“Italy and Europe” is an animated cartoon created by Bruno Bozzetto in 1999. It can be found on the internet here. Bozzetto is a well-known Italian flash-cartoonist who has created very funny clips such as “Yes & No”, “Olympics” and “Female & Male”.

In “Italy and Europe”, Bozzetto makes a funny compararison between the Italians and the Europeans. The idea is to present their respective stereotypes and show how Italians differ from the rest of the Europeans as regards to the organization of their country and some of their habits.In the first part of the movie, he shows how Italians drive badly and don’t respect other drivers or even pedestrians, whereas the other Europeans do.

One example is when an Italian car is about to park and other cars rush to park their cars exactly where the other one was parking. In the rest of Europe, this doesn’t happen.

The author also gives an example of bureaucracy, showing  that people have a lot of things to do and a lot of time to wait before they can get a document they need in Italy. Sometimes they are told to go somewhere, and when they arrive there, the boot is closed. However, it is not the same in Europe, where you can have what you want much faster.

The second part of the video contrasts European and Italian habits. For example, the Europeans practise sports, contrary to Italians, who prefer watching them and just supporting their teams. The Europeans respect the“No Smoking” sign unlike the Italians. The Europeans stay in queue when they are asked to whereas the Italians don’t.

This flash-movie shows a generalized image of Italy and Italians, who are seen as an unpolite and egocentric people, but also an utopic generalized image of the Europeans who are portrayed as being organized, polite, sophisticated and superior to the Italians. But if it wasn’t a joke, I would consider this cartoon as very prejudiced against the Italians, because not every Italian is the way the movie shows As well as not every European is that polite.