Francesca Fialdini

"Interviewer: In 2010, «don't you think that the Church is a little too present in Italian social and political life? Fialdini: Let's start from a premise: many journalists commit the mistake of considering the Church as a unitary entity. Sometimes there is a lot of confusion in accrediting positions taken by this or that Catholic body. In reality, from country to country, ecclesial institutions have to deal with the complexity, even of the society in which they find themselves. It also applies to Italy, where the Vatican State and the Holy See historically reside. However, I like to remember that, in recent days, Pope Benedict XVI addressed the Roman clergy, reminding them that the pastoral task must not give in to the temptation to take politics into personal hands. The question is how to be realistic and practical without arrogating to ourselves a political competence that does not belong to priests."

"The afternoon schedule requires empathy, the ability to lay bare. There you really come to terms with some sides of your character. Interviewer: And you don't love popularity? Fialdini: I really don't love popularity as an end in itself. I care about my privacy, that of the people around me. Working in the afternoon means intercepting emotions, dealing with tears. It's the story that wins. The guest comes before me, he must feel completely welcomed. I never thought I would be the protagonist. I always thought that my job should be."

"[...] the struggles with my body date back to adolescence. In the fourth year of high school, I went from being the smallest in the class to growing taller and having a lot of breasts, which I now regret [laughs, ed.]. So I hid under extra-large acetate suits and my father's clothes. Only when I moved to Rome for university at 18 did I start playing with the look. Finally in a city where everyone was minding their own business and I no longer felt like the center of attention, I cut my hair very short and dared to wear colorful dresses and unwatchable trousers. It took working on TV to accept me: through the camera you see yourself "from the outside" and maybe discover that you're not as bad as you thought. Looking at myself on the screen I started to find Francesca nice, to work on gestures. And to be fine as I am."

"Interviewer: Women like her. How do you manage to establish empathy with your spectators without arousing criticism or envy? Fialdini: First of all, I don't have a scary physicality, I'm not bombastic, I'm not seen as a threat by other women. Furthermore, competition based on physical appearance disturbs me: I see it as a defeat for everyone. I'm not interested in having relationships based on my appearance or my sensuality, but on my personality, on my ideas. It's always been like this. Even in high school, when I was more beautiful than now, I dressed "by subtraction", I didn't want to be the center of attention. I have always tried to develop solidarity towards others, to form a group."

"[...] certain themes that have been dear to me since I was a child. [...] My mother, who in Italy I believe was the first woman to be appointed secretary of the DS, taught me to feel responsible for others. I grew up in the shadow of a very busy woman. I remember the tomes on our bookcase, the volumes on the importance of salary harmonization, the debates I witnessed when the meetings were held in our home."

"My football faith grew up in the shadow of my family, I have been a Juventus Football Club fan for generations. In the bedroom where we took turns sleeping, at my grandmother's house, there was a poster of Juve by Scirea, Platini, Cabrini, Tacconi... It was not possible to imagine supporting a different team also because it was too much fun to shout all together for a goal during a match and celebrate a victory or share a feeling of defeat . We did it together then and so again."

"What strikes me every time on Social networks is stopping at the surface with reference to the body, whether I have lost weight or gained weight, and unfortunately it is more and more women who do this. men on the other hand make sexual comments of an ancestral banality. But after all, with social media we have made everything banal, even love, which lasts as long as a vertical scroll with your finger."

"We are entrusted with a space, it's not like we buy it or manage it. So the moment you are given or taken away [a television program], you have to think about what you put into it. If you are calm, if you have worked well, if you have given what you could give under the circumstances it's not really about being afraid, on the contrary, it's about saying "whatever happens, it's okay". Because I know how I worked, I know how my team worked, what we wanted to do and what we achieved and what we didn't achieve. We must always remember that we are talking about a public service, therefore that our first shareholders are the citizens, those who pay the license fee, so we must look at them. Then the directors have the prerogative to reconfirm you or not: it's clear that you can't please everyone, maybe not everyone is betting on you. But it's okay, I've already had a lot of satisfaction, I've had it thanks to the fact that I've been able to work hard."

"We must say clearly to those who listen to us that women on TV, and elsewhere, do not make a career by taking shortcuts [...]. Let's start to value and enhance ourselves, to underline the skills and efforts of every day, to fight against stereotypes and categorizations. Only in this way can we hope to change things. Interviewer: Women and TV: do you really still smell clichés? Fialdini: Unfortunately, we are talked about through clichés: the brunette, the blonde, the sexy, the sweet. The theme is cultural, our representation continues to pass through baseless stereotypes."

"Interviewer: Do you ever experience pressure on how you should appear on TV? Fialdini: No, because there are numerous female role models: we are many and all different, beautiful even if overweight. If anything, the pressure comes from the fact that our competence is always compared to that of men. Maybe it's still difficult to accept a woman who knows what she's doing. I am someone who says her opinion loud and clear."

"Interviewer: Do you have a model? Fialdini: I think of a mix between the competence of Daria Bignardi and the spontaneity of Geppi Cucciari and Victoria Cabello. A woman who informs herself, but who does not give up irony and knows how to make fun of herself a little."

"In elementary school I wrote in an essay that I wanted to travel the world making reportages. The passion to tell things has remained with me, against the opinion of my parents who would have preferred me to stay with them in Tuscany. I still thank them for letting me go. I left home and after graduation I sent my resume everywhere. Everyone said "no, thanks", except Vatican Radio, which offered me a summer internship. I took my first steps there then, at 25 years old, with zero television experience, I auditioned for the Rai program In image of her. It all started from there."

"Interviewer: How does a woman like her resolve the "career or family" dilemma? Fialdini: Simple, I don't give up anything. I am convinced that life gives you what you can carry forward. I let myself be surprised, I enjoy it every day, I don't necessarily pursue projects, I think there's no need. If a family comes, I will be very happy, but I would like to be able to keep everything together. You need to have a companion who is intelligent, brilliant, curious and above all not tied to cultural clichés. One thing is certain: if a man tells me "Choose, either family or career", I certainly don't choose him."

"During my career I have almost always followed a journalistic vocation, except when they asked me to host more entertainment programs [...]. When I can deal with in-depth studies I am very happy. When I can use a synthetic language to give more space to the narration of a phenomenon [...], I find myself in my shoes and it corresponds to the image I have of this profession. When they call me to provide entertainment I try to get more involved. I take it almost as a challenge with myself to bring out strings that I'm used to playing less."

"In my job you have to learn to do the things they ask you to do. By nature I tend to be shy and reserved, but my work leads me to be very exposed. It's a continuous training to get along with all aspects of my personality."

"With this profession we easily become prey to judgments and models. I always try to strip away superstructures to be as natural and spontaneous as possible."

"Interviewer: [...] what relationship do you have with criticism? Fialdini: If they are criticisms pertinent to my program, therefore pertinent to the work, I accept them very willingly. If they are judgments about the person it is different. If you judge my shoes or my hairstyle I don't care. Reaching 40 will certainly be of some use."

"[...] we are children of an image culture that the entire twentieth century imposed on us and which today we have digitized to such an extent that the only thing that matters is the perception we give of ourselves through social media. Our children are children of this reality, in which the perception that others have of you matters more than who you are. Specifically, the problem concerns women's bodies, which are a real battlefield. Interviewer: On that front we are still far from a balance? Fialdini: Very far away, because if on the one hand battles are being waged for everyone, on the other the woman's body continues to be obsessively and ancestrally a question of desire. If you have to stimulate your desire in some way, the woman must have those standards, but she still means responding to a concept of desire that goes in only one direction. Why do we still have to feel like the object of desire for a thought male chauvinism? This is one thing I don't accept about the marketing strategies behind women's bodies."

"Interviewer: Don't you feel the danger of an overly fundamentalist feminism and the risk that this asymmetry will end up recurring, one day, in the opposite way? Fialdini: The risk is there, not to mention women who they have internalized the male way of doing and thinking so much that, despite being placed in roles of power, they reproduce exactly the same pattern."

"We have talked about males and females for centuries and it is true, males and females exist, but it is not as if there is a territory that defines what is male and what is female at all costs. We must free the feminine and masculine that live in each of us, these concepts must mix, discover, renew and transform together. Thus a society is born that has the imprint of both sexes and is not based on a simple symmetrical scheme, on a male/female ideological semantics that we have created in our brains."

"Interviewer: The partner from whom you learned the most? Fialdini: Carlo Conti for me is a master. Number one, but in front of him I go crazy and get everything wrong. He has the ability to surprise me. I was won over during a Sanremo, the one with Maria De Filippi. It was the final evening, the highlight. What does he do during the commercial break? He goes down to the audience, goes to his partner and asks: has the child eaten? Gigantic."

"Interviewer: A partner you didn't get along with? Fialdini: When I arrived at Unomattina, I entered Franco Di Mare. I wanted to be good and learn quickly, to earn his respect. With him I learned a lot but I struggled. But we liked our little moments: people still stop me on the street to ask me how Franco is doing."

"Interviewer: What "animal" is Fialdini on the air? Fialdini: I'm careful about what isn't said. I watch the body movements to understand how the person arrives in the studio, the mood, so I understand which doors I can open. Our guests know that we are open to the unexpected and they get involved. TV doesn't give discounts. It's also a very dramatic tool: if you're sad, it shows."

"Interviewer: Success: how much does talent matter? Fialdini: He The desire to work counts. I have never turned down a job, at any time of day or night, paid or unpaid. I took everything that could give me experience. To pay the rent I also worked three jobs: one day I fainted on the radio."