Chiara Ferragni: Controversy and Criticism on L'Espresso's Cover

Chiara Ferragni? Now she's ended up on the cover of "L'Espresso" (coming out tomorrow, March 8th). The magazine has literally painted the influencer as Joker, Batman's enemy in the DC Comics' comics and movies, a sad and schizophrenic clown. Under the title "Ferragni Spa, the dark side of Chiara", the content of the investigation is anticipated: "A tangled network of companies, a carousel of shareholdings. Among cumbersome partners, managers under investigation, and poorly paid employees. The influencer is at the head of an empire where transparency is not at home. Chiara Ferragni on L'Espresso, the controversy The controversy over the retouched image, considered by various social media users "violent" and "excessive" compared to Ferragni's actions, sanctioned by the Antitrust and investigated for aggravated fraud in the now well-known case related to the (pseudo) charitable sales campaigns of panettones, Easter eggs, and dolls. But it's certainly not the first time for an impactful cover for "L'Espresso", a historic investigative weekly founded by Eugenio Scalfari and now directed by Enrico Bellavia after the ownership transition from the Gedi group to Danilo Iervolino and finally to Donato Ammaturo's Ludoil. Chiara Ferragni's lawyers: "Denigrated and belittled" Chiara Ferragni's lawyers have warned the publisher of L'Espresso from publishing - scheduled for tomorrow - the issue that portrays their client on the cover with the appearance of Joker, reserving every further action also following the checks on the content of the article. Ferragni's lawyers also contest the "gravely defamatory and injurious" extent of the use made on the cover of the image of their client "clearly denigrated and belittled precisely on the day when women should be celebrated". The trick A close-up with makeup running, red and blue, like that of a clown. Users are divided and opinions are very discordant. In fact, there are those who consider the weekly's choice excessive and in bad taste. "A cover that has nothing to do with journalism but is full of unheard-of violence", writes someone. "Menateje pure già che ce semo", writes another in Roman dialect. And another adds: "As a woman, I feel scarred. L'Espresso is a current affairs magazine and I am disgusted to think that the story of current affairs must pass through fierce mockery". But there are also many comments from internet users who show to share - or not to condemn - the choice of L'Espresso. "A fitting cover that definitely gives the idea of who Chiara Ferragni really is", writes someone. "Here they are simply treating Chiara Ferragni as an adult of power. I know her delicate appearance confuses a lot. But she is an adult of power. For better or worse", adds another. There are those who focus on the fact that it is not an 'exclusive treatment' reserved for the influencer: "Then L'Espresso has made covers like this, but woe to touch Chiaretta eh", it is ironized. Selvaggia Lucarelli also commented on the cover: "People who have never read a newspaper think that such a cover has never existed. And they focus on the photo, not on what's written under the photo", she writes in her Instagram stories. Precedents In the past, dozens of politicians and business leaders have been put on the front page, sometimes retouched sometimes monstrified, from Silvio Berlusconi to Matteo Renzi, from Bettino Craxi to Giorgia Meloni, passing through Gianni Agnelli and Beppe Grillo. The impact on Italian society of Chiara Ferragni, both in economic and image terms, is not less. Especially, the idea of "jokerizing" the bad guy of the turn is not new: in 2009 the magazine "New York" slammed Bernie Madoff on the front page, a New York financier who had set up one of the biggest and most devastating Ponzi schemes in history, defrauding tens of thousands of investors (more than 40,000 people have drawn from the fund established to partially compensate the victims). The title was simple: "Bernie Madoff, Monster. And the people who enabled him". If Chiara Ferragni was fined by the Antitrust with a one million euro fine (against which she has appealed, promising to donate the sum to charity in case of victory), with Madoff it's about decidedly different magnitudes: he was sentenced to compensate 170 billion dollars and to 150 years in prison, of which he served just over ten: he died in 2021 in a hospital in North Carolina.