Serena Bortone recites Scurati’s monologue live: “Imaginative and offensive reconstructions”

Serena Bortone intervened forcefully on the Scurati case which occupied the pages of all the newspapers on 20 April 2024. The weekly episode of the television program is at the center of the matter What will be…, hosted by the Rai presenter. In fact, during this episode of the television show a monologue by Antonio Scurati on the theme of 25 April. The writer’s intervention, however, was deleted suddenly, leaving Serena Bortone dismayed.

During the day Giorgia Meloni also intervened on the issue but Bortone did not miss the opportunity to have her say on the matter, opening the topic during the April 20, 2024 episode of What will be…. Serena Bortone decided to read the offending monologue firsthand.

Serena Bortone, Scurati’s monologue

Serena Bortone presented a new episode of What will be…, his program broadcast on Saturday evenings on Rai Tre. In this episode of the television program there was space for a long-awaited monologue. Antonio Scurati, a well-known writer, would have dealt, in fact, with the day of April 25th and the resistance anti-fascist. This intervention, however, was suddenly canceled by the management of Rai, as Serena Bortone herself had revealed on Instagram: “In this evening’s episode of What will it be it was expected a monologue by Antonio Scurati on April 25th. I learned last night, with dismay, and by pure chance, that Scurati’s contract had been cancelled. I can’t get any plausible explanations. But first of all I owe it to Scurati, with whom I obviously just spoke on the phone, and to you viewers, the explanation of why they won’t see the writer on air on my program on Raitre tonight. The problem is that I couldn’t get this explanation either.”

A move that was also explained by Giorgia Meloni herself on her official Facebook account, speaking of economic waste due to the excessive cost of the writer’s intervention. Serena Bortone, however, decided to reply to the version given by the prime minister: “A monologue on April 25th by Antonio Scurati was planned, a monologue which, however, will not take place… Since I have read imaginative and offensive reconstructions, some newspapers have even written , that there would have been a question of money, I point out that Scurati’s reaction was to give me the text he had written for us, authorizing me to read it, which I will now do”.

The TV presenter, therefore, decided to read the text of the monologue Antonio Scurati, claiming to have received it free of charge. The text, after recalling the fascist past of our nation, states that until the word anti-fascist is pronounced by those who govern the country: “The specter of fascism will continue to haunt the house of Italian democracy”.

Antonio Scurati, the version by Giorgia Meloni and Rai

Antonio Scurati’s monologue was finally read by Serena Bortone a What will be…but also Giorgia Meloni he had published the text previously on Facebook, giving his version of the facts: “In an Italy full of problems, even today the left is building a case. This time it’s for an alleged censorship of a monologue by Scurati to celebrate April 25th. The left shouts at the regime, Rai replies that it has simply refused to pay 1800 euros (the monthly salary of many employees) for a minute of monologue”.

And then: “I don’t know what the truth is, but I will easily publish the text of the monologor (which I hope not to have to pay) for two reasons: 1) Because those who have always been ostracized and censored by the public service will never ask for anyone’s censorship. Not even those who think that their propaganda against the government should be paid for with citizens’ money. 2) So that Italians can freely judge its content.” There Raifor his part, claimed that the cancellation of the speech was due to editorial reasons.

Antonio Scurati’s response to Giorgia Meloni

Antonio Scurati’s reply to Giorgia Meloni did not take long to arrive: it arrived in the form of an open letter in Repubblica. The writer spoke of “defamatory attack” because “what the prime minister reports is false both as regards the compensation and as regards the extent of the commitment”. The author clarified: “I only accepted the invitation of a public television program to write a monologue at a price mutually agreed upon with the same company by the agency that represents me and perfectly in line with that of the writers who hired me. preceded.”

In fact, according to what the Corriere learns, Scurati would have negotiated a contract with Rai through Elastica, a literary agency and communication based in Bologna. And everything would have gone smoothly until the last moment, so much so that the novelist would have also received train tickets and hotel reservations, in addition to the usual forms, to go to Rome and hold the monologue.

Scurati therefore reiterated that what happened happened for “editorial reasons” and that “my thoughts on fascism and post-fascism, well rooted in facts, had to be silenced. It continues to be so now that the discussion has shifted to the evidently specious question of compensation. In order to manage to muddy the waters, and hide the real issue raised by my text, a head of government, using all his overflowing power, does not hesitate to attack personally and harshly with denigrating statements a private citizen and fellow countryman writer translated and read all over the world”.

At the origin of everything is the thesis, expressed by Antonio Scurati in his books, that Benito Mussolini was the initiator of a populist political style back in vogue recently.