« Wanted Susan desperately », Madonna plays with the theme of fluid identity in a (mini) feminist manifesto

Wanted Susan desperately/Desperately Seeking Susan He peeks out in the US halls a limited distribution (significantly starting his race from the city of New York) on March 29, 1985. He will be released throughout the nation on April 12, he will be invited immediately after to the prestigious Quinzaine des Réalisateurs of the Cannes Film Festival and will continue then The race in cinemas From all over the world, including Italy, in the following months.

Or when The lamp high co -star Madonna he had already started shine on a planetary level After the success of the album Like a Virgin he is Sold out constants of the relative Virgin Tour. The film, directed by Susan Seidelman, at the time leader of the New Wave Of Independent directors of American cinema (debut in 1982 with Smit headeensin competition in Cannes), is a distinctive remaining work in the cinematographic panorama of the decade for its ability to mix different and « light » genres and support them with themes such as Identity investigation and feminismalso capturing (involuntarily? or with phenomenal clairvoyance?) A epochal cultural passage: that is, facing well in advance (and dissolving it in a inextricable flow of sensitivity pop and postmodernism almost militant) a question that would become central as the fluidity of identity.

THE’intricate story In fact, it revolves around the frustrated Roberta Glass (Rosanna Arquette), dreamer and dissatisfied wife of Workaholic Gary (Mark Blum) who to evade boredom in too quiet New Jersey develops a curious habit: Read personal ads in the newspapers with greed, fantasizing on the lives of others.

One day, the insertion of three words that gives the title to the film inexorably captured his attention: published by the musician Jim Dandy (Robert Joy), is an appeal aimed at A mysterious girl named Susan (Madonna) of which Roberta decides to follow the tracks by secretly in the place of the meeting indicated by the message.

While he hidden Jim and Susan meeting, Roberta immediately senses that The « stylish » anticonformism of the girl belongs to a world completely different from his; And fascinated, he begins to follow her to steal something more than hers unknown existence. During his « investigation », he witnesses an apparently harmless scene: Susan, without thinking too much, exchanges his showy jacket decorated in a Thrift store For a pair of shoes.

Pushed by an inexplicable impulseRoberta recompose him and then wear it immediately; and does not suspect that this simple gesture will bring it to a dangerous identity exchange. In fact, the woman ignores whether Susan has stolen precious Golden earrings to a mafia (then assassinated), whether an assassin (Will Patton) is on the trail of the girl to recover the booty.

It goes without saying that, when will be taken for the true Susanwill suddenly find himself at the center of a dangerous story of which he does not know the details. And that things will get complicated when, in an attempt to escape the insecter, an accident will make them completely lose memory Convincing her to really be the mysterious girl.

Through a series of unpredictable eventsthe shy and repressed housewife will thus discover a side of himself that he did not never dared to explore; transforming into one more daring and free womanable to fully embrace a more authentic existence and, surprisingly, to find too a new love In the arms of the fascinating Dez (Aidan Quinn), the friend Jim had alerted that « his » Susan could end up in trouble.

Written by Leora Barish and Craig Bolotin, the screenplay (which for her narrative mechanics could obviously not be told in today’s telecommunications reality) subverted programmatically the traditional angle of the cinematographic gaze male hugging A feminist theoretical perspective And postmodernist To explore two opposite but complementary figures: if Roberta embodies the woman trapped in predefined everyday lifelinked to a conventional marriage and a bourgeois environment that enhances more economic stability than personal authenticity (her husband Gary is the full representation of the materialistic aspirations of the reagan era), Susan, on the contrary, represents fluiditythe refusal of the imposed rules and the choice of A wandering existence embodying a sort of ideal of nomadic subjectivity in the name of pindaric « It becomes what you are  » married to an iconoclastic aesthetic which makes it a continuous staging itself.

The central theme of the film is in fact the construction of identity as an act performative: why Roberta’s « transformation » in Susan, although occurred following an accidental and temporary amnesiahighlights how identity is not a stable essencebut a set of acts (repeated and adaptable) similar to An artistic gesture.

The whole narrative uses symbols and signs to explore this idea; First of all, of course, the Today obsolete « personal ads » of the newspapers that act as (double) engine of the plot and that can be read, in hindsight, also as a foresight anticipation of the (de) identity construction in the digital age.

Susan initially exists as a Message in a newspaperthat is, as a sort of icon before even as a concrete subject (and in this sense it is absolutely significant and almost « obliged » the choice of the already planetarily known Madonna as his interpreter); while the whole structure of the story (which Play with the genres mixing comedy of misunderstandings, urban fairy tale, thriller, rom com) does not follow the traditional logic of the Restoration of identity But on the contrary, it celebrates ambiguity and transformation.

Roberta does not simply return to herself with a new awareness; but It emerges as a redefined from experienceunderlining the continuous becoming of the personality. Wanted Susan desperately It is an object unfortunately forgotten today, which at the time became a sort of cult « mainstream » above all thanks to the presence of Miss Ciccone; and that should not be considered only as a piece of his ascent, but just as an integral part of his own mythological construction.

In 1985, Madonna was in fact at the height of a popularity conquered starting from that same humus underground of which the film is permeated; And Susan’s character has some extent to the image of Ribelle and nonconformist artist who made it iconic. Also because his presence in the film decidedly fades The border between reality and fictionclearly showing how the « celebrities » are not simply individuals, but real cultural representations which summarize collective desires and social tensions.

Susan and the pop star overlap thus in A game of mirrorstransforming the film into a metacinematographic downtown to the phenomenon of fame. Where Madonna exhibits this assumption Mixing image, reality and fiction in the only narrative flow of a film (moreover probably the best of those then interpreted during her film career) that escapes any rigid classification: it is a comedy (kissed by luxury performance and a prominent technical sector: photography by Ed Lachman, scenographies and customs of a small saint), but with an subtext of existential restlessness; is a (mini) feminist manifestobut avoid proclamations and captions; it’s a game indie (Have fun discovering John Turturro, Giancarlo Esposito, John Lurie and even the Rocker Richard Hell) of the director (then never proved at the height of this result in minor roles; thin amphibology of the title It could also undermine a search for self -refinement of the author – homonymous … – same) on the forms of postmodern, but permeated with authentic and recognizable humanity.

And that in this affirmation of freedom and fluidity It retains current affairs and a charm that are one step away from being definable as « timeless ».