Fabio Fazio, presnter of the talk show Che tempo che fa, interviewing Eduardo Sanguineti, one of Italy’s leading poets, asked the sixty-million dollar question: Are reality-shows, like Big Brother, the modern translation of tragedy?

Sanguineti, scarcely missing a beat – and without paying much attention to the fact that Che Tempo Che Fa is itself an endemol production – replied: Yes, in aristotelian terms, let’s say if the task of tragedy is to provoke terror and compassion, then definitely…