Raffaella Carrà, “who changed many lives without wanting to”

The first thing that Paolo Armelli did when the newspapers spread the news of Raffaella Carrà’s death was to review, almost instinctively, the videos on YouTube that saw her as a protagonist, trying in some way to fill that sense of estrangement that pervaded everyone, as if we felt like the orphans of an aunt all in bob and sequins. «When a famous person dies, the journalistic instinct is triggered to reconstruct her life, to take stock of what she has left us. I remember the dismay of that day, because Raffaella Carrà was one of those characters that you did not expect could be missing so suddenly. We weren’t prepared for the news, also because she had somehow sold us the illusion of being eternal, rising like a phoenix from her ashes and presenting herself more and more luminous than before “, says Paolo – journalist, co-founder of the platform QUid Media and artistic co-director of the MiX International Festival of Lgbtq + Cinema and Queer Culture – on the phone from his apartment in Milan, so impressed by her figure that he accepted, almost a year later, the proposal to write a book about her.

1970 Canzonissima

Is called The art of being Raffaella Carràis published by Blackie Editions, and tells in great detail the lights and shadows of a professional who, as Paolo writes, “has changed many lives without wanting to do so”. “I wanted to work on the imaginary, work a lot on videos, images and newspaper archives to understand how the Carrà phenomenon had been told over time”, continues Paolo who, together with his careful and brilliant writing, is managed to collect the memory of several prominent personalities of entertainment and politics, from Vanessa Incontrada to Alessandro Zan, from Vladimir Luxuria to Giovanni Benincasa, to enrich perhaps one of the most beautiful and complete books that has ever been published on the National Raffa. Paolo and I have known each other for many years: interviewing a friend is no small feat, and it is also for this reason that, exceptionally, we will use the “you” instead of the “you” in this chat of memories and “Carrarian” sequences.

Raffaella Carrà “has changed many lives without wanting to do it”: does it also apply to yours?
«It would be a bit of an exaggeration to say even if in retrospect, by reconstructing the imagery he created, he somehow left a not indifferent mark on me. I understood that many of the things that formed me were things she believed in in times when it was not obvious to do so ».

The first time you confronted the character Carrà?
«My first exposure to Raffaella Carrà’s radiation was Carramba !. In agreement with my parents, I could stay awake on Saturday night a little longer to look at her: I remember this woman who seemed extraordinary to me, she dominated the stage by herself, she went from dancing to interviewing international characters with great ease ».

In the end the book proposal arrived: where did you start from?
«From the newspaper archives, going backwards, looking for the first times her name appeared: it seemed right to reset everything so as not to get caught up in the freshest memories I had of her. I wanted to travel back in time, to be carried away by her evolution ».

An evolution that has often clashed with prejudices and obstacles but which, incredibly, despite the crazy customs, has never been vulgar.
“She has always been sensual, but never sexual. Even the most transgressive way of putting oneself in his costumes and in her dances was something that ended up being reassuring, never too explicit or shot in the face. In the aesthetic dimension she was as if she were the bearer of a certain joy of living. Despite the glitter, the straps and the rest, you saw something you could recognize yourself in. “

The other nice thing about Raffaella was recognizing her limits: certainly not taken for granted in a world where everyone thinks they can do everything, don’t you think?
«Today we all have the illusion that, by putting our effort into it, we can arrive from all sides. She, on the other hand, said that there were some things she could do and others not. When they told her at the dance academy that her ankles were too small and that she would never become an étoile, she knew that her stubbornness and her talent would serve her for other things, without pissing off. She told the young people that she was aware of her own abilities and limitations, and I think that was a great lesson. As well as the fact that she was the one who decided if and when to make noise. Today on social networks we always show ourselves, while she has always claimed the importance of lowering the volume and turning off the spotlight. She used to say that she preferred that people ask themselves what happened to him rather than saying “her again” ».

Do you think this philosophy of disappearing would work today, when even record labels force singers to shoot videos on TikTok to avoid the risk of not being visible enough?
“Everything Raffaella Carrà was able to achieve was the result of a world of entertainment radically different from that of today, so much so that, in recent years, she too has struggled not a little to get the right programs right, finding the right place with You begin to tell only at a later time. Who knows if slowing down for a moment and decreasing exposure could not help a less shouted communication even today ».

Raffaella has also made a great deal of noise in the homosexual community, even though she has always defined herself as “a gay icon in spite of herself”. Why was she so loved?
“There is no real reason why gay icons become gay icons, other than those who proclaim themselves gay icons even though they are not. Raffaella was a supernova: the glitter, the platinum hair, the flawless bob, the desire to party and the sense of revolution have always fascinated the gay community because, on the other hand, the most beautiful songs are those that make us dance without allowing us to think about anything. Gay icons have a certain depth, a big bright side but also a lot of small shadows, imperfections and sides that you want to keep private. The LGBTQI + community has found in Raffaella Carrà, in addition to a great champion and ally, also a representation of all the values ​​for which the community is in raptures ».

Yet, in 2017, she did not attend the Word Pride in Madrid which had elected her godmother: why, in your opinion?
«It was the symbol of her humility: she feared, also because of her age, that it was too big a commitment for her. She did not want to be the center of attention in an event in which the protagonists were others ».

In this regard, the testimony of the deputy Alessandro Zan regarding the proposal for official recognition by the institutions is very beautiful in the book.
“He tried to give her the Order of Merit from Mattarella, and it’s a pity that he didn’t manage to do it in time, between the pandemic and the disease.”

Do you think Raffaella would have wanted it?
“Between the lines, you could feel the fact that she was missing an official celebration in Italy. In an interview with Vanity Fair he said that for years they had considered it that of beans and that only recently did they say that it had made the revolution. You needed a more concrete demonstration ».

In the book, at one point, you also write that Raffaella Carrà indirectly did so much for the feminist cause without openly embracing it.
“She showed that she was a model of a woman who did not have to be ancillary to men and who did not need marriage to be what she wanted. Her chapter on her children, on the other hand, was very painful for her: she put her career ahead of her and, when she thought of making them, it became complicated. There was no lack of an interview in which she did not repeat it ».

You write that we will always need Raffaelle Carrà, but today are there really other Carràs?
«Unfortunately today there is not a great investment in the arts that Carrà has cultivated with such passion. A few names come to mind – from Paola Cortellesi to Elodie – but each comparison involves a great deal of responsibility, and I think no one would want to face such a cumbersome comparison. Di Carrà will always remain only one ».

The author Paolo Armelli

Marco Poletti

Would you have ever thought that your first book would be on the Carrà?
“I think about it all the time. Like so many people who have always wanted to write, I thought that sooner or later I would publish a novel that would change Italian fiction, but I didn’t have the right story or the will to commit to it. So I invested the time and concentration to do something that satisfied me, namely journalism. When the opportunity for this book came, I threw myself into it because I knew it was my chance. If there will be others it is too early to say, but for now I only hope to have done a good service to the person of Raffaella Carrà, to have described her in a dignified way ».

When did you get the idea of ​​writing that book that never came out?
“Very young. I have always written short stories from high school onwards and cultivated the dream of the book until the end of university, but I was unable to unblock myself, to channel the energies and the right ideas ».

Did you want to take that path as a child too?
«I approached books late: I started reading in middle school, especially science fiction books and Italian classics, then anything. The themes at school were good for me ».

What did you want to become when you grow up?
“The fireman, the explorer and the TV presenter: when I was the right age to veejay MTV, they took them off”.

Sorry, I stood by the firefighter.
«I adored Grisu so much, because I like contradictions: seeing this little dragon that set fires in spite of himself that he then had the passion to put out, softened me».

A contradiction that is part of you?
«Feeling of wanting to write something but having always precluded myself from this path».

A road closed for fear of others or of yourself?
“I am the greatest and most severe judge of myself: I never felt that my work was worthy enough to reach the world.”

Dell ‘Art of being Raffaella Carrà what did this very strict judge say?
“That I worked hard to pay this homage, but that it could have been done better.”

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Source: Vanity Fair

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