Giuseppe Piero "Beppe" Grillo (Italian pronunciation: [ˈbɛppe
ˈɡrillo]; born 21 July 1948) is an
Italian
comedian,
actor,
blogger and
political activist. He has been involved in political activity since
2009 as founder of the
Five Star Movement, but does not hold any public office. He was
convicted of
involuntary manslaughter in 1981.[1][2][3]
Early life
and education
Grillo was born in
Genoa,
Liguria,
on 21 July 1948. He received his diploma as an
accountant.
Career
After graduation Grillo became a
comedian by chance, improvising a
monologue in an
audition. Two weeks later he was discovered and launched by Italian
TV presenter
Pippo Baudo. He subsequently participated in the variety show
Secondo Voi for two years (1977–78). Later, in 1979, he participated
in Luna Park by
Enzo Trapani, and in Fantastico.
In the 1980s his success rose further, thanks to shows like Te la
do io l'America (1982, 4 episodes) and Te lo do io il Brasile
(1984, six episodes). In these shows, he narrated his experiences of his
visits to the
United States and
Brazil,
with
anecdotes and witticisms about the culture, lifestyle, and beauty of
these places.
As a result, his popularity grew more and more, and he became the
protagonist of another show developed especially for him, called
Grillometro (Grillometer). In 1986, he was the star of
prize-winning advertisements for a brand of
yogurt.
Soon after this, his performances began to be characterized by an
increasing level of political
satire,
often expressed in such a direct way that he quickly offended a lot of
Italian politicians. In 1987 during the Saturday night TV show
Fantastico 7, he attacked the
Italian Socialist Party and its leader
Bettino Craxi, then Italy's
Prime Minister, on the occasion of his visit in the
People's Republic of China. The joke was:
A member of the Italian Socialist Party asked Craxi: "If the
Chinese are all socialists, who do they steal from"?
The joke hinted at the
totalitarianism of the PRC, but even more to the widespread
corruption for which the Italian Socialist Party was known. As a
consequence, Grillo was effectively and silently banished from publicly
owned television;[4]
yet, he was vindicated a few years later when the Italian Socialist
Party had to be disbanded in a welter of corruption scandals known as
Tangentopoli, uncovered by the
Mani pulite investigation. Craxi himself died in
Tunisia,
unable to return to Italy where he would have been jailed for several
convictions.[5]
Consequently, from the beginning of the 1990s his appearances on
television became rare: according to many people[who?],
the reason for this is a silent ostracism by politicians offended by his
revelations about their hidden financial activities,
frauds
and
false claims.
When one of his shows was finally allowed to be broadcast by
RAI, in 1993,
it obtained a record share of 16 million viewers.
He was later banned definitively from Italian television.
He currently performs in theatres in Italy and abroad, often with
outstanding success.[6]
Grillo's themes include
energy
usage,
political and
corporate corruption,
finance,
freedom of speech,
child labour,
globalization, and
technology. Recently Grillo started to encourage the use of
Wikipedia as the future of knowledge sharing, and generally he is a
strong proponent of internet freedom.[7]
Political activism
- Online activities and first activisms
Beppe Grillo in
Bologna speaking at V-Day.
On 1 September 2005, thanks to contributions from readers of his
blog, Grillo bought a full page advertisement in the Italian newspaper
La Repubblica in which he called for the resignation of the
Bank of Italy's (then) governor
Antonio Fazio over the
Antonveneta banking scandal. In October 2005,
Time chose him as one of the "European Heroes 2005" for his
constant battle against corruption and financial scandals.[8]
On 22 November 2005, Grillo also bought a page in the
International Herald Tribune, again claiming that members of the
Italian Parliament ought not to represent citizens if they have ever
been convicted in a court of law, even in the first degree of the three
available in the Italian system.[9]
His blog now contains a regularly updated list of members of the Italian
Parliament who have been convicted in all three degrees, in what he
calls "operation Clean Parliament".[10]
Grillo claimed, in 2007, that data suggested that even
Scampia, the most dangerous suburb of
Naples
and one of the areas with the highest
crime rate in
Europe,
actually had a lower crime rate than the Italian parliament's
membership.[11]
On 26 July 2007, Grillo was permitted to speak to the members of the
European Parliament in
Brussels, where he drew attention to the dangerous, negative state
of current Italian politics.[12]
- V movement
Beppe Grillo in
Pistoia during electoral campaign.
Grillo has spearheaded several national and international political
campaigns. On 8 September 2007, he organized a "V‑Day Celebration" in
Italy; the "V" stood for
vaffanculo ("fuck off"). During the rally, Grillo projected the
names of two dozen Italian politicians who had been convicted of crimes
ranging from corruption and tax evasion to abetting a murder. More than
2 million Italians participated in this rally.[13]
Grillo also used this rally to urge Italians to sign a petition calling
for the introduction of a Bill of Popular Initiative to remove members
of the Italian Parliament who have criminal convictions of any kind from
their office.[14]
According to Internet scholars, V‑day was the first case in Italian
history of a political demonstration developed and promoted via
word–of–mouth mobilization on the blogosphere and the
social networking services.[15]
This was followed by the second V-Day on 25 April 2008, in
Turin,
S. Carlo Square. This V‑Day was dedicated to the Italian press and the
financial support it receives from the government. Grillo heavily
criticized the Italian press for the lack of freedom,
Umberto Veronesi for his support for incinerators, NATO bases in
Italy, the politicians (Silvio
Berlusconi had recently been re-elected), and TV channel
Retequattro for still holding on to TV frequencies already assigned
to
Europa 7.[3].[dead
link]
In August 2008, Grillo was the subject of a report on the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation's (ABC-TV) international affairs program
"Foreign Correspondent". Titled "The Clown Prince" the report profiled
Grillo's life, political activism, the V‑Day campaign, and use of the
internet as a political tool.[16]
- Five Stars Movement party
In 2010, he started a political movement called "Movimento 5
stelle" ("Five Stars Movement"), without the desire to be a leader
and to be elected, but only to join, by the Internet, people who believe
in ideals like honesty and
direct democracy, and saying that politicians are only subordinates
of the people and that they should work for the country only for a short
time. They should not have criminal records, and should focus on
thinking about the problems of the country without any other conflicts
of interest. The movement became a party with electoral prospects in the
2010 regional elections, with four regional councillors elected. The
party made further gains at the 2012 local elections, receiving the
third highest number of votes overall and winning the mayoral election
for Parma.
At the 2013 general election the party won 25.55% of the vote for the
Chamber of Deputies.[17]
The "Movimento 5
stelle" ("Five Stars Movement") is the first party (but not the
first coalition) in the Chamber of Deputies.
Beppegrillo.it
Grillo maintains a blog (available in Italian, English, and
Japanese) at
beppegrillo.it which is updated daily. Comments to posts regularly
top the thousands (in the Italian version). According to
Technorati, the blog is ranked among the 10 most visited
blogs in
the world. In 2008,
The Guardian ranked Grillo's blog among the world's most
powerful blogs.[18]
Grillo often receives letters of appreciation and support from
prominent figures, such as
Antonio Di Pietro (former Italian Minister of Infrastructures),
Fausto Bertinotti (former President of the Italian Chamber of
Deputies),
Renzo Piano, and even
Nobel Prize Winners like
Dario
Fo,
Joseph E. Stiglitz,
Dalai Lama,
Muhammad Yunus.[19]
Legal issues
In 1980, Grillo was found guilty of
manslaughter for a car accident in which he was the driver; three
passengers lost their lives.[20]
In 2003, he negotiated a libel suit for defamation filed against him
by
Rita Levi-Montalcini. During a show, Beppe Grillo called the
94-year-old woman, winner of the 1986
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and Italian
Senator for Life (2001-2012), "old whore".[21]
During his shows Grillo never hesitates to name firms and
personalities he considers corrupt. For this reason he has been sued
several times for
libel by many people and organizations which he had exposed, such as
Telecom Italia.
When Italian judges were investigating the
Parmalat scandal, which was then the world's largest corporate
bankruptcy scandal, Grillo was called to testify as he anticipated
the imminent collapse of the dairy conglomerate in one of his shows.
When he was asked by judges how he had been able to discover that, he
simply said that
Parmalat's financial holes were so evident that anybody who had
enough ability to see them would see them, since the corporate
accounting was easily accessible.[22]
Criticism
Grillo is often criticized for his lifestyle. In particular, critics
blame him for owning a
motor yacht and a
Ferrari
sports car, both being in contradiction with his well known
environmentalist stance. In his blog he admits that he did, in fact,
acquire both but has since sold them.[20]
Grillo recently defended himself from similar attacks from the leader of
the Democratic Party on this subject pointing out he earned his pay over
the years and paid his taxes on them while the Hon.
Pier Luigi Bersani made his fortune from public tax free money.[23]
Grillo is also criticized for taking advantage of the Condono
Tombale, a fiscal
amnesty
granted by the first
Berlusconi government in 2001, which Grillo publicly opposed.[24]
Grillo commented on this issue during the V‑Day demonstration. He said
that he had personally benefitted by only €500.
Grillo has proposed that members of the
Italian Parliament who have a criminal record should be banned from
public office. As Grillo himself has been found guilty of
involuntary manslaughter caused by a car accident,[20]
he cannot run himself for public office.
Grillo has always stated that he is not interested in becoming a
member of the Italian Parliament anyway.[20]
Despite this, in July 2009 he publicly expressed his intention to
present himself as a candidate for the PD's primary elections,[25]
which, however, does not imply automatic presence in the Italian
parliament.
Another proposal of his is that members of Parliament be limited to
two government terms of office after which they might not stand again.
Detractors[who?]
argue that this would shorten the political life of competent and expert
politicians, usually drawing
Alcide De Gasperi,
Aldo
Moro and
Enrico Berlinguer as examples of brilliant politicians who served
more than two terms. Grillo is criticized as being a mere
demagogue who attacks politicians on superficial issues and their
private lives while unable to provide a valid alternative. For instance,
Daniele Luttazzi, a famous Italian stand-up comedian, criticized
Grillo in 2007 in an open letter published on the website of the news
magazine Micromega. Luttazzi accused Grillo of being a "demagogue" and a
"populist", suggesting Grillo should choose between satire and politics,
asserting the two are incompatible.[26]
In 2007, Grillo criticized the instrumentalization by Giorgio
Napolitano of "Memorial Day of Foibe Massacres and Istrian-Dalmatian
exodus".[when?][27][dead
link]
Filmography
Grillo has appeared in three movies:
In 2008, Grillo was featured in the documentary,
The Beppe Grillo Story, produced by Banyak Films for
Al Jazeera English.
See also
References
-
^
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21576869
-
^
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/22/world/europe/success-of-five-star-movement-shows-italys-anger.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
-
^
http://www.ansa.it/web/notizie/rubriche/protagonisti/2012/05/21/Beppe-Grillo_6911040.html
-
^
"Time Magazine: Seriously Funny". Time. 2005-10-02.
Retrieved 2013-03-12.
-
^
"la Repubblica/politica: Craxi, tutti i processi e le condanne".
Repubblica. Retrieved
2012-12-29.
-
^
"Grillo, l'eroe scelto da Time che batte tutti i record".
Repubblica. 16 February 2006.
-
^
"D'Alia’s "Shit Wall" against the Internet". Beppe Grillo.
12 February 2009.
-
^
Article on TIME Europe Magazine
-
^
http://www.beppegrillo.it/immagini/beppe_ht.pdf
-
^
"Clean Parliament", list of convicted felons in the Italian
parliament.
-
^
Grillo storms
L'Unità's party, from
La Repubblica, 16 September 2007.
-
^
Video clip
-
^
"Beppe's Inferno: A comedian's war on crooked politics".
The New Yorker. 4 February 2008.
-
^
Beppe Grillo's Blog
-
^ Alberto Pepe and
Corinna Di Gennaro.
"Political protest Italian–style: The blogosphere and mainstream
media in the promotion and coverage of Beppe Grillo’s V–day".
First Monday. Volume 14, Number 12, 7 December 2009.
-
^
"The Clown Prince". 8 May 2008.
-
^
BBC News - Italy election: Deadlock after protest vote BBC
news
-
^
"The World's 50 Most Powerful Blogs.". The Guardian.
16 March 2008.
-
^
Dario Fo
Joseph E. StiglitzMuhammad
Yunus
-
^
a
b
c
d
La paga di Giuda, from Beppe Grillo's blog, September 16,
2005; available only in Italian (the first English post in
Grillo's blog is from a few weeks later).
-
^
Gian Marco Chiocci.
"Tra "vaffa" e condanne, Camere tabù per Grillo" (in
(Italian)). Il Giornale.
Retrieved 29 December 2012.
-
^
Grillo testifies on Parmalat crack: "I brought also Fiat and
Telecom [Italia]", from
La Repubblica, 16 January 2004.
-
^
[1]
-
^
Grillo, the "Great Moralist" seduced by the fiscal amnesty,
from
Il Giornale, November 18, 2005. Note that Il Giornale is
owned by
Silvio Berlusconi's brother
Paolo.
-
^
http://www.repubblica.it/2009/07/sezioni/politica/partito-democratico-30/grillo-primarie/grillo-primarie.html
Grillo announces he will be a candidate for the Italian PD's
primary elections
-
^
Daniele Luttazzi talks about Beppe Grillo on Micromega, from
Il Corriere della Sera, 13 September 2007.
-
^
[2][dead
link]
External links
Official
Unofficial