Beppe Grillo

Infobox_person
name=Giuseppe Piero Grillo


imagesize= 200px
caption = Beppe Grillo
birth_date=birth date and age|1948|7|21
birth_place=Savignone, Italy
death_date =
death_place=
occupation= Activist
Comedian
Actor
nationality = flagicon|Italy Italian
salary=
spouse=
children= 6

Giuseppe Piero Grillo, better known as Beppe Grillo (born July 21, 1948), is an Italian activist, comedian and actor, who also works in theatres and television.

Biography

Grillo was born in Savignone, a small town in the Province of Genoa, Liguria.

After receiving his degree as an accountant, Grillo became a comedian by chance, improvising a monologue in an audition. Two weeks later he was discovered and launched by Italian TV presenter Pippo Baudo. He subsequently participated in the variety show "Secondo Voi" for two years (1977-78). Later, in 1979, he participated in "Luna Park" by Enzo Trapani, and "Fantastico".

In the 1980s his success rose further, thanks to shows like "Te la do io l'America" (1982, 4 episodes) and "Te lo do io il Brasile" (1984, six episodes). In these shows, he narrated his experiences of his visits to the United States and Brazil, with anecdotes and witticisms about the culture, lifestyle and beauty of these places.

As a result, his popularity grew more and more, and he became the protagonist of another show developed especially for him, called "Grillometro" ("Grillometer"). In 1986, he was the star of prize-winning advertisements for a brand of yogurt.

Soon after this, his performances began to be characterized by an increasing level of political satire, often expressed in such a direct way that he quickly offended a lot of Italian politicians. In 1987 during the Saturday night TV show "Fantastico 7", he attacked the Italian Socialist Party and its leader Bettino Craxi, then Italy's Prime Minister, on the occasion of his visit in the People's Republic of China. Grillo said:

If the Chinese are all socialists, whom do they steal from?"

The joke hinted at the totalitarianism of the PRC, but even more to the widespread corruption for which the Italian Socialist Party was known. As a consequence, Grillo was effectively and silently banished from publicly owned television; yet, he was vindicated a few years later when the Italian Socialist Party had to be disbanded in a welter of corruption scandals known as Tangentopoli, uncovered by the Mani pulite investigation. Craxi himself died in Tunisia, unable to return to Italy where he would have been jailed for several convictions.

Consequently, from the beginning of the 1990s his appearances on television became rare: according to many people, the reason for this is a silent ostracism by politicians offended by his revelations about their hidden financial activities, frauds and false claims. When one of his shows was finally allowed to be broadcast by RAI, in 1993, it obtained a record share of 16 million viewers. He was later banned definitively from Italian television.

Beppegrillo.it

He currently performs in theatres in Italy and abroad, with outstanding success. Grillo's themes include energy usage, political and corporate corruption, finance, freedom of speech, child labour, globalization, and technology. Recently Grillo started to encourage the use of Wikipedia as the future of knowledge sharing.

He maintains a blog (available in Italian, English and Japanese) at [http://www.beppegrillo.it/ beppegrillo.it] which is updated daily. Comments to posts regularly top the thousands (in the Italian version). According to Technorati, the blog is ranked among the 10 most visited blogs in the world. He often receives letters of appreciation and support from prominent figures, such as Antonio Di Pietro (former Italian Minister of Infrastructures), Fausto Bertinotti (former President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies), Renzo Piano, and even Nobel Prize Winners (like Dario Fo, Joseph E. Stiglitz, Dalai Lama, Muhammad Yunus) [ [http://www.beppegrillo.it/2005/11/un_nobel_per_mi_1.html Dario Fo] [http://www.beppegrillo.it/2007/01/il_patto_col_di.html Joseph E. Stiglitz] [http://www.beppegrillo.it/2007/03/muhammad_yunus.html Muhammad Yunus] ] .

On 1 September, 2005, thanks to contributions from readers of his blog, Grillo bought a full page advertisement in the Italian newspaper "La Repubblica" in which he called for the resignation of the Bank of Italy's (then) governor Antonio Fazio over the Antonveneta banking scandal. In October 2005, "Time" chose him as one of the "European Heroes 2005" for his constant battle against corruption and financial scandals [ [http://www.time.com/time/europe/hero2005/grillo.html Article on TIME Europe Magazine] ] .

On 22 November, 2005 Grillo also bought a page in the "International Herald Tribune", again claiming that members of the Italian Parliament ought not to represent citizens if they have ever been convicted in a court of law, even in the first degree of the three available in the Italian system [http://www.beppegrillo.it/immagini/beppe_ht.pdf] . His blog now contains a regularly updated list of members of the Italian Parliament who have been convicted in all three degrees, in what he calls "operation Clean Parliament" [ [http://www.beppegrillo.it/condannati_parlamento.php "Clean Parliament"] , list of convicted felons in the Italian parliament.] . Grillo claimed, in 2007, that data suggested that even Scampia, the most dangerous suburb of Naples and one of the areas with the highest crime rate in Europe, actually had a lower crime rate than the Italian parliament's membership [ [http://www.repubblica.it/2007/08/sezioni/cronaca/grillo-v-day/unita/unita.html Grillo storms L'Unità's party] , from La Repubblica, September 16, 2007.] .

On 26 july, 2007 Grillo was permitted to speak to the members of the European Parliament in Brussels, where he drew attention to the dangerous, negative state of current Italian politics. [ [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32_qdNKnUGE Video clip] ]

On this occasion, Grillo was able to officially promote the so called V-Day ("Vaffanculo" or "Fuck Off" Day) on 8 September 2007. The V-Day, which was supported in more than 280 Italian cities as well as abroad, was organised by Grillo to persuade Italians to sign a petition calling for the introduction of a Bill of Popular Initiative to remove members of the Italian Parliament who have criminal convictions of any kind from their office. [ [http://www.beppegrillo.it/english.php Beppe Grillo's Blog] ]

Legal Issues

In 1980 he was found guilty of manslaughter for a car accident in which he was the driver; three passengers lost their lives [http://www.beppegrillo.it/2005/09/la_paga_di_giud.html La paga di Giuda] , from Beppe Grillo's blog, September 16 2005; available only in Italian (the first English post in Grillo's blog is from a few weeks later).] .

During his shows Grillo never hesitates to name firms and personalities he considers corrupt, always supporting his views with data and documents. For this reason he has been sued several times for libel by many people and organizationsWho|date=July 2008 which he had exposed, such as Telecom Italia.

When Italian judges were investigating the Parmalat scandal, which was then the world's largest corporate bankruptcy scandal ever, Grillo was called to testify as he anticipated the imminent collapse of the dairy conglomerate in one of his shows. When he was asked by judges how he has been able to discover that, he simply said that Parmalat's financial holes were so evident that anybody who had enough ability to see them would see them, since the corporate accounting was easily accessible [ [http://www.repubblica.it/2004/a/sezioni/economia/parmalat6/grillo1/grillo1.html Grillo testifies on Parmalat crack: "I brought also Fiat and Telecom [Italia] "] , from La Repubblica, January 16, 2004.] .

Criticism

Grillo is often criticized for his lifestyle. In particular, critics blame him for owning a motor yacht and a Ferrari sports car, both being in contradiction with his well known ecologist stance. In his blog he admits that he did, in fact, acquire both but has since sold them.

Grillo is also criticized for taking advantage of the "Condono Tombale", a fiscal amnesty granted by the first Berlusconi government in 2001, which Grillo publicly opposed [ [http://www.ilgiornale.it/a.pic1?ID=43702 "Grillo, the "Great Moralist" seduced by the fiscal amnesty", from Il Giornale, November 18, 2005. Note that Il Giornale is owned by Silvio Berlusconi's brother Paolo.] . Grillo commented on this issue during the V-Day demonstration. He said that he had personally benefitted by only €500Fact|date=July 2008.

Grillo has proposed that members of the Italian Parliament who have a criminal record should be barred from public office. As Grillo himself has been found guilty of Involuntary manslaughter caused by a car accident his criticsWho|date=July 2008 say he has no right to represent Italians either. Grillo has always stated that he is not interested in becoming a member of the Italian Parliament anyway.

Another proposal of his is that members of Parliament be limited to two government terms of office after which they might not stand again. DetractorsWho|date=July 2008 argue that this would shorten the political life of competent and expert politicians, usually drawing Alcide De Gasperi, Aldo Moro and Enrico Berlinguer as examples of brilliant politicians who served more than two terms. Marco Travaglio replied that, for that sake, also the political life of much less popular Clemente Mastella would have suffered [Marco Travaglio's comment on TV show "Annozero", as reported by the blog [http://ildiscepolo.wordpress.com/2007/10/05/arrivano-i-mostri-clemente-mastella/ Osare Perdere] .] .

Grillo is often criticizedWho|date=July 2008 as being a mere demagogue or populist who attacks politicians on superficial issues and their private lives while unable to provide a valid alternative.weasel-inline

Filmography

Grillo has appeared in three movies:
*"Cercasi Gesù" (1982)
*"Scemo di Guerra" (1985)
*"Topo Galileo" (1987)

In 2008, Grillo featured in the documentary, "The Beppe Grillo Story", produced by Banyak Films for Al Jazeera English.

References

External links

Official websites

* [http://www.beppegrillo.it/english.php The english version of Beppe Grillo's personal blog]
* [http://beppegrillo.meetup.com/about/ Beppe Grillo's fans meeting map around the world]
* [http://www.beppegrillo.tv/ Beppe Grillo's TV]

Other resources

* [http://www.time.com/time/europe/hero2005/grillo.html 'Time' article about Grillo]
* [http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=61655113e906fb9d92d2d0a0b0a5bcba203e3568 'New York Times' video about Grillo]
* [http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/02/04/080204fa_fact_mueller 'New Yorker' Beppe’s Inferno]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDdmd9vCO_8 "The Beppe Grillo Story" YouTube Promo]