Who's That Girl - 35MM

Loosely based on Bringing Up Baby, Madonna’s unofficial follow-up to Desperately Seeking Susan has her channeling Pre-code naughty, à la Jean Harlow and Alice White. Although Vincent Canby found that “Madonna, left to her own devices and her own canny pace, is a very engaging comedian,” Who’s That Girl? was a box office failure. Madonna pairs delightfully with Griffin Dunne in this zany B-grade cutie, an ostentatious promotional vehicle for the soundtrack album and 1987 world tour – both of the same name. 

Video: PAPA DON’T PREACH (James Foley, 1986)

Madonna’s third album True Blue militarized a new, brazenly political pop star: its first single “Live to Tell” is an unabashed testimony of domestic abuse, its second single, “Papa Don’t Preach”, a declaration of female empowerment and body ownership. Director James Foley places a Jean Seberg-lookalike Madonna in a modern-day Michael Ballhaus-shot Staten Island, where she pleads with papa Danny Aiello for forgiveness and support. Consequently, Madonna “threw in America’s face the image of a country ravaged by the abortion debate.”