The stages of ignorance

Romanian Florina Marincea, one of the competitors in the Italian show „The Beauty and the Geek” broadcast by Italia Uno, was labelled by a colleague as „extra-communitarian”. Florina was eliminated last night from the competition, after a test she had to go through with her partner, a specialist in informatics with an IQ of 168.

„Insult on racist grounds”, the newspapers from the Peninsula read today, making reference to the tag the Italian woman used to describe the Romanian competitor and the context in which it was used. „Pasqualina showed that she had no clue Romania was part of the European Union”, La Stampa reads, considering the expression to be „offensive”.

The fight involved the Romanian and one of the show’s favourite, Paqualina, origin from Napoli. Florina criticised the Italian for the way she was treating her partner. „He’s not your slave”, the Romanian shouted at her. „You shouldn’t even be in the show, because you are extra-communitarian”, the other contestant replied, with a defying tone.

Paqualina, like all the competitors in fact, was selected for the show according to two main criteria: the looks and… a minimum of general knowledge. Therefore, she’s got alleviating circumstances: she graduated (only) high school and she did say she did not like to study. She finally admitted she was not reading newspapers and was not watching news either. The only contact with the political, social and cultural contact with the reality of the country she was born into was an item of news „that I happen to see on the internet”.