Hail Arisa, the greatest rock star
Arisa first arrived in San Remo with glasses with especially strong frames; they looked comical. An ironic image that could have made the audience lower their defenses, but then turned out to be the most beautiful Italian voice in the last fifteen years of music. What she dislikes most are “those who call her crazy,” but those who call her crazy, and who thereby lower her defenses, do not know that Rosalba Pippa (that’s her real name, ed.) seems to be truly crazy. one of the few people who says and does what comes into her head. Because “Sincerity is an important element” like she sang, but not in the world of entertainment, which by its nature lives on image and which today, in particular, thrives on convenient price-per-kilo positioning. And that’s what makes her a rock star from a media perspective. After all, as she herself told Amici, “if you constantly bite your lips, you will get sick.”
In a long anecdote that supports this point, emblematic of a much-discussed post published at the end of August, the one in which she posted a “looking for husband” ad, showing herself completely naked. In the midst of a hyper-individualistic era—with sacred feminist empowerment now reaching commercial as well as toxic levels—Arisa began seeking love publicly, thereby deviating from the media’s most comfortable expectations. Love, to which he defiantly pointed out even the most earthly features, age (“very healthy subjects, maximum 45 years old”), profession, and from which he demanded a strong passion for the “female genital organ,” promising in return loyalty “only deserves it.” Then she stripped naked, drawing criticism from bright minds for vulgarity, but in fact winning the battle against the commodification of the body, regaining the opportunity to expose it (and really expose it, unlike those glossy feminists who claim the right to expose themselves). but then they only photograph Instagram nipples, Ed). At the same time she took the trouble to resolve the modern battle of the sexes by devoting herself to the public praise of the couple to which, already out of fashion, she returned in the modern idea of mutual freedom.
“I love you,” wrote the young singer Madame, one of the most famous at the moment, right under the post. “I’ve been writing to you for months and you still haven’t answered me, strange way to love,” she instead responded resentfully, despite living in a modern world where every “like” on Instagram is weighed based on strategic considerations. endorsements (one influencer told me that there are actual squads of influencers opposing each other who “like” each other to boost each other’s authority, ed.). In this sense, I am not surprised that a week ago our Rosalba announced that she does not have a press service (whether this is true or not). To be clear, press officers are actually those communications experts who are responsible for taking care of the relationship between artists and newspapers, or rather their public image: these are the same people who often ask for agreements in advance and disingenuously . on interview questions to ensure your client comes out as brilliant and expendable as possible. Something that Arisa isn’t always like.
“Gay icon? What do I care”
“I was fired as a gay icon? What difference does it make to me,” he thundered, not coincidentally, the other night during an interview with Belve, devastated by a media panorama that looks at form rather than content. From the LGBT community, which condemns her for two quotes of confusing remarks muttered at Meloni in May (and soon branded by herself, due to the proximity of her speech), and not for the twelve years of activism she has accumulated under her belt (this was 2012 year, and many other times, apparently less fashionable for the community, when the singer had already preached to Vanity Fair that “We are all bisexual”). In short, in the present time of sequined activism, Arisa is returning substance rather than form: to the hypocritical present that invented “rainbow washing” – the widespread practice of constructing a communications campaign in a gay-friendly sense for the sole purpose of washing – returning the weight of intention, and not a façade. They corrected the others by labeling themselves as “gay icons.” Conscience is enough for her.
(Note: Then I noticed with curiosity how this summer it was Paola and Chiara who joined the gay pride, and not only in a metaphorical sense. I noticed this because in the same weeks, in the work of recataloging In the articles brought to the editorial office, I found statements by Chiara Iezzi from 2013 that sounded something like this: “I’m not a licker, the very idea horrifies me.” Some topics were treated with guilty frivolity, but then times were different for Arisa, already painted in the rainbow… Apparently, I tell myself, this year the sparkles of Paola and Chiara shone brighter).
Make yourself desirable Maria De Filippi
After all, only a TV rock star could afford the luxury of a back-and-forth with Maria De Filippi. In particular, with Amici di Maria De Filippi: twice – the last this summer – Rosalba left the talent show in order to “have time to do her little things.” Who else will leave the only program that hasn’t experienced a crisis in twenty years? (“I know if I leave, I won’t come back,” a friend who worked at Fascino PGT, a De Filippi company that boasts the appeal of an exclusive club among professionals, once told me). Only a rock star could scream at Simone Ventura, “You’re a fake whore,” in front of millions of viewers during the years when Simone was one of two television queens. It is no coincidence that Maria and then Arisa took her back and again put her to sing in the center of the studio, in order to then humiliate the students of their academy: “And now, after her, you can all go home.” Because only she has a voice like Arisa.
The point is that Arisa can afford to be transversal, between networks and between classes. After Amici, so to speak, he seems to be throwing himself into the experiment of The Voice Kids, a talent show for children, without giving up erotic photos on social networks. In fact, ours can easily make vertical ascents between “high” and low, between Il Cantante Mascherato on Rai Uno and Ferzan Ozpetek on Netflix, without losing credibility among the former, more popular, or among the latter, more chic (after San -Remo). 2014, the peak of her career, was a popular turning point: then, by her admission, she herself became intolerant of his arrogance.) She can – just – allow herself to take attention away from the music, including by plunging into trashier contexts, remaining at the same time artistically believable: this should not justify the exposed ass, because talent will always come first, the most beautiful Italian voice in the last fifteen years in fact (“I have gained a lot of fans also because I have a great ass”, – he joked. Well, imagine Elodie saying the same thing, the same Elodie who is offended when it is pointed out to her that she took off her clothes on the cover of the latest single).
Even fragile
Authenticity doesn’t seem scary to Arisa. Otherwise he would have thought a little before saying: “Amadeus hasn’t taken me to San Remo for three years, I feel like crap and not up to par,” as he did in the spring, uttering a phrase that would have made anyone else lose face. Because when Arisa’s fragility shows, it happens for real: suddenly during an interview, when tears well up in her eyes. This is not the agenda of the smartphone influencers, those who have turned even fragility into a spectacular fetishism (this is an unfortunate era, an era in which one’s own identity is increasingly defined by one’s own trauma). It’s a sensitivity that frightens her (“I’m very careful not to lose myself, because moments of introspection make you sad more than necessary,” she told Belva on Tuesday, while host Francesca Fagnani asked her why in past comparisons to Mia Martini himself, a colleague who committed suicide in the 1990s). A sensitivity that in Sanremo prompted her to take to the stage with Gianluca Grignani, a colleague who returned after a period of excess, with a caring and never-do-good approach.
After all, to complete the rock star image, we need depth and reflectiveness, what the cliché would define as a bit of healthy emotional turbulence, geared toward the unusual path of an artist whose sole job is to surprise. And Arisa is not lacking in this: her childhood, in which she took snuff at school, her exploratory faith in God and Nature, in Buddha, Madonna and all the saints (“please everyone, maybe someone will listen,” she joked ). , compelling out-of-context shots (that “I had my things” was said at a Sanremo press conference years ago), a multi-faceted look (2008 cartoon, 2014 Sanremo good woman who won shaved in 2014 year, redhead in 2015), sexy lolita 2016, tons of wigs). Finally, provocations on the topic of sex: “Everything is worth it, but it’s not always worth it, it’s worth it when it’s worth it,” he also told Belva in a hermetic lectio magistralis of a conscious approach to pleasure, pronounced in times when everything is stuffed mouths are sex-positive, but introduces the hustler to sex toys. “What hurts me most is when they say I’m crazy,” she repeated again the other night. But to us it often seems the clearest of all.
Source: Today
