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Is ‘Desperately Seeking Susan’ a Feminist Film?

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Susan Seidelman’s classic mistaken identity comedy, Desperately Seeking Susan, is a charming time capsule of 1980s NYC, and quite arguably the best movie Madonna ever starred in. But is it a feminist film? In this video, we argue that it is.

Desperately Seeking Susan, which also stars Rosanna Arquette, belongs to a small subgenre of films known as the “persona swap,” a term first coined by film critic Miriam Bale. For those who first became acquainted with the film as children, revisiting it now as more thoughtful adults may inspire a completely different perspective.

Take another look at some of your favorite movies with our videos on the Overlooked Brilliance of “City of God,” the many genres of “Kill Bill,” Peter Greenaway’s demented masterpiece “The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, & Her Lover,” and the quiet horror of Lucile Hadžihalilović’s “Innocence!”

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