A SOUTHERN NATION, NOT A WESTERN ONE:

Amanda Knox: Fascination with 'the evil female' (Nina Burleigh, 10/05/11, CNN)

I began researching my book on the case in 2009 assuming that Knox was guilty. But after only a month in Italy, I realized that almost no evidence supported the charge. Eventually, I corresponded with Knox in prison. The young woman I interacted with seemed troubled by her incarceration, a bit detached and naive, but overall not much different from other women her age.

During my investigation, I came to realize that even though three people were convicted of killing Kercher, most people I met who were not reporters could only recall the name of the woman.

None of the journalists in the huge pack in Perugia over the years made any but the most casual efforts to uncover the life story and habits of small-time break-in artist Rudy Guede, whose fingerprints were in the murder room, who never denied being there as Kercher was bleeding to death, and who has been convicted of murdering her in a separate trial.

His own story -- an immigrants' son, adopted and then disowned by one of the richest families in Perugia, suffering from fugue states and sleep-walking -- makes him one of the more interesting characters in the case. His past criminal history involving break-ins certainly made him worthy of more study, but no one was inclined to pursue his tale.

One reason for the focus on "Foxy Knoxy" to the exclusion of the men is the Italian attitude toward women. The story is rooted in a spirituality based in sex and the worship of the female. In Italy, the word "veneration" comes from Venus, goddess of fertility, called in Italian, Venere. The primeval object of "veneration" was the goddess with the power to call forth desire from men, and to make barren women fertile.

In modern Italy, one feminine deity is venerated above the rest: Mary, the mother of Jesus. The young virgin is worshipped apart from God or Christ and the Mary cult is stronger in Italy than in any other European nation. The flip side to Italian veneration of the female deity is her legendary insatiable neediness, the voracious desire and jealousy of females, embodied in the whore, who is also still very much a part of modern Italian culture. Either incarnation carries terrible powers.

All women are assumed to be in possession of bewitching seductive powers, but proper women are assumed to know how to use control and limit those powers. Modern young women visiting Italy might not recognize those limits, though, because the stripper or girly show girl was so mainstreamed in Italy, especially during the years of Silvio Berlusconi's control of Italian television and politics.

Posted by oj at October 5, 2011 7:59 AM
Tweet   

Follow @brothersjudd