The Transnational Puppet: From Italy and Back

This chapter investigates the implications of the image of the puppet within Italian American cinema by tracing the origins and evolution of key interlocked associations—folly, otherness, power, memory, and identity—within European and American aesthetic constructs. In both European and American cultures, puppet and puppetry have been and continue to be linked to the idea of folly; though, different traditions emphasize and apply this idea in different directions—madness in terms of perception of reality (Northern/Eastern Europe), madness caused by the experience of otherness (United States), politically motivated and anarchic madness (Italy). All these threads fuse in the Italian American cinematic image of the puppet in unique ways, which reveals the layered possibilities and creative potential of puppetry in expressing and exploring diaspora experience and culture.