The Peninsula Effect

The train trip from Florence to Rome is approximately 90 minutes long. It’s the perfect amount of time to park a baby with his bottle and skim through a movie, which is exactly how I ended up watching a gem of Italian cinema. 

Of course, I’m referring to the 2012 comedy Benvenuti Al Nord - which, as I later learned, is the sequel to a 2008 film, Benvenuti Al Sud, which itself is a remake of a French film with the same premise. Which is this: a person who embodies the stereotype of one place moves to its diametric opposite place, engages in fish out of water hijinks, and eventually comes to appreciate their adoptive community. 

Even without English subtitles, Benvenuti Al Nord clearly telegraphs this plot line through slapstick physical comedy and exaggerated facial expressions worthy of a silent film. In the opening scenes, the protagonist and his southern neighbors are presented as warm, tan, hearty, and patriotic, if a bit dense. When an unexpected job transfer lands him in  Milan, we encounter the northern archetype: bespectacled, cultured, and cold, more generically European than wholeheartedly Italian. 

As an American, I am familiar with stereotypes about the coasts and the heartland. However, I hadn’t considered how these cultural alignments would play out differently if one ingredient was changed: geography. In Italy, the key divide is between the North - contiguous with five neighboring countries - and the South, surrounded by water. Let’s call it the Peninsula Effect.*

Once I saw it, I couldn’t help but apply the same framework to peninsulas closer to home: Long Island, Florida, the vestigial tail of the Jersey Shore. Though these places have a coastline on the ocean, they behave more like the heartland. Put simply: Physical isolation breeds patriotic exceptionalism. Physical proximity (to other cultures) breeds cosmopolitan globalism.

Take it a step further. I started a new job this year, at a company where many of my colleagues have worked for decades. I frequently turn to them for advice about the industry, or more banal issues like how to pay my Amex. I also look to them for cues about how to behave in the organizational culture, from whether to use the Teams meeting chat to how many drinks are acceptable at the holiday party (answers: never and 1, and it had better be a margarita). If the company were a country, they’d be the peninsula-dwelling patriots, steeped in tradition. 

By contrast, having performed the same role in multiple companies for the past decade, I am a quintessential northerner. I have recent exposure to different organizational norms and culture, both through direct work experience, professional development, and even interviewing for jobs. I’m in touch with a (modestly) wide circle people in my field across many companies. I care about this company, but my true loyalty lies with my profession, and my goal is always to do my job the best way I know how. When my colleagues face a roadblock that seems intractable, I can sometimes offer a solution drawn from these diverse experiences.

It’s November 2024**, and along with the rest of my world, I’m still processing Trump’s second election victory. The divide between peninsulas and contiguous borders, coasts and heartland, feels wider than ever. Throughout the democratic world, issues of globalization and national identity are on the ballot. Benvenuti Al Nord might be a slapsticky simplification, but there’s a kernel of truth about how groups at different ends of the spectrum can love and learn from each other, despite their differences. My work is a more realistic example highlighting the value of both perspectives, the pen-insular and the global. I hope that in the future, we can learn to coexist, and maybe even ride a moped back to back, like Italian buddies.

*Before dialing up my copyright lawyer, I did a quick Google search on the term “peninsula effect.” I learned that it’s already used (drat!) in reference to biodiversity. It describes a phenomenon in which fewer species are observed at the tip of a peninsula than at the base (though I can’t be sure how those creatures feel about immigration policy).

**Publication was delayed until January because of grad school essays taking over my writing brainpower