"Rockpolitik" (2005) TV series

Director:

Adriano Celentano

Release Date:

20 October 2005 (Italy)

Genre:

Comedy | Music | Talk-Show

Plot Keywords:

Satire

Cast

Adriano Celentano	...	Himself - Host (2005-)
Roberto Benigni	...	Himself
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Luisa Ranieri	...	Various roles

Runtime:

Italy:155 min (including commercials)

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color

Filming Locations:

Rome, Lazio, Italy

Company:

Radiotelevisione Italiana

Unbearable

If only I could, I would spend hours jotting away profane insults at Celentano, Rai (the Italian state broadcaster) and Rockpolitik. Unfortunately, I am of a far too indolent predisposition to do so. What follows is a mere sample of the gargantuan variety of disgraceful abuses cramming my already minute encephalon.

It all started some six months before the airdate of the show, with a surprisingly original teaser announcing, with the solemnity of the Archangel unleashing the Apocalypse upon the sinful people of the Earth, that some time in the distant future, Italian audiences would have the pleasure, nay the honour, of witnessing a four-episode Celentano extravaganza. 180 days, €10m and scores of undue trepidation and masterminded controversy later, the show airs loaded with its decidedly immodest ambition of enlightening the TV public of "il Bel Paese" with something so unimaginably different from the mind-numbing, spirit-crushing fare they have been accustomed to in the past decade or so.

Does it succeed? Most certainly not, as even the least deductive of you might have guessed. In a rare exercise blending hypocrisy and presumptuousness, Rockpolitik actually manages to scrape the lowest abyss of the Sea of Banality and the Profanic Ocean. The, some may say unwarranted, tirade is due precisely to the show's self-proclaimed grandiosity and uniqueness. In reality, it translates into an unapologetic repetition of contrived celebrity appearances, comic routines (the use of the word comic is nothing more than the result of the generous Christmas spirit currently prevailing) and lip-synched delights from the man himself, Celentano. The result is, therefore, just as mind-numbing and as spirit-crushing as the status quo it so pitifully attempts to denounce. After four interminable helpings of this rubbish, one cannot help but notice the inevitable plunge of Italian television, and culture in general, into the most desolate and squalid depths of ignorance.