Desperately Seeking Susan: One of the earliest 'chick flicks'
May 19th 2008 08:26
Rosanna Arquette as Roberta Glass
Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) is notable for many things: it helped launch the careers of stars Rosanna Arquette and Aidan Quinn, it was Madonna's first big film role (and in my opinion, her only good one), and it was the breakthrough for director Susan Seidelman, whose subsequent projects failed to match this movie's success and irreverent tone. Although it's no masterpiece, the film is well-known for its fond depiction of the 1980s New Wave scene in Manhattan (of which Madonna was an important part), and is moreover an entertaining period piece of American pop culture.
Desperately Seeking Susan combines elements of romance, farce, and adventure, and it can be seen as a progenitor of the modern 'chick flick' (though the term was not widely used at the time). Its protagonist, Roberta Glass (Arquette), lives vicariously through the personal ads in the local newspaper. She is particularly fascinated with two lovers, Susan (Madonna) and Jimmy, who use the ads to communicate from whatever far-flung places they happen to visit. The free-spirited Susan's life contrasts with that of Roberta, an upper-middle-class housewife whose activities consist of getting beauty treatments, hosting parties, and making dinner for husband Gary (Mark Blum). Gary may be oblivious to Roberta's discontent, but she doesn't try to talk to him or do anything else about it. Instead, she takes her obsession a step further by going to Battery Park, where Susan and Jimmy have arranged a rendezvous.
Through a series of highly improbable events, all centring on a pair of stolen Nefertiti earrings and a mob hit, Roberta becomes amnesiac at Battery Park and is mistaken for Susan. Believing she is Susan, Roberta meets and falls in love with Jimmy's friend Dez (Quinn). No longer just the voyeur, Roberta becomes the object of her fascination. As the blank-slate Roberta!Susan, Arquette's girlish pluck is charming yet naive*, which is a welcome improvement over the slightly pathetic Roberta Glass. The difference, the film suggests, is what happens when a woman gets married and settles into a life of security and mediocrity.
While Roberta escapes the strictures of suburban conventions, Gary grows ever more hysterical, believing that Roberta left him to become a prostitute. Through more plot convolutions, Susan contacts Gary, telling him that they are both looking for the same person: Roberta, who stole her identity. Susan is convinced that Roberta had always lived a secret life (which, in a way, she did): "Between you and me," Susan asks Gary, "How much do you really know about Roberta?" In contrast with Roberta, Susan--who lives out of a suitcase--enjoys the trappings of the Glasses' posh lifestyle for a few days, but doesn't actually want to live it. Susan is content being rootless and free, which is what is truly enviable about her.
"Desperately Seeking Susan" refers to the title of one of Jimmy's ads, and also to Roberta herself. She may be desperate to be someone else, but she only becomes that person by accident. Were it not for the fateful bump on her head, might Roberta have stayed in her comfortable but unfulfilling life? She shows no independence or even rebelliousness until she thinks she is someone else, i.e., when she is no longer bound by the conventions of her previous life. Roberta!Susan does things that Roberta Glass could never do; she takes a job as a magician's assistant and has an affair with Dez (ironically, Gary remarks that Roberta "doesn't like sex all that much", which might mean that she likes it when it's with the right man, or maybe that her previous life is too inhibiting).
As for Roberta's 'real' self, it is neither the housewife nor the Susan persona. Both are informed by what she thinks she ought to be, and not what she really is; Roberta!Susan is still nothing like the real Susan. She's sweeter and less self-assured than the real one--giving credence to the notion that Madonna was just 'playing herself', but is happier and more vivacious than Roberta Glass. Her life as Susan is the opposite of her previous life: she trades the suburbs for a studio apartment, and breadwinner Gary for movie projectionist Dez. In a scene on Dez's apartment rooftop, Roberta closes her eyes and sways to jazz music as if she'd never heard it before. It signifies her newly sensual, carefree self; thus, romanticism conquers reality--economic and otherwise--but no one ever said that this movie is subtle.
Like so many of what moviegoers have come to know as 'chick flicks' in the past several years, the film depends on stereotypes more than character depth. When Roberta and Susan finally meet face-to-face at the end of the movie, it provides not closure but a new beginning. They are lauded for retrieving the stolen earrings, and the last shot, a triumphant still photo of them, reiterates the fact that the movie is really about two women, even if Susan gets most of the attention. (The fact was echoed in real life, with Madonna's supporting role in the movie usurping Arquette's lead role in the media.) Still, Desperately Seeking Susan is a lot like Madonna's music circa the mid-1980s: deep, it's not, but it's superficially entertaining if you don't give it too much thought.
*Indeed, I never noticed before that in the first few seasons of Buffy, Sarah Michelle Gellar was channelling a young Rosanna Arquette.
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Comment by Jason King
Salty Popcorn
Comment by Cibbuano
20/20 Filmsight
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Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak
is it one of the earliest?
What about Amy Heckerling's Fast Times at Ridgemont High? Though it wasn't exclusively focused on female characters, it does receive praise for its depiction of sexual intrigue.
Comment by Cibbuano
20/20 Filmsight
Science News
Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak
Comment by Aimzster
Health and Beauty
Reality TV
The Jeepney Stop
Comment by AllyCat
Healing Rosacea
Comment by Irene
Women In Cinema
Grammar Matters
Thanks Cibbuano.
Aimzster, YES. Aidan Quinn is a sexy beanpole in this movie, lol. I liked him in Handmaid's Tale too, even though that movie is pretty bad.
Allycat, I remember buying my first Madonna record (Like a Virgin). This movie made me love her even more!