For all those that actually want to what this show was about, Rockpolitik featured Adriano Celentano, accompanied by various celebrities, musicians and actors, giving discourses about political events, commentaries on various social issues and other spiels you would find being debated on public broadcast stations anywhere else in the world.
Where Rockpolitik differed from your run of the mill debate show, aside from the fact that it was hosted by Celentano, was that it played out more like a theatrical piece than a television show. Not least because of the fact that the set was in fact a stage, and not a studio. The audience seated in a large hall, as opposed to a being crammed into bleachers. Celentano would begin a discourse on a topic, without a catchy headline, instead with a dialogue (or diatribe, according to some) that would trail into a theatrical piece, played out by actors on the stage, or would blend into a musical skit, or even a short film, audience involvement in the form of a debate, or a combination thereof.
The show was somewhat hyped, and in true RAI fashion, attempted to be cutting-edge, on a shoe-string budget, and ended up short of the mark. To be honest, yeah, Rockpolitik was poorly executed. Having not been raised in Italy and having not studied the history of Italian Television, far be it from me to comment on whether Celentano's attempt at something different was an example of the "inevitable plunge of Italian television, and culture in general, into the most desolate and squalid depths of ignorance." For as far as I read, the show was canned because, yes, it was costing too much to produce, and not receiving the ratings it needed, but for mostly political reasons, such as Italy's public broadcasting station not legally allowed to be airing content viewed as being of contentious political nature. -And let's not go into politics in Italian television or culture in general, for it would take years to make sense of a thing more entwined and convoluted than perhaps many non-Italians could stomach.
Was the idea original? Yes.
Was Celentano entertaining? I guess that depends on whether you find fuzzy old Italian men romantically rambling about the state of affairs in their country. Judging by the amount of television shows on Italian television featuring fuzzy old men rambling about the state of affairs in their country, my guess is that the format wasn't terribly radical. When blended with the theater, the music and the cheese (Bel Paese? sorry, bad joke) that is RAI and it's way of communicating to it's target audience, it actually did have something to offer.
Perhaps the above reviewer expected hard-hitting cutting-edge anti-myth rhythm-rock shocking. Sadly, that kind of thing just isn't (or, wasn't) permitted, tolerated, or consumed by the masses. Perhaps the above reviewer was on the other side of the fence that doesn't like to see millions of euros thrown at another poor excuse for leftist propaganda.
In any case, Rockpolitik was a good idea, that given the room to adjust, and with right fine tuning, could have been. Unfortunately, never was.
Where Rockpolitik differed from your run of the mill debate show, aside from the fact that it was hosted by Celentano, was that it played out more like a theatrical piece than a television show. Not least because of the fact that the set was in fact a stage, and not a studio. The audience seated in a large hall, as opposed to a being crammed into bleachers. Celentano would begin a discourse on a topic, without a catchy headline, instead with a dialogue (or diatribe, according to some) that would trail into a theatrical piece, played out by actors on the stage, or would blend into a musical skit, or even a short film, audience involvement in the form of a debate, or a combination thereof.
The show was somewhat hyped, and in true RAI fashion, attempted to be cutting-edge, on a shoe-string budget, and ended up short of the mark. To be honest, yeah, Rockpolitik was poorly executed. Having not been raised in Italy and having not studied the history of Italian Television, far be it from me to comment on whether Celentano's attempt at something different was an example of the "inevitable plunge of Italian television, and culture in general, into the most desolate and squalid depths of ignorance." For as far as I read, the show was canned because, yes, it was costing too much to produce, and not receiving the ratings it needed, but for mostly political reasons, such as Italy's public broadcasting station not legally allowed to be airing content viewed as being of contentious political nature. -And let's not go into politics in Italian television or culture in general, for it would take years to make sense of a thing more entwined and convoluted than perhaps many non-Italians could stomach.
Was the idea original? Yes.
Was Celentano entertaining? I guess that depends on whether you find fuzzy old Italian men romantically rambling about the state of affairs in their country. Judging by the amount of television shows on Italian television featuring fuzzy old men rambling about the state of affairs in their country, my guess is that the format wasn't terribly radical. When blended with the theater, the music and the cheese (Bel Paese? sorry, bad joke) that is RAI and it's way of communicating to it's target audience, it actually did have something to offer.
Perhaps the above reviewer expected hard-hitting cutting-edge anti-myth rhythm-rock shocking. Sadly, that kind of thing just isn't (or, wasn't) permitted, tolerated, or consumed by the masses. Perhaps the above reviewer was on the other side of the fence that doesn't like to see millions of euros thrown at another poor excuse for leftist propaganda.
In any case, Rockpolitik was a good idea, that given the room to adjust, and with right fine tuning, could have been. Unfortunately, never was.
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