Iconizing, Gendering, and Ageing: the Semiotics of Italian Singer Mina between Face and Mask

The chapter briefly reconstructs the framework where celebrity, popular music and gender studies converge so as to focus on the intersectional issue of female ageing. This is then applied, by means of semiotic tools, to the case of top Italian singer Mina. The text thus explores the sociosemiotic identity of Mina as revealed by the way in which her music has shaped her public image, particularly through her album cover artworks and a collection of lesser-known portraits/caricatures of her (realized by Gianni Ronco for the Italian edition of the magazine “Vanity Fair”). The investigation draws on insights from Mina’s esteemed trio of graphic designers (Mauro Balletti, Luciano Tallarini, and the abovementioned Ronco), whose statements are exceptionally rich in semiotic implications concerning themes such as representation, fame, and identity. Mina’s disappearance and at the same time the multiplication of her iconic image constitute the semiotic strategy through which she has been dealing with the passing of time.