Alessandro Blasetti's Cinema and the Fantastic: A Re-Evaluation of the Unmarried Woman

Benito Mussolini—Il Duce—once exalted cinema as “l’arma più forte”, or the fascist regime’s strongest weapon for promoting its ideologies and carrying out political agendas. One such agenda included Mussolini’s desire to restore the patriarchy in the face of modernity. The campaign sought to nationalize women through their procreative abilities. A number of early 1930s films directed by Alessandro Blasetti, a prominent fascist cineaste, reinforced the traditional gender roles. However, this campaign—both in Blasetti’s later cinema and in general fascist policy—was far from straightforward. In fact, there is a tangible shift in Blasetti’s treatment of women in the later half of the 1930s, especially in his fantasy films.This paper explores how Blasetti utilized the fantastic genre to maneuver around the established policy towards women, blurring gender lines and subtly challenging fascist authority.