11822821_385428128319921_5841580488732860605_n

Confirmed   135,173

Part of a series on Nationality Stereotypes. [View Related Entries]


About

Italian Military Jokes are quips aimed at mocking the effectiveness or prowess of the Italian military, often consisting of stereotypes that Italian soldiers are cowardly and depictions of the Italian Navy as floating pizza.

Origin

According to a blog post on Strange History,[6] the Italian military became widely mocked among Allied powers in the early 1940s due to the country's various military failures. In 1943, the World War II historical drama film Five Graves to Cairo was released, which features the music-loving, but ineffective, Italian General Sebastiano.

Spread

On January 25th, 2014, the Italian Armyball Facebook[2] page was launched, highlighting depictions of the Italian military as various Polandball-style illustrations. On October 14th, 2014, The New York Times[7] published an op-ed, which commented on the stereotype that "Italian soldiers are spineless."

Italian Armyball on a background of an explosion

On March 15th, 2015, Redditor SapSal submitted a PolandBall comic titled "Italian Military" to /r/polandball,[4] garnering upwards of 470 points (96% upvoted) and 70 comments prior to being archived (shown below).

comic about Itallian Armyball weaponizing

On June 24th, 2016, the PolandBall Facebook[3] page posted a military tier list pacing Italy at the very bottom (shown below). Within seven months, the post gained over 6,500 reactions and 1,500 shares. On April 21st, Imgur user TheExistentialDreadKickedIn uploaded a GIF of a pizza floating in the ocean titled "Italian Navy."[1]

military tier list with Italy being so low it's in its own tier

On January 10th, 2017, Redditor x2K284 submitted a screenshot of Google Image Search results for "Italian Navy," featuring pizzas and pizza-shaped flotation devices floated in water (shown below, left). On January 18th, Redditor SirJilliumz submitted a Fake History image macro mocking the Italian Navy to /r/MemeEconomy[5] (shown below, right).

Google image search for Italian navy with the results showing pizzas in the ocean
fake history macro of floating device shaped like a pizza captioned as the Italian navy

Search Interest

Not available.

External References



Share Pin

Related Entries 18 total

Uwotm8
U WOT M8
Murica
'Murica
Hahaehuhe
Huahuehuahue
Redneck
Almost Politically Correct Re...


Recent Images 56 total


Recent Videos 0 total

There are no recent videos.




Load 99 Comments