Marine Area: “That wonder of the Brilliant Friend”

There are mandatory appointments, essential rituals, things that we feel the need to do at any cost. There are those who cannot give up skin care, a morning jog or other habits that my body gets tired just thinking about. As far as I’m concerned, placing myself on the sofa, cover on my legs and herbal tea in hand, to watch my favorite TV series is something I just couldn’t do without. Between these the series based on Elena Ferrante’s quadrilogy undoubtedly occupies a special place in my heart.

Last Sunday the finale of the third season of theBrilliant Friend: Story of those who flee and those who stay. We greet Gaia Girace and Margherita Mazzucco who gave us two wonderful Lila and Lenù, discovering in the final scene of the eighth episode that Alba Rohrwacher she will take the place of Mazzucco for the transposition of the last book, while for Lila there are many hypotheses but we do not yet know who will replace the masterful Girace.

The deep essence of this series is all in the two protagonists, who although they are very different and their lives have gone their separate ways over time, in my opinion they represent a single entity, two sides of the same coin, two ways in which patriarchy wields power by leaning its icy hand, which at times becomes a real slap, at other times it penetrates with the force of words. Lila who tries with all herself to survive in a hostile world and Lenù who leaves the ward but wherever she is she continues to yearn to be seen, two apparently incompatible characteristics that coexist in many women, myself included.

The central focus of this season is certainly the political component, which we see emerging immediately: Lenù participates in the feminist movements of the 70s, and Lila is involved by her friend Pasquale in party meetings. The hypocrisy and lack of awareness of reality emerge clearly: if on the one hand Lila brings to light what the left, while filling her mouth with words like “working class”, has no knowledge of what it really means to lead that life, in the same way in the academic environment, which prides itself on openness and progressiveness, it is present a prevailing paternalism towards the intellectual work of womenas Pietro Airota, Lenù’s husband demonstrates several times, who does not read his wife’s books and defines Carla Lonzi’s texts as even superficial.

This reminded me of my adolescent relationship with feminism, a feminism that at the time was just emerging into intersectionality and therefore could hardly see me. The feeling of feeling out of place in those contexts has accompanied me for a long time: women rightly fought for self-determination, not to be sexualized and to protect their right to abortion, but whether disabled women, or belonging to other categories marginalized, they were not present how could I make claims that they had to do with my disabled body, instances completely unknown to them?

And it is here that perhaps the wonder of the Brilliant Friend is concentrated: the ability to evoke contemporary reflections starting from the past, to go beyond time and space and be able to tell a story of invisibility and cancellation that basically in one way or in the ‘other it touches us all.