Finish the rules:

1. When we want to point out things that are close to use we use: _____________________________________ and when things are further away, we use _____________________________________.

Look carefully at the chart above and then answer the following questions:

Which four pronouns are exactly the same for indirect and direct object pronouns? _______________________________________

Which group of pronouns is the same as the pronouns that we used with piacere? _____________________________________

While the definite article has 7  forms (il, l’,lo, la, le, gli, i), there are only ____________________ ways to say him, her, it, them as direct objects.

9.10 Punto culturale: la bella figura

A. Facciamo un po’ di Brainstorming. Parte I. Prima di leggere l’articolo, trova un/a partner e, insieme, scrivete tutte le parole che associate con l’Italia. Cosa vi viene in mente?
Es. la moda, gli Azzurri, ecc.

Parte II. Unitevi con un altro gruppo. Quante parole avete in comune? Avete la stessa idea dell’Italia?

Parte III. Alla lavagna, una persona da ogni gruppo scrive le cinque parole che associate più strettamente con l’Italia. Quando tutte le parole sono alla lavagna, decidiamo insieme (con l’aiuto del/della prof.) quante parole rappresentano una visione stereotipata o antiquata dell’Italia e quante sono veramente legate alla cultura italiana del nuovo millennio.

B. Comprensione. Prima di leggere l’articolo, leggi le seguenti domande. Mentre leggi, cerca le risposte nel testo.

1. What is the main difference between “your Italy” and “our Italia”?
2. What are the two common types of writings about modern Italy? Who writes them and have you encountered any of them in popular culture?
3. Why do Italians show deference to uniforms, according to the author? Do Americans show this same respect? Why or Why not? How about people from your home country if you weren’t born in the U.S.?
4. How does Malpensa “encapsulate the nation”?
5. What is the national passion of Italians (besides soccer) and why is it dangerous?
6. What does “fare bella figura” entail and how is it different from being a good person?
7. What is the difference between a British and an Italian flight attendant?
8. How do you think the author feels about his home country? Do you see any stereotypes in his writing? Does he over simplify and exaggerate to make a point? If so, where?

Bonus: In the world of Dante Alighieri, which cantico is most similar to modern day Italy?

La Bella Figura: A Field Guide to the Italian Mind (excerpt)
by Beppe Severgnini

First of all, let’s get one thing straight. Your Italy and our Italia are not the same thing. Italy is a soft drug peddled in predictable packages, such as hills in the sunset, olive groves, lemon trees, white wine, and raven-haired girls. Italia, on the other hand, is a maze. It’s alluring, but complicated. In Italia, you can go round and round in circles for years. Which of course is great fun.

As they struggle to find a way out, many newcomers fall back on the views of past visitors. People like Goethe, Stendhal, Byron, and Twain always had an opinion about Italians, and couldn’t wait to get home and write it down. Those authors are still quoted today, as if nothing had changed. This is not true. Some things have changed in our Italy. The problem is finding out what.

Almost all modern accounts of the country fall into one of two categories: chronicles of a love affair, or diaries of a disappointment. The former have an inferiority complex toward Italian home life, and usually feature one chapter on the importance of the family, and another on the excellence of Italian cooking. The diaries take a supercilious attitude toward Italian public life. Inevitably, there is censure of Italian corruption, and a section on the Mafia.

By and large, the chronicles of love affairs are penned by American women, who display love without interest in their descriptions of a seasonal Eden, where the weather is good and the locals are charming. The diaries of disappointment tend to be produced by British men, who show interest without love. They describe a disturbing country populated by unreliable individuals and governed by a public administration from hell.

Yet Italy is far from hellish. It’s got too much style. Neither is it heaven, of course, because it’s too unruly. Let’s just say that Italy is an offbeat purgatory, full of proud, tormented souls each of whom is convinced he or she has a hotline to the boss. It’s the kind of place that can have you fuming and then purring in the space of a hundred meters, or the course of ten minutes. Italy is the only workshop in the world that can turn out both Botticellis and Berlusconis. People who live in Italy say they want to get out, but those who do escape all want to come back.

As you will understand, this is not the sort of country that is easy to explain. Particularly when you pack a few fantasies in your baggage, and Customs lets them through.

***

Take this airport, for example. Whoever wrote that airports are nonplaces never visited Milan’s Malpensa or Linate, or Rome’s Fiumicino. Or, if they did pay a call, they must have been too busy avoiding people shouting into cell phones and not looking where they were going.

An airport in Italy is violently Italian. It’s a zoo with air conditioning, where the animals don’t bite and only the odd comment is likely to be poisonous. You have to know how to interpret the sounds and signals. Italy is a place where things are always about to happen. Generally, those things are unpredictable. For us, normality is an exception. Do you remember The Terminal? If the film had been set in Malpensa Airport, Tom Hanks wouldn’t just have fallen in love with Catherine Zeta-Jones. He’d have founded a political party, promoted a referendum, opened a restaurant, and organized a farmers’ market.

Look at the childlike joy on the faces of the people as they stroll into the shops. Note how inventive they are at thinking up ways to pass the time. Observe the deference to uniforms (any uniform, from passing pilots to cleaning staff). Authority has been making Italians uneasy for centuries, so we have developed an arsenal of countermeasures, from flattery to indifference, familiarity, complicity, apparent hostility, and feigned admiration. Study the emerging faces as the automatic doors of international arrivals open. They reveal an almost imperceptible hint of relief at getting past Customs. Obviously, almost all the arriving passengers have nothing to hide. It doesn’t matter. There was a uniform, and now it’s gone.

Note the relief giving way to affection as they retrieve their suitcases from the carousel. At the check-in desk, they weren’t sure they would ever see their suitcases again, and did all they could to pass them off as hand luggage. Listen to the couples quarreling, their accusations lent extra ferocity by the embarrassment of performing in public (“Mario! You said you had the passports!”). Admire the rituals of the families coming back from holiday. These spoken exchanges–Mom wants to know where their son is; Dad shouts to the son; the son answers Dad; Dad tells Mom, who has disappeared in the meantime–are the same ones that echo in a New York hotel or a street market in London.

Malpensa encapsulates the nation. Only a naive observer would mistake this for confusion. Actually, it’s performance art. It’s improvisation by gifted actors. No one believes for one minute he or she is an extra. Everyone’s a star, no matter how modest the part. Federico Fellini would have made a good prime minister, if he’d wanted the job. It takes an outstanding director to govern the Italians.

***

What else can you find out at an Italian airport? Well, Italians’ signature quality–our passion for beauty–is in danger of becoming our number-one defect. All too often, it prevents us from choosing what is good.

Look at the cell-phone displays and the saleswomen perched on their stools. Many of them can’t tell a cell phone from a remote control, but all are indisputably attractive. Do you know why the phone companies hire them instead of using skilled staff? Because that’s what the public wants. People prefer good looks to good answers.

Think about it. There is a lesson to be learned. We are prepared to give up a lot for the sake of beauty, even when it doesn’t come in a miniskirt. “Never judge a book by its cover” sounds like an oversimplification in Italian. We judge books by their covers, politicians by their smiles, professionals by their offices, secretaries by their posture, table lamps by their design, cars by their styling, and people by their title. It’s no coincidence that one Italian in four is president of something. Look at the ads here in the airport. They’re for cars, bags, and cosmetics. They don’t say how good the products are. They tell us how irresistible we’ll be if we buy them. As if we Italians needed that kind of reassurance.

***

If this passion for beauty stopped at saleswomen, clothes, table lamps, and automobiles, it would be no big deal. Sadly, it spills over into morality and, I repeat, induces us to confuse what is beautiful with what is good. Only in Italian does there exist an expression like fare bella figura. Think about that. It’s an aesthetic judgment–it means “to make a good figure”–which is not quite the same thing as making “a good impression.”

There’s an elderly French lady in trouble over there. She’s just collected two huge suitcases and can’t find a baggage cart. If I went over and offered to help her, she’d probably accept. At that point, something curious would happen. I would split into two. While Beppe was being a Good Samaritan, Severgnini would observe the scene and offer congratulations. Beppe would then acknowledge his own compliment, and retire satisfied.

Ours is a sophisticated exhibitionism that has no need of an audience. Italians are psychologically self-sufficient. What’s the problem? Well, we like nice gestures so much we prefer them to good behavior. Gestures gratify, but behaving takes an effort. Still, the sum of ten good deeds does not make a person good, just as ten sins do not necessarily add up to a sinner. Theologians distinguish between actum and habitus: a single incident is not as serious as a “habit,” or “practice.”

In other words, if you want to understand Italy, forget the guidebooks. Study theology.

***

An aesthetic sense that sweeps ethics aside. A formidable instinct for beauty. That’s the first of our weak points. But there are others, for we are also exceptional, intelligent, sociable, flexible, and sensitive. Offsetting these are our good qualities. We are hypercritical, stay-at-homes, so conciliatory and peace-loving we seem cowardly, and so generous we look naïve. Do you see why Italians are so disconcerting? What everyone else thinks of as virtues are our weaknesses, and vice versa.

As I was saying, we are exceptional, and that’s not necessarily a good thing. Surprised? Listen to this. Two hours ago, you were on an Alitalia airbus. On other occasions, you’ve flown American Airlines or British Airways. Did you notice how the cabin staff behaved?

The Italian flight attendant sometimes takes her job title literally–the plane flies, she just attends. But she’s always pleasant, elegant, and ladylike, so much so that she can appear intimidating. I remember one flight from Milan to New York. The Alitalia attendant, an attractive brunette from Naples, was strutting up and down like a model on a catwalk thirty thousand feet above the ground. The man sitting next to me glanced at her and asked me, “Do you think I might be able to get another coffee?” “Why ask me? Ask her,” I replied, nodding in the direction of the flight attendant. “How can I ask Sophia Loren for a coffee?” he whimpered. He was right. The good-looking attendant was putting on a fashion show in the sky, and no one dared to interrupt.

But then take a British flight attendant. You wouldn’t mistake her for a model. She’ll have very little makeup, and no jewelry. Often she is robustly built, and until recently would be sporting one of those little round hats that you only see on British cabin staff and New Jersey ice-cream vendors. Her heels are low, and her shoes are “sensible,” as they say in New York. Alitalia crews wear emerald green. British Airways has improbable combinations of red, white, and blue, or a mayonnaise-cum-apricot shade that nature felt no need to invent. The British woman is attentive, though. She comes back again and again, smiling all the time. She waits until your mouth is full, swoops on you from behind, and beams “Is everything all right?”

Then something happens. Let’s say you spill your coffee on your pants. At that point, the two personalities undergo an abrupt transformation that–you’ve guessed it–sums up the respective national characters.

The British attendant stiffens. You have deviated from the pattern; you have done something you shouldn’t have. All of a sudden, her inner nanny emerges. She doesn’t say she’s annoyed, but she lets you know.

The attractive Italian also undergoes a change. In an emergency, her detachment disappears. At times of crisis, what emerges is her inner mom, sister, confidante, friend, and lover. She takes off her jacket and actually helps you. Weak at, if not openly irritated by, routine administration, she comes into her own in exceptional circumstances that allow her to bring her personal skills to bear. Where did the ice goddess go? She melted. In her place is a smiling woman who is trying to be helpful.

Do you think some people might be tempted to spill their coffee on purpose the next time they fly Alitalia? Could be. A gorgeous Italian is worth a minor scalding.

Excerpted from: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6154369

C. Fuori e dentro. Parte I. Com’è diversa la tua nazione dalla percezione della tua nazione nel mondo? Scrivi almeno 10 frasi complete in inglese o italiano per spiegare e cita almeno un esempio se puoi. Hai mai incontrato una persona all’estero che abbia (has) un’idea completamente sbagliata o stereotipata di cosa significa provenire dalla tua nazione?
Es. Quando abitavo in Italia per la prima volta nel 1997 (!), molti italiani che ho incontrato pensavano che tutti gli americani amassero Clinton e la sua politica. Dovevo spesso rispondere, “Ma Clinton non mi chiama per sentire la mia opinione prima di prendere ogni azione….” 

Parte II. Formiamo due grandi gruppi per discutere. Cosa avete imparato? Come potete riassumere il vostro discorso? Mettetevi d’accordo su un breve paragrafo da presentare alla classe. Quali sono i punti principali che volete condividere con i compagni di classe?

Parte III. Discutiamone insieme!