Some icons are made, and others are born. Raffaella Carrà seemed to fall into the latter category. Like she was shot out of her mother’s womb in full sequin regalia. And yes, she was in the elaborate garb that Cher became known for even before Cher (and her variety show). It helped that her career began early, specifically at the age of nine, when she was cast in her first film (debuting with her Christian last name, Pelloni), Tormento del passato. A fitting title for a career that would ultimately be resuscitated time and time again based on nostalgia for the past. With a number of “peplum” movies (a.k.a. ancient Rome and Greece fare in the spirit of big budget Hollywood films done “Italian-style”—code for: with less of a budget) under her belt, Carrà moved on to singing in 1961, where she began her numerous iconic appearances on Italian variety shows, including Canzonissima.
Her international appeal extended most notably into Spain, therefore other Spanish-speaking countries (she even ended up living in Spain and then South America), as a result of her frequent forays into singing in this particular language when she wasn’t staying true to her native Italian tongue (perhaps this is why even Selena eventually seemed to adopt a decidedly Carrà aesthetic, complete with bell bottom jumpsuit and sequins galore). There was also La Hora de Raffaella, which premiered in Spain after Franco’s fall, that helped her gain popularity in the nation as the late 70s arrived. With her knack for the level of extravaganza that seemed limited to the 70s in America, Carrà reanimated in the 80s for an Italian variety show of her own called Buonasera Raffaella, which ran from 1985-1986 on RAI and offered fifteen episodes of Carrà in all her glittering splendor.
But even before then, Carrà was known for being filmed with barely or tightly dressed men cavorting around her, which, in part, is what solidified her as such a ready-made gay icon. A classification that, as most will confirm, is a prerequisite for being deemed a feminist pop star. A consummate performer, her choreography and costuming were always second to none, yet never seemed to be acknowledged as an influence on subsequent American pop stars (including the likes of Lady G).
Carrà even seemed to predate the Madonna and Britney “belly button furor” by becoming the first TV personality to reveal her midriff on camera, predictably outraging the Vatican long before they had Madonna’s “Like A Prayer” video to contend with. She also blazed Madonna’s trail on dating a younger man in the form of longtime partner Sergio Japino—granted, he was a mere eleven years younger to Ahlamalik Williams’ thirty-five years younger. But eleven years is a big scandal in Italy, and obviously only when the woman in the permutation is older. Yet it was just one of many ways in which Carrà was constantly fighting for women’s rights in how she chose to wield her personal life into her work. Although the two went their separate ways by the 90s, they remained close enough for Japino to be the one to make the official announcement about her death.
Dancing with an authority and self-assurance seen once every few decades (Britney Spears also falls under this category), Carrà exuded pure sex while also owning her sensuality (something Madonna would also become known for later). This is what made her such a particular tour de force in Italy, which, like many other European countries, is still catching up to the tenets of feminism. Yet even when she came to America in 1986 to do an interview with David Letterman, it was clear that feminism wasn’t alive and well in the “Land of the Free” either. From the moment Letterman introduced her with a clip from Buonasera Raffaela, he mocked the tone of Italian television with his decidedly Midwestern sensibility, playing into the audience itself not being “okay” with bombast as Carrà danced in Grace Jones-approved garb before a bevy of male dancers in star-patterned bodysuits appeared next to her. Propelled by the tittering in the crowd, Letterman “quipped,” “Yeah, we need to see more of those guys, don’t we?” Almost as though he was making some kind of conscious homophobic dig despite the fact that straight European men are much more comfortable with their sexuality than American ones, therefore dress in a manner that can be described from the American perspective as “gay.”
Letterman went on to introduce her as a woman “often called the Ed Sullivan and Johnny Carson of Italy”—a patent lie as nobody in America knew her well enough to label her as such. As she sat in the chair and the interview commenced, she immediately called Letterman out for the comparison saying, “But I’m a woman.” He asks who she’d rather be compared to and she replies, “I’d like to be myself…” but then offers Barbara Walters and Ann-Margaret as comparisons because “at least they are women.” It was obviously very important to her to be set apart as a woman, indicated later in the interview when Letterman is crass enough to ask her if she makes a lot of money, to which she replies, “Yes I do. And it’s a women’s victory. Because in other times, all men make a lot of money, now we start with women to do the same.”
Letterman also mentions competitor Maurizio Costanzo to her. Costanzo famously trashed Carrà as “the Queen of So-So,” but she had nothing but pleasant things to say about him to Letterman. Yet another testament to the ways in which women—especially Italian ones—are expected to adhere to “ladylike” behavior. And Carrà, as a supreme arbiter of showmanship, knew when the spotlight was being put on her with these types of questions designed to incite tabloid headlines.
That still didn’t stop her from speaking up on behalf of women everywhere, namely in terms of sexual liberation. Even her biggest hit (one that charted in the UK to make her a “one hit wonder” there), “A Far L’Amore Comincia Tu” was an unprecedented anthem for women, literally translating to, “To make love you start,” or rather, “To make love make the first move”/“Start making love first.” Carrà’s urging of women to stop waiting around for men to come to them—not that one really has to wait long for an Italian uomo to do so—was unheard of in mainstream culture. Other notable empowered lyrics of the song include, “If he takes you onto an empty bed/Give him back the emptiness/Make him see it’s not a game/Make him understand.” By insisting that women should not settle for less or, worse, something they don’t want, Carrà liberated a new generation of women. Even if some might not take her seriously just because she was dressed in sequined bell bottoms and a coordinating bra while doing it. Getting suggestively sensual, she briefly chants, “It explodes, it explodes” before clarifying, “My heart explodes.” Elsewhere in the song, she cautions the male in the permutation, “Love, love, love her/It’s a disaster if it goes away from you.” “It” being her and her love. For without a woman, it is a man who is nothing—not the other way around.
Then again, a gay man doesn’t need a woman for the most “important thing,” which leads us to the song, “Luca,” during which Carrà innovatively discussed the topic of a guy leaving her for someone else: another guy. Carrà’s status as a gay icon was cemented by such candor, and her affinity for the community was further explained when she told Corriere Della Sera in 2017, “I only dated gay guys: they would not try to grope you at the cinema.” Maybe it was some of these initial gays that got it into her head to use bondage imagery in her performances (again, long before Madonna thought to take that advice as well for the Sex book). And, of course, themes of bondage are always relevant to women, for so long forced into a submissive societal role, but with Carrà in charge, she subverted all expectations of the female gender—while adding irony to it by still looking ultra femme.
Her career continued well into the twenty-first century, and she even pulled something of a Cher move with 2013’s Replay (released on a label appropriately called Do It Yourself, or DIY Italia), a deep-voiced, English-language album rife with generic dance floor-ready ditties that spoke of things seventy-year-old women would never be expected to talk about (here, too, she will likely be paving the path for Madonna in this respect).
Until the end, she lived a life that defied the so-called “limitations” of her gender and age. Having passed away on July 5th at seventy-eight, rather young, to be honest—particularly for an Italian woman—Carrà’s “undisclosed illness” (soon after revealed to be lung cancer) makes one wonder if she wasn’t so committed to the lore of her legend that she would have simply preferred to keep any frailty shrouded in mystery. Which shouldn’t be too difficult, for we’ll now only be able to imagine her dancing one of those unforgettable numbers in an equally as unforgettable sequined getup atop the clouds. The stage she deserves, quite frankly.
