A former sex goddess, Anita Ekberg has certainly suffered an age-related disavowal of visibility more than other less sexualized actresses. At least since the 1970s, Italian directors have in fact mostly cast her in secondary or even incidental roles, hinting at her past disproportionate sex appeal at the same time denying her ageing body any real erotic agency, either narrative or visual. Once the quintessential paparazzi darling, by then she was also somehow neglected by Italian newspapers and magazines, which only seemed to remember her with the purpose of scrutinizing her physical and psychological decay. This chapter analyzes the second part of Ekberg’s on-screen career, taking into consideration a number of Italian films from the 1970s and the few occurrences in which she has appeared in the Italian press, with the aim of tracing and problematizing the transformations of her star image (from sex goddess to desexualized middle-aged woman), while at the same time investigating the ways in which cinema (as well as popular culture more in general) shapes, “translates”, and sometimes negotiates the specific norms regulating the relationship between the female ageing body, eroticism and sexuality.
Is ‘hot ice’ still hot in her forties? Anita Ekberg’s image in the 1970s, from stereotypes about ageing to the scandal of anachronism
Giovanna Maina
2026-01-01
Abstract
A former sex goddess, Anita Ekberg has certainly suffered an age-related disavowal of visibility more than other less sexualized actresses. At least since the 1970s, Italian directors have in fact mostly cast her in secondary or even incidental roles, hinting at her past disproportionate sex appeal at the same time denying her ageing body any real erotic agency, either narrative or visual. Once the quintessential paparazzi darling, by then she was also somehow neglected by Italian newspapers and magazines, which only seemed to remember her with the purpose of scrutinizing her physical and psychological decay. This chapter analyzes the second part of Ekberg’s on-screen career, taking into consideration a number of Italian films from the 1970s and the few occurrences in which she has appeared in the Italian press, with the aim of tracing and problematizing the transformations of her star image (from sex goddess to desexualized middle-aged woman), while at the same time investigating the ways in which cinema (as well as popular culture more in general) shapes, “translates”, and sometimes negotiates the specific norms regulating the relationship between the female ageing body, eroticism and sexuality.
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