Contempt

Italian actress, comedian and satirist Sabina Guzzanti's in trouble. The last time old broom (read: Berlusconi) swept clean (read: ensure that all critical voices on state television had their contracts pulled from under them) she must have been on sabbatical somewhere. Since then, though, she's made her film about the state of Italy under the rule of B., entitled Viva Zapatero and has generally mouthed off against the corrupt old charlatan, so it was fairly obvious she'd be next in line for the censor. 

This time, though, Baldy didn't swing his own axe, but persuaded someone in Rome's public prosecutor's office to do it for him (OK, I may be simplifying things here. He might not have fingered collars himself. Hey, it might be a zeitgeist thing. As in, we're all neo-fascists now...). And the person whose dignity is being defended isn't Berlusconi, but Joseph 'Prada' Ratzinger.

After a speech at a public meeting earlier this summer, in which she predicted that within twenty years the Vatican CEO would be getting buggered in hell by some very active faggot-devils, Guzzanti's been accused of something called vilipendio verso il papa. This translates as "contempt towards the pope", and actually appears to be a crime. Guzzanti could be fined or, given the mood of the country at the moment, go to jail. 

Jail for having made the sort of crack satitìrists in Rome and elsewhere have been making against the rich and powerful for millennia. And who's defending her? Apart from Dario Fo? Certainly not the Partito Democratico, one of whose leading mealy-mouthed lick-spittle toe-rags, Dario Franceschini, announced that there was no need to punish Guzzanti in legal terms because she had already been condemned by civil society. Says who?

What Guzzanti said (and, believe me, it works one hell of a lot better in Italian) is no more vulgar than Aristophanes. Or Shakespeare. Or Dante. Good god, it's not as though the man's more worthy of our moral respect than any other un-elected pedagogue with a degree in astrology (sorry, wrong -ology) and a cracker of a private secretary. 

Relax, girl. It'll hurt less.