You know a film’s got to be pretty offensive if it’s banned in Italy, but that only applies if your documentary dares to attack the social and political immorality of having the nation’s biggest media mogul being both the President of his company and the President of his country at the same time. Silvio Berlusconi has the type of control over media (and as such, criticism about him in it) that Dick Cheney might call his life a fairy tale; that is if the only thing that the former U.S. Vice President actually believed wasn’t the gathering darkness. But I kid Cheney because no matter how sneaky or underhanded the Bush Administration tried to be, there was still a (semi-) free press to catch him in the act. Berlusconi meanwhile can order a show on one network stopped early if he’s appearing on a show on a different channel.

Is it any wonder that Swedish-Italian filmmaker Erik Gandini said to himself, “I’d like to make a documentary about that?” And how do you know that Gandini struck a nerve? Well, even the mere trailer for Videocracy has been banned on Italian television following its bombastic premiere at the Venice Film Festival (followed up by its Toronto Film Fest premiere). “Videocracy” is a term created to describe the power of image over society, and Berlusconi (and his campaigners) are some of its earliest pioneers. A Berlusconi campaign commercial shows various good-looking women “from all walks of life” singing in glorious song to the goodness and wondrous leadership of Berlusconi. And you though some of Kim Jung-Il’s vanity pageants were the height of a country’s leader’s self deification through propaganda.

And also, I owe a huge apology to the American networks. I used to think bottom-feeding schlock like Temptation Island, The Swan and Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire? were as low a society could get for so-called entertainment. (Don’t even bother talking about CBC’s version of reality TV were people compete for the role of Maria in the Mirvish production of The Sound of Music, or the new one where NHL players try to figure skating.) Well now I can take solace in the fact that unless they start executing people live on TV in the new NBC show Pardon or No Pardon, we at least haven’t plumbed the depths of scouring the malls for young women willing to sell their bodies for 15 minutes of fame as bikini-clad eye-candy on some talk show. Or worse still, playing a game of what can euphemistically be called “Strip Jeopardy.”

Gandini’s unflinching eye captures true television without pity, and with no fear, his camera goes into the power circles of the Italian elite in a Mediterranean playground open only to the rich and famous with potential access for anyone willing to join them. There’s no one that’s sympathetic in this world. Lele Mora, a powerful talent scout, proudly displays a ring tone of a World War II song hailing the virtues of Benito Mussolini. Looking like the older, fatter version of Lost villain Ben Linus, Mora walks around his opulent home with its all white interiors, which ups his pre-existing creep factor by like 11. Even the paparazzi are worse in Italy, talking pictures of celebrities not necessarily for profit in print, but for profit in blackmail. One of the chief paparazzos, Fabrizio Corona, blatantly calls himself a modern Robin Hood, where he takes from the rich and gives to himself. What he doesn’t say however is that he’s in cahoots with his former boss Mora, who helps keep him and his photogs up to date on celebrity movements.

And then there’s poor Riccardo, a young man trying desperately to reach his own heights of fame and fortune, but is constantly having salt thrown in his game because the deck is stacked in favour of gorgeous women willing to get naked, or at least very close to it. Stuck in celebrity purgatory, he fills his days working as a mechanic and trying to exposure by being an audience member or going to an audition, but everyday his dream seems to get further away. Now you may say that there’s no room in this world for a performer that combines the vocal talents of Ricky Martin with the poppin’ fresh martial arts moves of Jean Claude Van Damme, but if Susan Boyle is any indication, there is for all of us a chance for a shred of celebrity. Good thing for Susan Boyle that she’s not Italian, though.