What happened? 

A sketch on a popular Italian TV show mocking Chinese people has launched a debate about racism, cancel culture and satire in Italy.

Michelle Hunziker and Gerry Scotti, hosts of the satirical show Striscia la Notizia (The News Crawls) on the Mediaset network, apologized for the sketch in which they made slanted-eye gestures and mimicked a Chinese accent as they introduced a segment.

What has the reaction been? 

The show sparked many Asian and black Italians to take to social media to share their experiences of racism, including how it can be fomented by satire. 

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A representative of the Chinese community in Milan, Francesco Wu, said satire should be aimed at the powerful, not against minorities, especially those easily singled out.

"In this historic context, when there are many episodes of violence against the Asian community around the world, we need to be careful and not convey a message that can generate racism and discrimination," Wu told The Associated Press.

The TV hosts at the center of the uproar said they have been subjected to a "wave of hatred," including death threats.

Wu held an interview with Striscia la Notizia in a bid to calm tensions, in which he emphasized that the threats against the co-hosts did not come from the Chinese community.

"We are pained, deeply," Hunziker told the Corriere della Sera newspaper in an interview published a day after she apologized on Instagram. "We were in good faith: we are very sorry knowing that we bumped against the sensitivity of someone. But what is happening is frightening: we received a real wave of hatred that is being spread in an instrumentalized way."

The producers of the show, however, refused to apologize, saying that Striscia la Notizia is satire, "and like satirical and comic programs all over the world, politically incorrect."

They also attacked what they called the "spurious and fascist initiatives of those ... blackmailing international companies and brands."

What is the context?

The incident was the second time the show was criticized on social media in recent weeks, after it replayed an older sketch that used racist language to describe African children. 

The furore also comes a week after Black Lives Matter protests outside the Rome studios of RAI state television over on-air racist language and the use of "blackface" on one show.

But the show has its defenders, with radio show hosts denouncing what they saw as the importation of "cancel culture" from the U.S., which threatens the future of satire and free speech. 

Cancel culture is when an individual is purposefully ostracised from social or professional circles following behavior that either causes offence and/or is criminal. Its origins come from the MeToo movement, which saw hundreds of people – largely women – step forward to call out the discriminatory or criminal behavior of – largely male – colleagues, friends or acquaintances. 

In recent years, cancel culture has been attacked by some for stifling free speech, who claim it has been weaponized to condemn anyone deemed to have acted in a controversial way. 

Stories around cancel culture are increasingly common in Italy. The frequency of these incidents highlight the conflicting forces within Italian society, where one person's "joke" can be deeply offensive to another.

Black Italian activist Maddalena Fadika said shows like Striscia la Notizia normalize racism. "Everything is taken as satire, as a joke, stereotypes projected on minorities are taken as normal," she said.

Racism, like in many European countries, has long been an issue in Italy. A 2020 European Parliament resolution to condemn all forms of racism was voted against by around half the Italian MEPs.

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Following the vote, Luciano Scagliotti, from the National Platform of the European Network Against Racism, told Italy's La Stampa newspaper, "the Italian government has taken no action to address the long-standing systemic racial inequalities in the country ... not even a discussion in the parliament has taken place. In part, this is because in Italy, people pretend that racism doesn't exist."

Panic over COVID-19 has made Italy's 320,000 strong Chinese community increasingly the target of racist discrimination.

An influencer who goes by the name of Momoka Banana called out the TV hosts for their behavior, garnering hundreds of thousands of views on Instagram.

Banana spoke of the insults she had to endure growing up in Rome. "It didn't make me feel comfortable," she said. "In fact, it made me ashamed of my origins, so much that I refused for many years to learn Chinese."

Even now, Banana said she endures people yelling on the street to make fun of the typical Chinese accent.

"People say, what do you care about the jokes, you are stronger," she said. "Yes, ok, at the threshold of 30 years, I can say they are idiots, those who make fun of me. But I would not like my nieces and nephews to be made fun of at school, perhaps by classmates who saw Striscia la Notizia and found the joke funny."