Barbara D’Urso and the end of an era

At some point in our analog life we ​​decided that Barbara D’Urso represented the bundle of bad weeds on our television, the worst of a program that, day after day, went further and further, scraping the bottom of a barrel that, to tell the truth, America has been scratching for fifty years in the face of our indifference, convinced, as true Italians, that the weed grows only in our garden and that, out of the soil of the house that smells of humidity, it is all an FX, all a National Geographic, all an HBO.

Since she specialized in the so-called “infotainment”, that is the often unbalanced mix of information and disengagement, Barbara D’Urso has imported, perhaps unwittingly, an already hackneyed model brought to success, among others, by Jerry Springer , considered by many to be the father of television trash: mixing the high and the low falling, often and willingly, into the low because, incredible but true, the audience likes the bass. It will not be a coincidence that on social networks it is Nadia Rinaldi who dances Lady Marmalade and not the intervention of Minister Speranza to go in trend and become a meme, but it may be that we miss this too.

It remains that, for at least ten years now, Barbara D’Urso’s TV has taken the longest step of the leg, coming to build a bubble so solid and so impenetrable as to limit any interference from the outside, any attempt to bring it back to reality. Exactly like Wanda Maximoff, who in Wanda Vision an alternative world has been created in which to live the life he thought he deserved, the television salons of the various Afternoon Five e Domenica Live they tried to move forward along often extreme lines, ignoring the warnings of all those who thought they were exaggerating for one simple reason: the results. If the television programs that today we define “trash” have been going on for a long time, it was, in fact, for two reasons: for the Network that has chosen to support and broadcast them and, above all, for the public who watched them, reinforcing their managers. idea of ​​having found the goose that lays the golden eggs, the lemon to squeeze to the last drop because that drop was the result of a minimal, tight budget and today, on the other hand, everyone wants this, to have great results in the face of a minimal, negligible expense.

Browse gallery

Now, however, that world dominated by rotating spheres, by Alabama lie-detectors, by elevators of emotions, by Doctor Lemme and Fabrizio Corona is destined, if not to disappear, at least to contract, given Mediaset’s desire to “clean up” on Sunday afternoon and Sunday evening and to resize daytime in favor of a more sober approach, more linked to the news than to Follettina Creation. Naturally, this turning point came partly because of the criticism and partly because of the you listen, which have begun to run aground too. After the pandemic, the public wants lightness, but not the free one that is built around unlikely characters such as the Angels of Mondello, but the cleaner one, which tells the gossip without digging into the living stone making us emerge with our hands smeared with blood and dust. We are not so sure that the infotainment model we have internalized for so many years will disappear completely as if by magic, but it remains that times change and that it is necessary to adapt quickly: no matter what they say Barbara D’Urso is a capable professional who has brought to port several times a ship that her own company had told her to lead. She did it with maniacal dedication, protecting herself from criticism with smiles and puckered lips for selfies that have become an extension of the Dursian format. This is not a defeat but, perhaps, the best time to reinvent yourself and understand in which direction the spectators are going. Capturing the signals of an iceberg near the bow is, after all, one of the first concerns of a good captain, both to save himself and those who pass on board.