of the news today, was followed by the same bare-breasted lass on the beach as the tomato stiry.
And when I navigated to Mediaset's website, so that I could attach the link here, I see they are promoting the viewing of a video from one of their programmes. The self-proclaimed spicy videos showcases everything from sexy housewives to stripteases...
I can just see the jealousy on the faces of my countrymen now...