Sanremo 2022: why the controversies on Lorena Cesarini’s monologue are unfair

Sanremo is Sanremo also because you know, in your heart, that whatever you do on that stage you will be wrong: if you shut up and smile from start to finish it will not go well, but even if you put together a monologue on your experience with racism , there will always be someone who will complain about you because they will think that certain things should not be shared because we have already “heard a lot”, as if racism were a chant that we are tired of rather than a problem that, unfortunately, we have not yet overcome. When Lorena Cesarini took the floor and began to tell the roots of her family, explaining how much she felt hurt by the offenses that someone wrote to her on Instagram after the announcement of her co-conduct at the Festival, the public was divided into who he empathized with his emotion and in those who rolled their eyes.

The criticisms have focused on the fact that Cesarini has trodden the role of the “victim” a little too much, raising the doubt that it was the authors who forced her to talk about this and made her cry. We don’t know how it went, but we only know that, unfortunately, the complaint about skin color still exists, and that if repeating it from the Sanremo stage can serve even only minimally to raise awareness on the issue, so be it. We can tell the tale of inclusiveness as we want, but the truth is that second generation people struggle to find a place that can be said to be truly integrated with those around him. Let’s take the example of Lorena Cesarini and her profession, namely that of the actress. If you don’t know how the wheel turns, we tell you that, apart from rare exceptions, the roles that are offered to a black actress in our country are essentially two: that of the prostitute and that of the immigrant.

Some progress is being made, but it is clear that our imagination is not yet educated to see a black person as the protagonist of an ordinary story, be it on television or in the cinema. A few years ago, Rai proved to be at the forefront by broadcasting a fiction, Throw away the moon, with Fiona May in the role of a complete Nigerian woman, but this is, in fact, an exception, which has been followed in recent times only Zero, the original Netflix production canceled after just one season. If Lorena Cesarini was insincere and forced for you, we are sorry: to us she seemed just a young girl who had the courage to face her first Sanremo experience with an open heart, without hiding anything. And this can only do her honor.

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Sanremo 2022: the general classification of the first two evenings

Sanremo 2022: the second evening, between comedy and reflection