Raffaella Carrà (1943-2021) was an Italian actor, singer and television presenter with a career that spanned over fifty years (1960-2000s), achieving international fame by the 1970s, particularly...Show moreRaffaella Carrà (1943-2021) was an Italian actor, singer and television presenter with a career that spanned over fifty years (1960-2000s), achieving international fame by the 1970s, particularly within Europe and Latin America. Carrà’s stardom was marked by her controversial stance with regards to sex and freedom of sexuality. She had an extensive fan base and went on to be heralded as an icon of women’s liberation and the LGBTQ+ movement. She broke the well-established image of what an Italian woman should be, re-appropriated the significance of femininity and broke bounds of tradition. Carrà had a multi-faceted career, however, she owed the longevity of her presence in the public eye and her status as a pop icon to her collaboration with the Italian national broadcasting channels of the RAI (Radiotelevisione Italia). Under the control of a government-run administrative body, the RAI as all other vestiges of Italian society, was under the influence of both religious and political conservativism of the post WWII years. Carrà stepped into the public visual space on a stage provided to her by the RAI, during a period where Italy faced both political turmoil domestically and stood in the path of strong winds of change that blew across the Western world at large. This thesis will analyse how Raffaella Carrà used television as a space to promote message of change and equality for the conservative Italian society. Her iconicity will be examined through textual analysis of her lyrics and the visual analysis of her image. The three-way interplay between audience, broadcast media and pop icon will be studied through the eyes of cultural critics. It will be shown that Carrà stepped onto the public stage with agency. By recognising and directly addressing the concerns of her multifarious audience, she refined the concept of television audiencehood in Italy and opened space for the marginalised members of society.Show less