La liceale [nella classe dei ripetenti]

This article is mostly of interest to my Romanian readership, I suppose.

You see, in 1986, in the very depths of communist Winter, at a time when even the thick woody substance of the very language was solidly frozen in place they made a film. Liceenii. It was an immense success, in that it was ever so slightly closer to sanity and reality than the usual productions of the "victorious socialism". It became a beacon for an entire generation. "Decreteii", Romania's vitriolic equivalent of Generation Y, Ceausescu's dream, hope and vicarious productⁱ that saw him dead and spit on the corpse.

Little do these ex-kids, now taxpaying adults with their first gray hairs know that in fact the film was entirely lifted. That's right : much like all the other beacons and focuses of "independent" sentiment at the timeⁱⁱ, Liceenii was in no way original, and in no way the product of thought. It was simply a (bad) translation, an attempt to implement in Romania something that had proven successful eight years prior.

La Liceale is an Italian series, which roughly consists of softcore pornography, slapstick comedy and adolescent twu wuv. It was incredibly successful, creating in fact a whole genre - the Germans made at least two dozen "continuations". The Italians made something like five, of which today's La liceale nella classe dei ripetentiⁱⁱⁱ is I think the third.

Here's how it looks :

That's right, the girls are having a nice shower while the boys drill holes in the wall to spy (and get a handful of soap in their eyes, eventually). That's right, a bunch of highschoolers gather together to play the sort of sexually charged games they're pretty much famous for. This one goes as follows : the group decides on an article of clothing to be removed. If the girl guesses what it'd be, she's (temporarily) excused. If she fails to guess she has to take off whatever her guess was. Consequently, bad girls guess "panties", knowing full well they're not wearing any.

Ve ho fregato perche non le porto.

That's roughly the state of the 70s in Europe. Compare and contrast with

They be discussing the byelections of the Secretary for the Class Political Organisation.

Quite.

1. Pregnancy terminations as well as anticonceptional means became illegal in Romania in the late 60s, which resulted in a demographic boom that lasted all through the 70s. The act itself was called a "decret" and thus its products, heaps and loads of not particularly wanted children, "decretei", diminutive masculine. For some reason "decretele" (the feminine) was absolutely never used. [↩]
2. Such as for instance the "rock music" formations. It's amusing to listen to the classics, Colibri, Phoenix, Compact, Signal M, what have you in the company of people familiar with the actual music of the 60s. Try it sometime, see if you can find any one single song that was not copied off Western originals. Raspunsul prieteni... e vinare de vint... raspunsu-i vinare de vint. [↩]
3. 1978, by Mariano Laurenti, with Gloria Guida, Lino Banfi, Alvaro Vitali. [↩]