“The Actress Who Got Slapped the Most”: Monica Vitti’s Body as a Space of Conflict in Italian-Style Comedy (1969-1975)

Through the analysis of some of the characters played by Monica Vitti in the context of the Commedia all’italiana, the paper aims to explore the connection between the construction of the new women’s gender subjectivity and the male violence in the early years of Italian Neo-feminism. In particular, the analysis will focus on Amore mio aiutami (Alberto Sordi, 1969), Dramma della gelosia (Ettore Scola, 1970) and A Mezzanotte va la ronda del piacere (Marcello
Fondato, 1974), released over a period of time in which not only feminist struggles exploded, but also some of the laws that would change the structure of Italian society and the relationship between the women and men were approved – from the divorce law (and the subsequent referendum) to the family law. By combining contemporary approaches from Film Studies and Gender Studies with primary sources of the time—including general press, film
criticism, early feminist publications, and even Vitti’s own self-narratives—this article aims to show how the actress’s body, as that of an unruly woman within the Italian star system, becomes a space of conflict where erotic and passionate attraction intertwines with violence as a reaction to women’s emancipation.