“Television
Character: Accountant Ugo Fantozzi”
by Maria Teresa De Donato
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(Photo: Paolo Villaggio)
(Photo by Luciano Salce / Erico Menczer - Film Fantozzi
(1975) Directed by Luciano Salce)
Dear friends, today I
want you to meet a television character who, for my generation and beyond,
represented one of the most famous, beloved, and pitied of the last century:
Accountant Ugo Fantozzi.
Who was Ugo Fantozzi?
Ugo Fantozzi, although a
fictional character created by Paolo Villaggio—a showman, actor, and
significant intellectual—well represents the archetype of the average Italian
of the 1970s: a middle-class man with a simple lifestyle, filled with the
anxieties common to the working class. With the creation of this character,
Villaggio achieved an extraordinary blend of Italian comedy and social satire.
This character had such an impact on Italian society that the adjective “Fantozzian”
entered the common lexicon, referring to anything that, in one way or another,
proves unsuccessful.
Filmography
Among the numerous films
that recount the misadventures of Fantozzi, the best-known are Fantozzi
(1975) and The Second Tragic Fantozzi (1976), both directed by Luciano
Salce, but many others were produced: Fantozzi Against All (1980), Fantozzi
Still Suffers (1983), Superfantozzi (1986), Fantozzi Retires
(1988), Fantozzi to the Rescue (1990), Fantozzi in Paradise
(1993), Fantozzi – The Return (1996), all by writer and director Neri
Parenti, and Fantozzi 2000 – Cloning (1999) by Domenico Saverni.
How the
"Fantozzi" Character Was Born
Fantozzi was the surname
of a colleague Villaggio had worked with at Italimpianti. This colleague
mistakenly called Villaggio “Selvaggio” (wild). This would later inspire
Villaggio in his films and lead his colleagues and superiors to call Fantozzi
himself, satirically and in increasingly humiliating terms, with various
nicknames ranging from “Fantocci” to Pupazzi, Bambocci, Bagherozzi, Beccacci,
Cagnacci, Mortacci, and Fantozzo. In contrast, the surveyor Calboni nicknamed
him “Puccettone” (big puck).
Other characters
Villaggio created were the travel organizer Giandomenico Fracchia and the
Accountant Filini for the Fantozzi stories and films.
In Villaggio’s stories,
two characters, Filini and Fracchia, appear among the characters’ colleagues.
In the films, they were later replaced by Filini alone, who would play the
protagonist’s best friend and the organizer who thinks he understands
everything.
His work experience
inspired Villaggio to write some short stories, which were later published in
the magazine L’Europeo and collected in the book Fantozzi (1971). The
book became a bestseller, selling more than a million copies, was translated
into numerous languages, and even won the Gogol Prize for “best humorous work.”
It was precisely the book’s
great success that led to a film adaptation in which Villaggio himself played
the title role.
Particularly significant
episodes that reveal the true nature of this character
There are many. Fantozzi,
for example, has no real friends. The only people he sees are his colleagues at
Megaditta, whom he sees even outside of work hours. He takes time off with
them; he celebrates New Year’s Eve with them by attending a party held in a
squalid basement where a swindling orchestra conductor advances the clocks and
starts the celebrations early so he can play at two parties; He accompanies
them on road trips in makeshift campers, on unlikely bike races, in soccer
games on muddy suburban fields, or in pathetic tennis matches, like the one at
six o’clock on a Sunday morning with accountant Filini, who is actually his
best friend. Worth mentioning among his other colleagues at the
"Megaditta" is the surveyor Calboni, a social climber and a sycophant
towards his superiors, as well as the group’s unrepentant womanizer.
Fantozzi constantly
endures harassment and mistreatment from colleagues and superiors without ever
complaining. However, in rare instances, he displays open rebellion, as in the
film Fantozzi, when he breaks a glass at the Megaditta with a rock, or
in The Second Tragic Fantozzi, when he attacks Professor Riccardelli.
Why are audiences around
the world so fond of this character?
In my opinion, for three
reasons:
1)
because his misadventures are hilarious, even if they’re actually dramatic, and
therefore, they’re sharp and cutting humor, not true comedy;
2)
because his constant victimhood inspires compassion; and
3)
because each of us can identify with the adverse circumstances he faces and his
failures, and therefore relate to him with empathy and human solidarity. It’s
like being in the company of a friend and understanding their suffering because
we’ve experienced it ourselves.
Who exactly does Fantozzi
represent?
Fantozzi is the emblem of
the “loser,” that is, the inept and unfortunate man, a victim of bullying, who
has entered the collective imagination for his grotesque attitude of
psychological submission to power and as an example of the average man
oppressed by society and constantly seeking redemption. To sum it all up in the
words of Paolo Villaggio himself, Fantozzi is “the prototype of the
miserable, or the quintessence of nothingness.”
His mediocrity inevitably
leads to his portrayal as a vulgar figure, with burps, swear words, and
negative attitudes, such as servility, that make him both comical and tragic.
When faced with the character, his misadventures, and his punctual failures, we
laugh when in reality we should cry, because both the events that unfold before
him and his behavioral responses represent true tragedies.
Another characteristic of
Fantozzi is his constant need to apologize and submit to everyone. The common
denominator of all the characters’ experiences is their complete surrender to
what is perceived as an adverse fate.
A striking example is the
famous “Fantozzi cloud” that haunts him everywhere: even when the weather is
clear everywhere and the sun is shinining, a cloud rises above the Accountant's
head, promising nothing good and waiting for Fantozzi to be out in the open
before pouring down a torrent of rain on him, which perfectly represents the
character’s life.
His family, which should
be his only refuge and consolation from a society that neither respects nor
recognizes him as a full member but exploits and mocks him, consists of his
insignificant and ugly wife, Pina Fantozzi, who doesn’t love him but, when
explicitly asked by her husband, replies that she has “great esteem” for him.
Pina respects and pities him, and feels condescending towards him.
The two have a
narrow-minded and ape-like daughter, Mariangela Fantozzi, a role actually
played by the actor Plinio Fernando.
As for Fantozzi’s wife,
in the first films, the role was played by actress Liù Bosisio (Luigia Bosisio
Mauri) and later by Milena Vukotic. The latter, despite having worked with the
most outstanding international film directors, including Federico Fellini, Luis
Buñuel, Andrei Tarkovsky, and Nagisa Oshima, achieved worldwide fame thanks to
her portrayal of Pina Fantozzi.
What lesson can we learn
from the character Fantozzi?
What Fantozzi lacks is
self-awareness and self-esteem. Fantozzi feels like a victim of everything and
everyone, and as such, he behaves in life and reacts to the events that come
his way. He’s a drifting raft tossed about by the waves. He has no control over
his existence. The few times he tries to react, he does so clumsily and
unfocusedly, precisely because his reaction is visceral, animalistic, and
therefore lacks the strength and effectiveness that could allow him to succeed
and, consequently, redeem himself.
The main lesson we can
draw from observing and analyzing this character is that, depending on the
circumstances, each of us can behave like Fantozzi— or even transform into
him—if we lack self-esteem, awareness, and knowledge of ourselves and our
potential.
Another key aspect we
want to highlight is that the Fantozzi films, albeit ironically, anticipated
the problem of mobbing that would become widespread in large companies. This
led to expressions like “Quanto sei umano!” (How human you are!), as well as
the adjective mentioned above “Fantozziano,” which has been recorded in all
Italian dictionaries for decades, becoming widely used to indicate experiences,
attitudes, or situations imbued with the character’s tragicomic air. And this
is without mentioning the incorrect use of the subjunctives “dichi, venghi, and
facci” instead of “dica, venga, and faccia”.
It goes without saying
that Villaggio, thanks precisely to the social issues addressed through his
films and the public response he received, has been recognized as a great
intellectual. In July 2021, in his honor, the City of Rome approved the
installation of a commemorative plaque on the Grande Raccordo Anulare, where
the famous scene in which Ugo Fantozzi takes the bus to work was filmed.
Would this character have
the same impact today?
I don’t think so, because
the historical moment of the 1970s was very different from today. There were
other values, a distinct moral ethic, a different vision of work and social
classes, and a strong presence of unions that fiercely defended workers’
rights. This reality allowed, at that moment, the social and labor issues
emerging to be brought to light, and the public, once aware of them,
demonstrated its willingness to sympathize with those who suffered and became
victims of certain abuses.
Much of this has been
lost over the past few decades...
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