In 2010, I moved to Milan. I had already been to Italy several times but always as a tourist or within my family. During one year, I stayed with Erasmus people and observed the Italians from the outside. When I finished school, I started hanging out with Italians and even moved in with one. I suddenly discover another world… I changed from the icy girl that could not stand “the Italian noisy/maccho behaviour” to the girl actually enjoying everyday their "bizarreries". I decided that I should share my experience with non Italians.

This is how it starts….

NB: I would like to mention that even if sometimes I’m a bit sharp and sarcastic, it’s more a way of emphasizing how I ve been surprised by the difference of culture. Being not Italian, you will probably always be in a cultural learning process; but the only thing that I know, now that I'm back to France, each time I hear some Italians speaking, I think it's like singing and that they're performing a show, the show of living, which makes me immediately smile...

Sunday, September 11, 2011

PEOPLE: the Italian male stereotype


This week, I met the perfect Italian stereotype. I went into my new office and immediately noticed that guy around 40's, you could not not notice him as he was so loud. Everything in his attitude was loud and big, he was like an aggression for the eyes. After one day, I got the opportunity to take a coffee with him and the team. He told me, watching me deeply in the eyes: “ME, I’M THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GUY EVER”. Then he continued with : “ME I' M THE BEST SALESMAN EVER”, he’s the sales director of the new studio I’m working for.  Even if I’m sure he was joking in the way of saying it, he was truly convinced.
He asked me then: “Do you have a boyfriend?" In another country he would have been probably already accused of sexual harassment.  He’s attitude was a bit naughty even if I’m sure it’s a style he was giving to himself. Anyway, when I replied yes, he told me: "OK, so tell me, the most important : is he Italian or French ?" When I said he was French, he fixed me with his big blue eyes and told me : “leave him immediately, Italians are better and more “coinvolgenti” . He had such a serious face, I could imagine him pulling out a gun in a cowboy movie or a cartoon and I just wanted to laugh. 
And when at the end he paid the coffee for the full team and I tried to refund him, he told me: “The man is meant to be  a man, he has to pay for the woman”. Well it was a bit like being in Stone Age, I could not think more about the image foreigners usually have of Italians, including the role of women in the society, the Berlusconi scandals and the velline on TV show.  I would say I was quite surprised cause until now, even if Italians have definitely their own style and I will talk about it later in that blog, the ones from my generation were quite modern and respectful. 

Advertising campaign from Sisley during Berlusconi scandal

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