What's your opinion about the italians?

Yes, I don't think many people outside of Italy understand just how much control Berlusconi has over the media, hence the massive pro-bias on RAI 1 and to a lesser extent RAI 2 (the Italian equivalent to BBC1 and BBC2).

I am Italian and have been travelling a lot in the UK in the last two years. It's in the UK that i noticed how most stereotype (which generally shouldn't be taken into consideration by educated people) are quite strong and people believe in them. The classic example is of a somewhat loud eating-addicted people that is very friendly but dangerous (mafia is often associated to italians), whose diet is composed by pasta and pizza and nothing more. I read on internet also that some american consider italian people to be a sort of bleached black people, and people from northern european country generally consider themselves to be kinda more evolved while italians would be ignorant uncivilezed smiling cooks breeding chicken in the street and sharing the bedroom with a donkey. Frankly I don't like my people myself, but not for these reasons. The problem in Italy is that we have been brainwashed by televisions and newspapers who have been taken over by our current prime minister to do a lot of propaganda. So now things are going very bad and people don't do anything because they don't even realize what's happening. They've become lazy and a few italians look for the actual truth (for ex. on internet) and try to do something to change this horrible situation. Our government is ruled illegally by thieves who control the police and use it against the people, passing the smile of the prime minister in front of the sun and the palaces of florence venice rome and so on. We are a people who has great possibilities and skills to use in most arenas, and it's been demonstrated in the past, the main problem is that we have been always ruled by foreign powers and have problems to feel the importance of certain political matters. In italy there's not a sense of belonging and people are not educated to take care of their nation, in fact in general we tend to be very local. But beside these matters there are still a lot of great persons, who have always to flee in other countries. I wrote all of these informations to avoid some "unaware" people to start insulting in a racist way without knowing the actual problems.

My girlfriend (pale, not olive skinned!) moved from Italy to London last October and has exactly the same sentiments. She recently watched an italian documentary on the current political system and the problem of the country being run by the mafia. I have even met a few people through her that have parents who are mafiosa, people such as architects!

There is an abundance of Italians who see this and move from the country. There are also an abundance who I have met on their visits to London who are completely oblivious to it all and seem quite ignorant to any culture but their own. Everything they did was compared to Italy even to the extent of going to Italian resaurants! Not a slight on their character of course.

I'll post the name when the documentary when she gets back to me

Sorry why did you need to underline that your girlfriend is pale and not olive-skinned?

I read on internet also that some american consider italian people to be a sort of bleached black people.

Nice to see I make quite a detailed support of your argument and even offer a documentary (which she cried over) supporting your argument and you decide to pick on what is obviously subtle humour...

Lighten up and read my whole post

No! you misunderstood what i said. I wasn't "attacking" you at all. It's a matter of fact that a lot of italians have a darker skin and hair but this is due to the constant sun which is also the cause of our friendly character ,Anyway olive-skinned people can be found all over europe and it's part of the caucasian ethnic group.
I didn't explained it well before but i meant to say that darker skin colour is an adaptation to the sun and not a proof that we are closer to the monkey than northern european. That's all. Sorry i didn't mean to accuse you.

I was a bit overly defensive there! I know they're not all olive skinned, it was meant to be a joke against the stereotype, clearly not!

Anyway, I agree with you, it's something that interests me greatly actually and I was pleased to read your post, which i'll show to her tonight. I'll also get the documentary name which I think you'll find very interesting.

I can't understand as it's in Italian but hopefully soon that won't be so much of a problem