Adua and the Others
Cinema, Prostitution, and the Symbolic Space of the State in 1950s Italian Cinema
Keywords:
Prostitution, Melodrama, Censorship, Postwar, Italian CinemaAbstract
This essay takes the figure of the prostitute in 1950s Italian cinema as a privileged vantage point from which to interrogate the nexus between women’s exclusion from the productive economy and the symbolic construction of state order. It examines the resonance of Italy’s long regulationist tradition within the decade’s cinema through four emblematic case studies: Persiane chiuse (1951), Roma ore 11 (1952), Totò e Carolina (1955), and Adua e le compagne (1960). Methodologically, the research weaves together close film analysis, a gender-informed historical framework, and archival inquiry into production materials, reconstructing how, in the transition from regulationism to abolitionism, state review/censorship practices oriented the regimes of visibility of prostitution and helped negotiate the boundaries between women’s work, respectability, and citizenship.
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