ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book suggests that cultural representation as a multi-layered phenomenon made up of complex ideological, aesthetical and psychological relationships. It demonstrates that the term ‘realism’ – whilst largely associated with the artists’ ideological impegno to represent the living conditions of the socially excluded – presents a number of cultural and material contradictions. The book addresses – one that has also been raised in David Forgacs’ Italy’s Margins. It shows how a lack of attention to integrating the relationships between Pasolini-Dante and Pasolini-Gramsci has also been the result of the inconsistent and often limiting value attributed to the concept of ‘cultural appropriation’. The book also shows how cultural representation and the appropriation of cultural models are strictly intertwined, even if they can lead to very different individual interpretations.
