Miss Italy 2021, how sad

this disappointment was witnessed by the laughable number of those who decided to spend the evening in front of the computer to face more than three hours of an indecent show. Let's start by saying that from the glories of the years in which the presenter was Fabrizio Frizzi, a professional never too remembered with nostalgia, and the event was broadcast by Rai channels, we have moved on to a fourth-rate show, moved from December to February due to of Covid and broadcast on a platform almost unknown to most: Helbiz, a company that deals with renting scooters and owns a web TV from which it broadcasts Serie B football matches.

Of course, we could not imagine going back to the year 2002, when Frizzi managed to convey in front of the screens of Rai 1 something like 11 million people, obtaining an 80% share: numbers that even exceed the successes of the Sanremo Festival. After this record the contest slowly but surely goes down. Patrizia Mirigliani, although in love with the competition that her father Enzo bequeathed her, she does not have her charisma and skills and she quickly manages to lose the national television network and the historic venue of the competition, Salsomaggiore.

Miss Italia struggles for a few years on the "La 7" network and only in 2019 reappears for an edition of 80 years celebrations, on Rai 1, however, relegated to an evening, that of Friday, which certainly cannot be defined as having great television audiences . The share obtained reflects the debacle with a measly 19.6%. At that point everything collapses. Even "La 7" is no longer interested in broadcasting the competition and Mirigliani, thanks to the pandemic, tries the social media card and presents itself in 2020 with a final streamed on Facebook. It's the end?

Perhaps, but the Competition does not give up and with the conviction that social fashion can cure all the evils of an event that has lost all its appeal, it decides to change the format, making it similar to a reality show and making it broadcast by this television network that nobody, or almost anyone, knows. The result is, to say the least, humiliating. Three and a half hours of low-level entertainment. A presenter, Alessandro Di Sarno, absolutely unsuitable to conduct such a complex and articulated live broadcast. Elettra Lamborghini was not very effective in helping him and only Carolina Stramare gave some signs of vivacity, even if very little used.

The numerous technical errors, the shots suitable for a local television in the country, the unsuitable lights and the dead times have put a further negative sign on the 2021 final. A significant concise comment on this ugly Miss Italy page comes from a profound connoisseur of the contest, Niccolò Fabbri, who describes the event as follows: "With this final of Miss Italy, not only a long tradition has been dishonored, which perhaps not deserved to reach such a level of carelessness, but also the premise on which the path of the competition should have restarted from this edition."

A question, at this point, arises spontaneously: is it a problem of collapse of interest in beauty contests in general and on a global level or is it a chain of errors, perhaps even involuntary, of wrong choices, of total inability to create such an important event but also very difficult to manage? Looking at the Italian panorama of competitions and the public that follows them, we think in spite of ourselves that the right answer is the second. Beauty always strikes and pleases. No doubt. The stages of the competitions are followed by thousands of people; events such as the final of Miss World Italy or Miss Gran Prix attract a multitude of fans.

One of the most important competitions in Italy, Missblumare, which has really revolutionized the concept of the National Final, leading it to associate it with a week-long cruise on a flagship of the MSC fleet, attracts a multitude of people who meet in the ship's theater to the assignment of the title. Even in the newspapers, not long ago, the image of the winner could be seen on the front page. Journalists and photographers competed for the close-ups of Miss Italy and the proclamation was awaited before the newspaper went to print. Now the news is relegated, when it goes well, to a paragraph on the second page accompanied by a tiny image; when it gets worse ... in the short term.

“With this new streaming TV we will get even closer to the world of young people using their own communication tools” said Mirigliani. Nothing could be more wrong. Our French cousins, last year, despite all the difficulties related to Covid, broadcast the Miss France edition in prime time: a great success with a 41.5% share and almost 8 million spectators. What does it mean? That this historic competition is destined to disappear in Italy? Maybe not, but certainly a profound reflection is needed and perhaps even a real revolution, starting right from the organization.

Perhaps a new management would be able to find an answer to all the questions related to this collapse and to invent a system to make the competition more attractive again, from a television point of view. We hope so, for us viewers who would not like to hear "Miss Italy ends here this time!" but also and above all for all those competitors who aspire to the crown, hoping to be able to revive the glories of the famous Roberta Capua, Martina Colombari, Cristina Chiabotto, just to mention the latest in a long series.

Ah! Just for the sake of information: the winner of Miss Italia 2021 was Zeudi Di Palma, 20, from Scampia (Naples). Will we ever remember her after a week?