THE announcement that Italy's first transgender MP will participate in a Survivor-style reality television show in September has surprised her many admirers. Vladimir Luxuria - whose real name is Wladimiro Guadagno - was one of many left-wing MPs to lose their seats after Silvio Berlusconi's crushing electoral victory last April.
An actor and campaigner for homosexual rights, Luxuria, 43, was viewed with suspicion by many when she was first elected to parliament two years ago for the Communist Refoundation Party. The parliamentary controversy for which she is best remembered concerned her right to use the ladies' toilets in the Chamber of Deputies, a right that was fiercely contested by the former TV showgirl Elisabetta Gardini, who was beginning her parliamentary career with Berlusconi's centre-right Forza Italia party.
Luxuria served as a member of the parliamentary committee for culture, science and education and her intelligence, sense of humour and tireless campaigning for the rights of sexual minorities left a favourable impression on most observers.
An online poll showed recently that of all the MPs who had lost their seats, she would be the most missed by the Italian public. Many Communist Refoundation supporters were therefore dismayed when she announced her participation in The Island Of The Famous, a version of Celebrity Big Brother filmed on a tropical island off the coast of Honduras, where she will compete with assorted showgirls, a TV conjuror and the former football player, Antonio Cabrini.
The fear is that Luxuria will dissipate the credit accumulated in two years of high-profile contribution to the national political debate.
The Big Brother experience of Westminster MP George Galloway, of the Respect party, might also serve as a cautionary tale. Intending to get his political message across to the widest possible audience, "Gorgeous George's" television antics ended up costing him respect - with a small "r".
That seemed to be the consensus among the party faithful, who wrote in to the party newspaper Liberazione to warn against the move.
Paola Nardi from Vicenza said: "She will earn the equivalent of 300 years of wages for a worker who may have voted Communist Refoundation and contributed to her election." Others castigated the show as "the ultimate in trash TV".
Luxuria has accepted the criticism with good grace, saying she intended to set out for the island equipped with goggles for snorkelling, her Buddhist prayerbook, and tweezers, to ensure that her eyebrows remain elegantly plucked. Known for her stylish dress sense, Luxuria said she would be packing simple bathing costumes and sarongs - "No suits, or I'd have the toucans in hysterics."
The tweezers and a razor were essential, she pointed out: "In that tropical climate, I don't want the fur to be growing as abundantly as the vegetation."
She has prepared for the experience by learning to swim and recently had a breast enhancement operation, which should guarantee she looks her best on the beach.
"The struggle for survival is nothing new for me," she told the Corriere della Sera newspaper. "Parliament too is full of sharks and barracudas." Experience of the debating chamber would also come in useful for reality TV, she said.
"When I first sat at my bench there were photographers with their telephoto lenses ready to catch me if I yawned or immortalise me if I put my fingers in my nose."
Luxuria says she views the castaway experience as an opportunity for professional growth - she has already appeared in nine films - and to express her ideas, as well as "to put myself to the test once again".
TV presenter Daria Bignardi said in an interview published last week that she would be cheering for Luxuria. The participation of the transgender former MP in a television programme aimed at families was a good way of combating the prejudice that still existed in Italian society, she said.
Most commentators who wrote in to Bignardi's blog took a similar view, saying Luxuria's decision was understandable "in a country famous for the osmosis between showbusiness and politics" and that it would bring the former MP into contact with sectors of the public that were ideologically far removed from Communist Refoundation.
The party did not manage to return a single MP to parliament at the last election.
Angela Azzaro, the managing editor of Liberazione, agreed. She wrote: "These are the programmes that create consensus and establish a direct contact with those citizens who have turned their backs on us."
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