Page 139 - Alternative Europe Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945

Italy in the early to mid-1970s.2 The first part of this chapter will explore the cultural, economic and
cinematic influences that led to such a uniquely high production of nun exploitation films in 1970s
Italy.1
'Nun exploitation', as the term appears today on video jackets, fan sites and in a few academic
essays, includes any exploitation film that takes as its main content nuns and, more often than
not, naughty nuns. Referred to as 'convent-sexy' in Italy since their appearance in the 1970s, these
exploitation films soon received the label 'nunsploitation in Anglophone countries that were giving
birth to the expressions 'sexploitation' and 'blaxploitation' at that time. Most recently, the title, 'Nasty
Nun Sinema', has been used in Steve Fentone's exhaustive encyclopaedia of the nasty nun visual
culture to cover films that deal with mild to pornographic transgressive sisterly behaviour. To be more
specific, I propose that nun films be defined along a spectrum from those that are 'nun-connoted'
(their narratives are not concentrated on the lives of nuns but do, nonetheless, exploit the fantasies
and representations of naughty nuns) to those that are fully nun exploitation' or 'nunsploitation'
(films that devote most or all of their screen time to unveiling the forbidden interior of convents
and of repeating the various exploitation tropes of scandalous behaviour). This chapter will begin by
exploring the cultural, economic and cinematic influences that led to such a uniquely high proportion
of nun exploitation films in 1970s Italy, and conclude by discussing the nunsploitation tropes and
how their role in the films' ideological and cinematic structures contributes to the fan viewer's
pleasure and keeps nunsploitation an enduring cult genre.

CULTURAL, ECONOMIC AND CINEMATIC INFLUENCES OF NUNSPLOITATION

Culturally, the 1960s were a rime of great change in which mores on sex and sexual discourse were
being questioned and altered. 'Sexual revolutions' were put in motion in places such as San Francisco,
Paris and Rome, and many students were moved to actively and publicly challenge traditional views
on gender, sexuality and sexual behaviour. Cinema was an area in which these changes were realised
both on screen and behind the scenes. Films with nudity and strong sexual subject matter such as
I, A Woman (1965) and I Am Curious (Yellow) (1967) were coming out of Scandinavia, piquing
the curiosity of viewers in Europe and the US and mobilising censors against them.4 In 1968, the
president of the Motion Picture Association of America, Jack Valenti, abolished the Production Code
and opened the possibility of releasing rated but uncensored films in the US. The following year, John
Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy made history as the only X-rated film to win an Academy Award and,
by 1972, Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris and Gerard Damiano's Deep Throat were pushing
the boundaries and ultimately defining the limits of what could reach mainstream screens on both
continents.
Even the Church went through a modernisation process in which Pope Paul VI and the meeting
of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) altered or abolished many prohibitions that had existed for
centuries. Among the changes that the Second Vatican made on everything from choice of language
during sermons to new designs for clerical attire, those on freedom of expression had an effect on
films that toyed with religious subject matter.5 Although scandalous films continued to be heavily
censored or confiscated in Italy, filmmakers and writers could criticise the censors more openly

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