Pino Insegno, “the voice of Aragorn” became “Giorgia’s friend”

From the mists of the new Tolkienian Rai, sooner or later his name always popped up. Pino Insegno’s shadow was everywhere, in a crescendo of hypotheses, positions, roles: a Sanremo, a “Domenica In”, “The Voice Senior”, a strip before the news like Marco Damilano, at least one New Year’s Eve in Matera instead of Amadeus. There had also been some mysterious visits by him to Palazzo Chigi. The Pino Insegno-centre-right negotiation was the real puzzle of Viale Mazzini (“now it’s up to this come on, come on”, a Rai executive allegedly let slip). In the end, two programs arrived (“The Legacy” and “The Merchant at the Fair”, which he had already conducted in 2006). Now Pino Insegno is the “regime artist”, Giorgia’s friend, the government’s recommended. The plastic representation of the most braggart subdivision, but also the symbol trumpeted to reaffirm the superiority of the culture of the left: we are the good ones, the others have Pino I teach “The Legacy”.

He lets it go. It intervenes little. Indeed, he seems not so sorry for this target practice. After all, there has never been so much talk about him. Even when they’re not angry with me because I’m right-wing, he says, they’re angry with me because I’m from Lazio (the “right-Lazio” combo always works, but he explains and doesn’t explain, even Sandro Curzi, say, he was a great Lazio). The fact is that it is not easy to understand why the right likes Pino Insegno so much (while it is easy to imagine why he is so disliked by the left). None of the many things he has done in a very long career as a dubber, comedian, showman, theater and cinema actor has ever had vaguely expendable content on a political level. He was “Boro unleashed” in Vanzina’s “Finte Bionde”, frontman of the “Premiata Ditta” in “Buona Domenica”, then a lot of theater, musicals at the Sistina, light unpretentious comedies, that nebula that is two fingers above the Bagaglino and a little under the prose theater, with titles like, “Old Hen Makes a Good Broadway”, then the voice lent to a little all, Will Smith, Jamiee Fox, Lenny Kravitz, Mel Gibson, Obelix, and Aragorn, the character by Viggo Mortensen in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

Here the spark was struck with Giorgia, that fateful “the day of defeat will come, but this is not the day!”, with which Pino Insegno introduces her on stage in Piazza del Popolo, in a rally last year, crowd in delirium . Already about ten years ago, when Rai led the Zecchino D’Oro, Pino Insegno was considered an icon of the Roman right. It was the Rome of Franco Fiorito, “er Batman” of Anagni too bigger-than-life to fit into a Smart, who roamed around the snow-covered capital in the snow-covered capital in the smoked-glazed Cayenne paid for with regional money, while Alemanno ordered truckloads of snowmobiles and snowplows. Renata Polverini had closed the electoral campaign with performances by Pino Insegno and Martufello. Then, with the collapse of the junta, the replacement of the Rai management also arrived. Pino Insegno left the scene. His plans were fine. But in Rai del Pd there was no place for him. But no one on the right was indignant.

No one tried to make him a martyr to housing development. Not even an interview on Repubblica. Of course, neither the Zecchino d’Oro nor “Reazione a Catena”, a format passed into the hands of Amadeus, who from there began his ascent to Rai, lent themselves to the barricade, to the apology of public service, like the programs of Fazio, Annunziata, Gramellini, all journalistic and “high cultural profile” formats. Pino Insegno is liked by the right more than anything else because he is not from the left (he defines himself as a “Christian Democrat, liberal, at best from the centre-right”, here he immediately becomes a “fascist”, as Marrazzo, president of the Lazio region at the time, told him all response to one of his projects for a theater school in the suburbs: “I don’t talk to the fascists”).

Thus, when he takes the stage in Piazza del Popolo to bring Giorgia to triumph, the impression is that he is not there as a testimonial of the right. But, just like when he dubbed Will Smith in Sanremo during Carlo Conti’s interview, Pino Insegno is there to play the “voice of Aragorn”. It’s the special-effect that projects Giorgia into her Tolkienian illusion. With that somewhat forced monologue that smacks of heroic victory and epic enterprise and that only he can make plausible. In short, Pino Insegno is to Giorgia Meloni a bit like Al Bano to Putin. The moment is good for him. And artists, as we know, are sensitive to flattery.