Women and Film - Essay Example

“Desperately Seeking Susan” is not a movie that highlights the mistaken identity, in which the specified character develops amnesia. Rather, is has the hidden agenda being told subtly and craftily and amnesia is used as the medium to highlight the issues with the character. Before getting the blow on the head and being identified with the “free spirit” Susan, played by Madonna, Roberta is actually hit within, her inner world is in turmoil and she is extremely fed up with her life and she turns to adventurism.

Susan Seidelman makes the move relating to the fashion of the 80s that engulfs the feminine world of U.S. In her revised ‘incarnation’ as Madonna, the average American must be enjoying a  hearty laugh to look at the badgered hair, unclean strapless taffeta outfits, and dotted black leather. It also indicates Madonna’s influence in the fashion world of America in that period. Fashion of the 80s is not just the symbol of change in lifestyles, financial and social status. Rather than the external embellishments, it refers to the inner world of the personalities and gives lessons to the spectators. The director has chosen the utilities like a dress, acting mode, talk, interaction, and behavior to make the audience understand, what happens when a mask is identified with a real face.

The story relates to the psyche of housewives like Roberta who are fed up with the routine of the middle class with nothing exciting and challenging happening in their lives. In this specific case, Roberta’s hot tub-selling husband ignores her. She desperately wants to come out of the cob-web of life of a stereotypical housewife and achieve something sterling in life. She finds excitement in the relationship between Jim and Susan and their style of communication. Destiny plays its part and when Roberta is mistaken for Madonna, she is in a peculiar predicament as she has to survive with Madonna, Jim and her husband, and the mob—desperate to know what the truth is! The message of the movie is profound. It highlights the level of desperation and the moves the housewife makes to breathe the air of freedom, when she has to live with her feelings suppressed and where she does not even have the freedom to choose the haircut that she wants.

There is a reason why the director chooses the “free spirit” of Madonna in the movie. In the 80s culture, Madonna has a great impact on the world of entertainment in America and her style is most copied, the majority of women revere her as a role model. In the culture of the 80s, she is everywhere, on television, in music videos, and in big screen movies, and her ‘presence’ has impacted each and every home. She is an expert in re-styling herself, that appeal to the inner domain of the fraternity of women.  Girls and women go to salons in large numbers to modify their hairstyles to the pattern of Madonna. The director in the movie creates her dirty bleached blonde hair and an attitude that goes in tandem with that style.

Just like Madonna changes the fashion world forever, the dis-satisfied housewives hope to change their way of living and wish to find an honorable escape from their messy, boring routine of remaining indulged in household chores. They are bent upon imitating the no-holds-barred approach of Madonna, and Roberta is one of them.  Everyone wants to achieve something ‘big’ in life, and liberation is the biggest aspiration for women and one way of challenging the uncaring attitudes of menfolk.  

This is a psychoanalytical movie daubed in humor and sarcasm. After going through an adventurous phase in life in relation to the glittering world, Roberta realizes that ‘old is gold’ and ‘small is beautiful.”