Motherhood Revisited in Francesca Comencini’s Lo Spazio Bianco

An accomplished director from a well-known family of filmmakers, Francesca Comencini is also an outspoken critic of the misrepresentation of women in the Italian media, and of right-wing legislative interventions regulating women’s sexuality and reproductive rights.1 For example, Comencini is one of the founding members of Se non ora quando (SNOQ), an organization created in 2011 by a diverse group of activists to protest against the attack on women’s dignity and self-determination in Italian society.2 The creation of SNOQ and the spreading of similar protests throughout Italy in the past decade are evidence of the growing societal discontent for the degraded state of gender relations, and for the state’s attempt to control women’s reproductive choices.3 According to the founders of SNOQ, the representation of women as “naked objects of sexual exchange that is offered by newspapers, television, and advertising” (nudo oggetto di scambio sessuale, offerta da giornali, televisioni, pubblicità) erases the many past and present contributions of women to Italian society. Furthermore, they explain: “This mentality and the behaviors that originate from it are polluting our social interactions. The gender relations model flaunted by one of our top government officials deeply affects our lifestyle and national culture, legitimating behaviors that harm the dignity of women and of the institutions” (Questa mentalità e i comportamenti che ne derivano stanno inquinando la convivenza sociale […].