Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture
Italian Telecom company TIM produced a series of television ads in 2012 featuring Dante, Virgil, Beatrice, and Lucifer as protagonists.
The trailer below gives a glimpse into the entire series:
For links to the full series of videos on Youtube, click here.
For more on the TIM series, see Delio De Martino, Dante & la pubblicità (Bari: Levante editori, 2013), 193-218.
“SERVING HADES AND THE SURROUNDING AREA
127 Fields of Punishment Ave.
[…]
“✩ ✩ ✩
KAREN T.
He arrived on time, so three stars for that. But he was not very fun. I said, ‘Hey, Charon,’ and he got offended, saying, ‘It’s pronounced “Karen.” ‘ So I was, like, ‘Oh, my God! Shut up! My name is Karen!,’ and then he rolled his burning fire-eyes and melted into the ether and left me there in the middle of the River Styx. Rude.
“✩
LISA M.
Big surprise. Yet another service that won’t take me to Brooklyn.” –Cirocco Dunlap, The New Yorker
“For those PR professionals not involved in the candy, safety, party, and costume industries, what does Halloween mean for them? With everyone thinking of the underworld, it made me think about the venial and mortal sins that some PR professionals may commit as part of their daily practice of PR. In his Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri wrote of the Nine Circles of Hell. That caused me to wonder – what are the nine circles of PR Hell?” — Mark W. McClennan, PRSA Boston, October 31, 2014
Kim Kardashian: Hollywood is an app in which a cartoon version of Kardashian guides the player’s avatar through the social and financial ladder of Hollywood. The app, released on iTunes in 2014, is expected to make $200 million by the end of 2014.
iTunes’ description of the app reads: “Join KIM KARDASHIAN on a red carpet adventure in Kim Kardashian: Hollywood! Create your own aspiring celebrity and rise to fame and fortune!”
TIME’s article, “Kim Kardashian’s Genius New Game is Basically Dante’s Inferno“, claims that “Kim is a Virgil for our time”.
“Kim Kardashian: Hollywood reminds me of that super-long 14th-century poem about the nine circles of hell, each filled with sinners punished in a manner fitting their crimes, poetic justice if you will. Kim Kardashian’s game is Dante’s Inferno.
“It’s basically the same idea, except you (Dante) can dress up in customizable hair and outfits that get increasingly elaborate as you get richer/closer to the center of hell. Kim is like Virgil, but she traded in her black robe for a sparkly silver dress, because shrouds are so 14th century. The circles of hell are levels of fame, natch.
“But what’s so hellish about an addictive game that allows users to play at being beautiful reality show stars? Um, everything. In the Kim Kardashian universe, your character can’t sleep, eat or see any friends who aren’t ‘contacts’ to help you get more famous. You have no family (Kim has family, but you don’t) and nobody to love. Your only human contact is with other hell-walkers game characters with whom you can either choose to ‘network’ or ‘flirt.’ You’re not allowed to do anything but go to club openings, photo-shoots or red carpet premieres. You can’t read. [. . .]
“It’s been nearly a month since the game came out, and I’m still in Kim Kardashian’s Hollywood, checking my eyeliner, changing my outfit, flirting and networking and promoting brands and slowly spinning deeper and deeper into darker circles of hell. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” —TIME
Marcello Toninelli, Italian cartoonist, published a comic-strip version of The Divine Comedy beginning in 2007.
“Così il fiorentino Alighieri raccontava il suo viaggio all’Inferno, ma è risaputo che… faceva la Commedia! Il senese Marcello la racconta in un altro modo, decisamente più divertente. Nell’Oltretomba nato dalla sua irriverente matita Omero gioca a mosca cieca, Cerbero mangia alla mensa diavoli e Virgilio fa, suo malgrado… il parafulmine! Seguendo rispettosamente il tracciato dell’opera originale ma occhieggiando continuamente al nostro presente, con quest’opera Marcello ha realizzato la più completa, esilarante e irresistibile parodia del capolavoro dantesco.” —Amazon.it
Click here to visit Toninelli’s blog, “Io e Dante”.
Contributed by Angela Lavecchia
All submissions will be considered for posting. Bibliographic references and scholarly essays are also welcome for consideration.
Coggeshall, Elizabeth, and Arielle Saiber, eds. Dante Today: Citings and Sightings of Dante’s Works in Contemporary Culture. Website. Access date.
