MANGAN–Economics-Political Science–2021: Madonna’s Like a Virgin and La Traviata

I chose to pair the “E strano…e forse lui…Sempre libera” aria from La Traviata with Madonna’s Like a Virgin. The conceptual parallels are quite obvious: Both provoke debates about female sensuality, intimacy and representation in art. In form, I found the parallels quite interesting, as well. In essence, the music video and the aria give both women the means to engage directly with the public and voice their own narratives. In both cases, we have women asserting their own artistic subjectivity via song. There is a sense of reclamation as well as reconciliation in both where Madonna and Violetta are asserting their sexualities while also trying to weigh their sexualities with normative expectations of female purity. Finally, they both problematize the male gaze’s depiction of womanhood in the arts.