My Son! Well, what can I say? It's definitely a very well-made film.
For us, it's not easy to identify with a character in a film, also because on TV, but also at the cinema, there are few characters who in some way "represent" us. This film, however, was able to follow a thread that goes beyond 'being gay or straight', it was able to give importance not to the story between two boys but to their feelings, to the feelings of the people close to him, to the feelings of his parents. Watching the film, I cried in many scenes: I cried for Stefano; I cried for Federico, but above all, I cried for myself. Living a double identity ultimately leads you to not fully living your one and only life...
Andrea
John Scifoni
I really enjoyed the series My Son. Although it was a bit slow on TV, it did a good job portraying the coming out of the closet of a gay man to his family. Above all, it provided a different image from the "sexual" one often attributed to gay people, showing the feelings that drive us. Of course, the father's acceptance was very simplistic; the real journeys may be different and longer, but it provided an insight. Kudos to Stefano – John Scifoni, a good actor as well as handsome.
Antonio – Bari
8 million viewers! So few... it was a film that should have been seen by all of Italy, and what am I saying, by the whole world. My Son is a film rich in meaning, it makes you stop and think and dream... It's really well made, it's full of beautiful moments... kudos to the actors who managed to empathize so well with their roles... I would have written the ending differently; I would have preferred to see the two gay boys move in together.
Simone
It had been years since I saw a TV series, sorry, a TV drama, I was very struck by the humanity of the drama My Son.
Finally, the gay world comes out in the open as normal: without feathers, sequins, and payettes, it shows it has backbone and dignity. Bravo, Stefano. Splendid performance. Excellent also to Lando Buzzanca, who, without abandoning his usual persona as the Italian seducer, measures himself, becomes sympathetic, and becomes complicit in a reality that previously eluded him, not out of a lack of sensitivity but out of "generational" repulsion. He too first realizes that the devil is not as black as he was painted, then, with a winking look full of pride for his award-winning gay son, he agrees that diversity does not rhyme with dishonesty and corruption...but quite the opposite!
Giuseppe Schisano and Lando Buzzanca
We hope that Lando's conviction and Stefano's talent will definitively remove the prejudice against gays from our society, or at least contribute to it.
In the writer's opinion, this is how one asserts one's identity, not with hysterical tantrums or useless provocations.
What about RAI? Bravo, you too! It seemed impossible that a center-right government could make such a film: yet it happened. The center-left didn't know how to do it... and we must acknowledge that.
As someone said, "It's a shame to miss the train of history." Congratulations to everyone.
Diego
(…) First of all, we underline the courage to present a story whose main topic is 'homosexuality'. A story produced by state television and broadcast in prime time. A few years ago, RAI broadcast ""Family defect"" which also addressed the theme of homosexuality, but still with extreme sensitivity. This time, however, we have a much more incisive film, whose aim, openly declared by the filmmakers, is to create gay hagiography, that is, to make people understand that gay people are also normal people, perhaps better than many others, and that they are unjustly persecuted and ridiculed. But the series goes much further, addressing the themes of gay love, gay jealousy, and the gay family (the moment when the father gives his son the keys to the new house where his boyfriend already lives is particularly exciting), all of which happens on TV the same day as the Dad He thunders against unions other than those between a man and a woman. As if all this were not enough, we also witness a very clear denunciation of the unjustified homophobia of an institution like the State Police.
Beyond the specific merits of the opera itself, which perhaps isn't exceptional in quality, even though we enjoyed it very much, the above is more than enough to place it in the history of social and cultural change in our country. Evidence of this has already been both the press coverage of the event and the overwhelmingly positive response from the public, with record audiences on both nights of programming. (…)
www.arcigaymilano.org
The Rai fiction “Mio figlio” starring Lando Buzzanca was an example of how the gay issue should and can be treated on television and in cinema.
TO Buzzanca, Our congratulations go to the actors, the director, and RAI for a valuable cinematic work that also serves to demonstrate the need to combat the prejudices that are still deeply rooted in our society. In this sense, RAI has provided the public with an excellent service, which will be crucial in the social journey of accepting diversity.
In particular, it is still very difficult for families today to accept a homosexual daughter or son because prejudice against homosexuality is still strong and because the idea that homosexuality leads to unhappiness is deeply rooted in many parents.
That's not the case. Only the non-acceptance of homosexuality brings unhappiness.
Precisely for this reason, along with the fight against prejudice, we are fighting for the legal recognition of same-sex couples.
A series like the one broadcast by Rai is particularly important and useful because, together with the talent of the actors, it reminds us of the importance of accepting diversity in all its forms.
Hon. Franco Grillini, DS MP, Honorary President of Arcigay
Diversity and family: difficult fiction wins
A sensitive topic like homosexuality, tackled by an icon of Italian machismo like Lando Buzzanca, scores ratings wins on Rai Uno.
Lando Buzzanca and Caterina Vertova
«My son», the fiction aired on Sunday (second episode yesterday evening) on the flagship network directed by Luciano Odorisio, has attracted the attention of 7 million 161 thousand viewers (26.851 TP3T share), surpassing the film "The Sixth Sense" starring Bruce Willis on Canale 5, which had to settle for 4,251,000 viewers. A police commissioner, Federico Vivaldi (Buzzanca), a pragmatic and uncompromising man of order, discovers that his only son, Stefano (Giovanni Scifoni), also a police officer, is gay. From here, the protagonist, alongside his investigation into the mysterious murder of a young girl, embarks on a painful psychological and emotional journey of coming to terms with a reality that is difficult for an old-fashioned father to accept.
The idea of tackling the topic of so-called "diversity" by framing it within a family context has won. But it's also a personal victory for the former "Male Blackbird." Rai Fiction, which produced the project with Sergio Giussani's Sacha Film Company, had in fact banked on Buzzanca from the beginning, precisely as the embodiment of the quintessential Italian male: the gamble was to detonate such a thorny topic, through an actor so well-characterized in completely opposite roles. Pino Corrias, director of Rai Fiction, emphasizes: "This drama has had a perilous history, which began three years ago. We were afraid of falling into cliché, vulgarity, and superficiality.".
Indeed, on the day of victory, controversy is not lacking. While media expert Klaus Davi praises the series "because, on a communication level, it alone serves much better purposes than certain sporadic battles by Arcigay, portraying homosexuals in a 'normal' light," the Young Homosexuals Association (Associazione Giovani Homosex) responds: "We find it curious that Davi's enthusiastic statements about 'My Son' implicate various gay associations, which try in every way to debunk the clichés that many TV series, especially Italian ones, indulge in.".
The potential for controversy over the subject was foreseen even before the TV movie aired. Odorisio admitted, "It scared me a little, but Lando's enthusiasm and passion gave me the courage to take on the role." And Scifoni: "I was a little scared of the role. I tried to play a son who has infinite respect for an authoritarian father.".
Riding the wave of success, producer Giussani is considering a sequel: "We'd like to highlight the inspector's humanity, following him in other cases. It could be a four- or six-part series. The backdrop would be clearly a police story, but still keeping social issues in mind.".
Emilia Costantini – Corriere della Sera 11.01.05
Buzzanca with gay son is really good
«"My Son" broadcast on Rai Uno: an excellent drama about homosexuality with seven million viewers.
If you are not part of the more than seven million Italians who watched My Son on Rai 1 on Sunday evening and you feel like you are in the minority, here is a short summary The first episode (the second aired yesterday evening) of the Italian drama, which, with an audience of approximately 271,000 viewers, beat out the American hit The Sixth Sense, offered by Mediaset. Commissioner Federico Vivaldi (played by Lando Buzzanca) investigates the death of young Patrizia, found murdered among the rocks of the Trieste Riviera dressed as a man after a beach party. The commissioner relies on the assistance of officers (including Alessandra Celi, daughter of the late commissioner) and his own son, Stefano (Giovanni Scifoni). The father is proud of a handsome, talented son who does the same job as him and is about to marry Valentina.
Scifoni and Buzzanca
But the investigation into the murderer is soon joined by another investigation, into his son's true identity: Federico discovers that things aren't going well with Valentina and that his son hasn't been seeing her as much for several months. The investigation into the killer becomes secondary to the realization that he doesn't really know his son, even though he lives with him (the commissioner is divorced from his wife, played by Caterina Vertova). Things get complicated: during the investigation, a witness who was at the party before the murder, phone records, and a sketch reveal that his son was not only seen at the party with the victim, but was also seen with the main suspect, Damien, a gay man with whom his son is having an affair. The commissioner corners his son and demands explanations... In the key scene, what in ancient Greek theater is called "agnizione," or recognition, occurs: Stefano confesses to him that he is gay. Gay, son, and policeman! This is evidently too much for the father, who in a slow-motion scene reacts by severely slapping him, a sequence also reminiscent of the father's slap in Mery Forever. Furthermore, a colleague of his who is investigating the same case is particularly homophobic, labeling all gays "perverts.".
It immediately becomes clear that the commissioner is more concerned about his son's homosexuality than his involvement in the murder. A sad and cruel reality that hasn't completely disappeared: the belief that it's better to have a murderous son than a gay one! Fortunately, in the next episode, it turns out the father reconsiders his convictions, and his son's cooperation proves useful in the investigation.
After Lino Banfi and Nino Manfredi Rai 1 is reviving a drama about homosexuality, this time from a father's perspective. And for the second time, it does so admirably. The series tackles the sensitive topic of gay men in uniform, effectively challenging the prejudice that gay men can't do manly jobs that require courage and physical strength... As if gay men, as such, can only work in professions that require nothing but creativity and imagination.
In Holland, there's even a gay police association that attends Gay Pride parades every year with a pink triangle pinned to their uniforms. In Italy, if you say "gay in uniform," you immediately think of the Village People, that openly gay American band that sang "Macho Man" in the 1970s, each wearing their own uniform: Native American, miner, cowboy, and (precisely) policeman. Gay people are a cross-section of people in many ways, including professionally, and you can't just fit them into any uniform...but you can think of them in uniform! I remember an old Arcigay commercial featuring a firefighter saving a woman from the flames, with the caption: "Would it make any difference if you knew he was gay?".
But the fiction My Son also has other merits: Lando Buzzanca made us forget the rustic playboy of his previous films and revealed himself as an actor in the prime of his career. artistic maturityCredible, moving, flawless. The rest of the cast was also well-chosen and directed, proving that Italian cinema is in crisis not because of a lack of ideas, writers, directors, and actors, but because of a lack of funding and attention. Special mention goes to the skill and expressive depth of Caterina Vertova, who, speaking to her ex-husband about her son, tells him: "You have to stop wanting more for him! You have to try to give space to those who love you. You have to let him live his life, don't just do the talking, let him talk...and above all...listen to him!"«
It's a beautiful invitation to listen to others, to those who consider themselves different from you. Listening has a great virtue: that of bringing supposed differences closer together.
Wladimir Luxuria
