Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-m8s7h Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-16T20:32:19.756Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

I Watussi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2016

David Forgacs
David Forgacs*
Affiliation:
Department of Italian Studies, New York University, New York, USA
*
∗Email: david.forgacs@nyu.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The article reflects on the ‘absent connection’ between the fictional Watussi of the Italian hit song of 1963 and the real Tutsi, many of whom had fled Rwanda at that time to escape violence from the ascendant Hutu majority in the last years of Belgian rule. It considers the song's long afterlife and the stubborn persistence, decades later, of comic stereotypes of ‘Africans’ in Italian popular culture despite the growing number of African migrants and their children in Italian society.

Keywords

TutsiRwandaCongopopular culturestereotypes
Type
Research Note
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , November 2013 , pp. 437 - 443
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

De Castro, L. 1902. “Brevi cenni di antropologia normale e criminale dell'Abissinia” Archivio di Psichiatria, Scienze Penali ed Antropologia Criminale 23:529–530.Google Scholar
Life. 1938. “The Congo Giants: They are Africa's Aristocrats.” Life, June 20, 45.Google Scholar
Melvern, L. 2006. Conspiracy to Murder: The Rwandan Genocide. Revised ed. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Micocci, S. 2006. “Edoardo Vianello. Cinquanta, ma non li dimostra” VIVAVerdi 1–2:33–36, http://www.siae.it/documents/Siae_VivaVerdi2006n1-2_33-36.pdf Google Scholar
Pottier, J. 2002. Re-imagining Rwanda: Conflict, Survival and Disinformation in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sadoul, N. 1982. Entretiens avec Hergé: Tintin et moi. Paris: Casterman.Google Scholar
Stanley, H. M. 1879. Attraverso il continente nero, ossia Le sorgenti del Nilo, i grandi laghi dell'Africa equatoriale e lungo il fiume Livingstone fino all'Oceano Atlantico, 1874–1877. Milan: Treves.Google Scholar
Stanley, H. M. 1890. In Darkest Africa, or the quest, rescue, and retreat of Emin, Governor of Equatoria. London: Sampson Low & Co.Google Scholar
Tabet, P. 1997. La pelle giusta. Turin: Einaudi.Google Scholar