Editorial. Italy’s Souths and islands in film, media and visual cultures (2000–22)

This Special Issue explores evolving representations of Italy’s southern regions and islands as distinctive cultural constructions. Italy’s Souths have long been shaped by internal and external perspectives, producing both stereotypes and more nuanced portrayals. Recent decades have seen a resurgence of these narratives across global media – sometimes involving traditional stereotypes of criminal, mystical or marginal realities, but other times offering critical and meta-representational accounts. Despite ongoing clichés of exoticness and alterity – both in praise and disdain of their subject matter – recent media have also playfully challenged them. The diverse viewpoints included here shed light on new trends and continuing genealogies of discourses on Italy’s Souths and islands.