Città aperta o cultura chiusa? : the homosexualization of fascism in the perverted cultural memory of the Italian left

The essay analyzes the equation of Fascism and homosexuality offered by two founding works of the Italian left-wing Neorealist movement: Roberto Rossellini's film Roma, città aperta (1945) and Vasco Pratolini's novel Cronache di poveri amanti (1947). By identifying Fascism and homosexuality, both works limited their commemoration of the victims of Fascism to heterosexuals and contributed to the erasure of a gay and lesbian Holocaust from historical memory. As shown by Carlo Lizzani's film Celluloide (1996) and the coverage of the World Pride 2000 by the Communist daily Liberazione, briefly analyzed at the end of the essay, the Italian Left has still not found a satisfactory way of dealing with the homophobic legacy of Neo-realism.