Chapter One - Carmen Miranda
Nós somos as cantoras do rádio
Nossas canções cruzando o espaço azul
Vão reunindo num grande abraço
Corações de norte ao sul
- "As Cantoras do Rádio," Carmen and Aurora Miranda, 1936
continued...
Carmen Miranda's success in Brazil in the early twentieth century (she began recording in 1925) took place at a time of intense political intervention in popular culture. The administration of Getúlio Vargas held as its main nation-building tenets the need to forge a singular national consciousness, and the nascent music and film industries indicated that this would in fact be possible in a country as large as Brazil. In using sound and the visual arts to create the idea of a national, bounded cultural identity, Vargas and his contemporaries in Latin American politics were in the position of instigating a cultural ideology that privileged audio and visual media over print, unlike in Europe, where, according to Anderson, national communities had primarily been imagined via the print media. Despite Vargas' emphasis on industrialisation, rural - urban migration and modernity, the Brazilian population was still highly illiterate, so use of the new media was an essential form of developing a sense of national cohesion. McClintock offers an alternative reading of nationalism to that described by Anderson, and one which is much more suitable to the case of Latin America:
National collectivity is experienced pre-eminently through spectacle. Here I depart from Anderson, who sees nationalism as emerging primarily from the Gutenberg technology of print capitalism. Anderson neglects the fact that print capital has until recently been accessible to a relatively small literate elite. Indeed, the singular power of nationalism since the late nineteenth century has been its capacity to organise a sense of the popular, collective unity through the management of mass national commodity spectacle.
With the invention and acquisition of new technologies such as radio and cinema, cultural policy-makers and artists were able to disseminate the new-found "national" cultural patterns to a wide audience "on-air" to a huge geographically and culturally diverse country. Furthermore, the new technologies enabled the promulgation of the nation beyond the confines of the nation, thereby reiterating and reinforcing the idea of the national culture with respect to its neighbours.
The burgeoning music industry was helped along its way by stars such as Carmen Miranda. Her recording of the song "Taí: Eu Fiz Tudo Pra Você Gostar De Mim" sold in record numbers, establishing her as the leading radio star of the time - her strategy obviously did work, and she got her audience to like her. Coming from a poor, white, Portuguese immigrant family, and spotted singing to herself whilst at work in a hatshop, Miranda seemed to represent the hardworking, white, immigrant, working class citizen that Vargas was so keen to include in his newly industrialised urban society, so much so that at the height of her fame, Miranda was seen by the dictator as a suitable ambassador for the promulgation of national culture abroad; he was instrumental in getting Miranda's band a place in Hollywood with her when she went in 1939, so that she would be sure to take "authentic" Brazilian music with her. In this context, Miranda very clearly acted as female representative of the nation. The above extract comes from one of the songs she sang with her sister, Aurora. It shows clearly the importance attached to the new technologies of radio and film, and the role artists such as the Miranda sisters played in the dissemination of nationalist ideologies:
Nós somos as cantoras do rádio
Levamos a vida a cantar
De noite embalamos o teu sono
De manhã nós vamos te acordar
Nós somos as cantoras do rádio
Nossas canções cruzando o espaço azul
Vão reunindo num grande abraço
Corações de norte a sul
Canto pelos espaços afora
Vou semeando cantigas
Dando alegria a quem chora
Bum, bum, bum
Canto, pois sei que a minha canção
Vai dissipar a tristeza
Que mora no teu coração
Canto para te ver mais contente
Pois a ventura dos outros
É a alegria da gente
Bum bum bum...
Canto e sou feliz só assim
Agora peço que cantes
Um pouquinho para mim
Carmen Miranda's success in Brazil in the early twentieth century (she began recording in 1925) took place at a time of intense political intervention in popular culture. The administration of Getúlio Vargas held as its main nation-building tenets the need to forge a singular national consciousness, and the nascent music and film industries indicated that this would in fact be possible in a country as large as Brazil. In using sound and the visual arts to create the idea of a national, bounded cultural identity, Vargas and his contemporaries in Latin American politics were in the position of instigating a cultural ideology that privileged audio and visual media over print, unlike in Europe, where, according to Anderson, national communities had primarily been imagined via the print media. Despite Vargas' emphasis on industrialisation, rural - urban migration and modernity, the Brazilian population was still highly illiterate, so use of the new media was an essential form of developing a sense of national cohesion. McClintock offers an alternative reading of nationalism to that described by Anderson, and one which is much more suitable to the case of Latin America:
National collectivity is experienced pre-eminently through spectacle. Here I depart from Anderson, who sees nationalism as emerging primarily from the Gutenberg technology of print capitalism. Anderson neglects the fact that print capital has until recently been accessible to a relatively small literate elite. Indeed, the singular power of nationalism since the late nineteenth century has been its capacity to organise a sense of the popular, collective unity through the management of mass national commodity spectacle.
With the invention and acquisition of new technologies such as radio and cinema, cultural policy-makers and artists were able to disseminate the new-found "national" cultural patterns to a wide audience "on-air" to a huge geographically and culturally diverse country. Furthermore, the new technologies enabled the promulgation of the nation beyond the confines of the nation, thereby reiterating and reinforcing the idea of the national culture with respect to its neighbours.
The burgeoning music industry was helped along its way by stars such as Carmen Miranda. Her recording of the song "Taí: Eu Fiz Tudo Pra Você Gostar De Mim" sold in record numbers, establishing her as the leading radio star of the time - her strategy obviously did work, and she got her audience to like her. Coming from a poor, white, Portuguese immigrant family, and spotted singing to herself whilst at work in a hatshop, Miranda seemed to represent the hardworking, white, immigrant, working class citizen that Vargas was so keen to include in his newly industrialised urban society, so much so that at the height of her fame, Miranda was seen by the dictator as a suitable ambassador for the promulgation of national culture abroad; he was instrumental in getting Miranda's band a place in Hollywood with her when she went in 1939, so that she would be sure to take "authentic" Brazilian music with her. In this context, Miranda very clearly acted as female representative of the nation. The above extract comes from one of the songs she sang with her sister, Aurora. It shows clearly the importance attached to the new technologies of radio and film, and the role artists such as the Miranda sisters played in the dissemination of nationalist ideologies:
Nós somos as cantoras do rádio
Levamos a vida a cantar
De noite embalamos o teu sono
De manhã nós vamos te acordar
Nós somos as cantoras do rádio
Nossas canções cruzando o espaço azul
Vão reunindo num grande abraço
Corações de norte a sul
Canto pelos espaços afora
Vou semeando cantigas
Dando alegria a quem chora
Bum, bum, bum
Canto, pois sei que a minha canção
Vai dissipar a tristeza
Que mora no teu coração
Canto para te ver mais contente
Pois a ventura dos outros
É a alegria da gente
Bum bum bum...
Canto e sou feliz só assim
Agora peço que cantes
Um pouquinho para mim
continued...
The role of nationalism as commodity spectacle is played out clearly in this song, as the project of national integration is theatricalised into a performance of joyful choral unison. The role of women as biological reproducer is also explicit; if Carmen Miranda did not have children herself, her role as "mother of the nation" is nevertheless symbolically evident in "Cantoras da Rádio", where she and her sister Aurora play the role of nurturer, carer and healer of the nation's ills. At a time of intense urban industrialisation, and with Vargas keen to reach his citizens spread throughout the vast country, scattered regional identities and fragmented urban identities are seen as the nation's threat, but curable through the modernity of the new technologies, the policy of national integration, and via the mediation of the familiar trope of woman as mother and healer, who could bring happiness to an otherwise confused nation. In dedicating a life to rocking the nation to sleep and waking it up in time for work, the female singer of national culture and representation of the ideal woman sells herself as the "keeper of tradition and of the volk's moral and spiritual mission," differentiated from the male, who "embodies political and economic activity." The woman's spiritual mission is clearly espoused in the lines "canto para te ver mais contente / pois a ventura dos outros / é a alegria da gente..." The travails of the woman, sending out her caring embrace over the airwaves, are used as panacea to the nation's ills, as she sacrifices her own desires to those of the nation's well-being. The ideal woman, in this scenario, is one who dedicates her own life to making sure the nation, unified within its patriarchal configuration, is happy, whilst she remains on the sidelines, ready to boost the nation's morale whenever it starts to flag.
Significantly, however, the importance attached to the creation of a national, homogeneous culture was perhaps seen as equally as important as the intense push for industrialisation, and the manual labour implied therein. Miranda's role as female producer of culture thereby transforms the woman into active participator in the apparent modernisation of the nation. The distinction between work and pleasure is blurred in this context, and Miranda's role as purveyor of the redemptive quality of Brazilian music reveals this dual position; as both mediator of and participator in national culture. This position is further problematised by the Miranda sisters' on-stage performance of the song, in which they are dressed in top hat and tails, that is, as men. In doing so, the Miranda sisters show the limits of accepted female behaviour in the public eye, but at the same time, the very fact of their cross-dressing and performing femininity and masculinity simultaneously ironises absolute gender divisions. With respect to the relationship between woman and nation, this performative irony destabilises the unquestioned role of woman as answerable to the demands of the nation, and reveals the potential for subversion of the roles assigned to women.
The potential for subversion of nationalist discourse is illustrated in other songs recorded by Miranda. Close readings of the song "Mamãe Eu Quero" illustrate how Carmen Miranda was able to destabilise the traditional image of woman as natural mother and provider by taking on the satirical tones of carnivalesque parody:
Mamãe eu quero, mamãe eu quero
Mamãe eu quero mamar
Me dá chupeta, me dá chupeta,
Me dá chupeta pro bébé nao chorar
Dorme filinho do meu coraçao
Pega mamadeira e vem entrar pro meu cordão
Tenho uma irmã que se chama Ana
De tanto piscar o olho já ficou sem a pestana
Mamãe eu quero, mamãe eu quero
Mamãe eu quero mamar
Me dá chupeta, me dá chupeta,
Me dá chupeta pro bébé nao chorar
Olho as pequenas mas daquele jeito
Tenho muita pena não ser criança de peito
Tenho uma irmã que é fenomenal
Ela é da bossa e o marido é um boçal
This song, first recorded by the male artist Jararaca in 1936, explores the sexual connotations of an adult male pleading in a childlike tone to his "mother" to let him breastfeed. The mother replies generously, saying "here, take your bottle and come into my huddle" but warning suggestively that she has a sister who has batted her eyelids so much that she has lost some of them. Initially sung by a male singer, the song works around a set of overt innuendoes designed to deflect direct sexual attention from the female protagonist by providing the loaded cover of the image of natural provider, and by diverting attention to a generous sister.
Composed as a marchinha (comparable to contemporary sambas de enredo, the rhythm used in the Rio carnival processions) and written for the carnival of 1937, the song is described as "ironic, humorous and malicious, and enormously pleasing to our [Brazil's] crazy antics." As sung by a man, the sexual innuendoes are clear, but when sung by a woman, these objectifications are subverted into a parody of the infantile male. As with "Cantoras do Rádio," the boundaries between male and female gender divisions are blurred, and the carnivalesque gender-bending subverts the traditional view of natural unity between man and woman, and as an extension of this, as the basis of the nation and its future generations.
The role of nationalism as commodity spectacle is played out clearly in this song, as the project of national integration is theatricalised into a performance of joyful choral unison. The role of women as biological reproducer is also explicit; if Carmen Miranda did not have children herself, her role as "mother of the nation" is nevertheless symbolically evident in "Cantoras da Rádio", where she and her sister Aurora play the role of nurturer, carer and healer of the nation's ills. At a time of intense urban industrialisation, and with Vargas keen to reach his citizens spread throughout the vast country, scattered regional identities and fragmented urban identities are seen as the nation's threat, but curable through the modernity of the new technologies, the policy of national integration, and via the mediation of the familiar trope of woman as mother and healer, who could bring happiness to an otherwise confused nation. In dedicating a life to rocking the nation to sleep and waking it up in time for work, the female singer of national culture and representation of the ideal woman sells herself as the "keeper of tradition and of the volk's moral and spiritual mission," differentiated from the male, who "embodies political and economic activity." The woman's spiritual mission is clearly espoused in the lines "canto para te ver mais contente / pois a ventura dos outros / é a alegria da gente..." The travails of the woman, sending out her caring embrace over the airwaves, are used as panacea to the nation's ills, as she sacrifices her own desires to those of the nation's well-being. The ideal woman, in this scenario, is one who dedicates her own life to making sure the nation, unified within its patriarchal configuration, is happy, whilst she remains on the sidelines, ready to boost the nation's morale whenever it starts to flag.
Significantly, however, the importance attached to the creation of a national, homogeneous culture was perhaps seen as equally as important as the intense push for industrialisation, and the manual labour implied therein. Miranda's role as female producer of culture thereby transforms the woman into active participator in the apparent modernisation of the nation. The distinction between work and pleasure is blurred in this context, and Miranda's role as purveyor of the redemptive quality of Brazilian music reveals this dual position; as both mediator of and participator in national culture. This position is further problematised by the Miranda sisters' on-stage performance of the song, in which they are dressed in top hat and tails, that is, as men. In doing so, the Miranda sisters show the limits of accepted female behaviour in the public eye, but at the same time, the very fact of their cross-dressing and performing femininity and masculinity simultaneously ironises absolute gender divisions. With respect to the relationship between woman and nation, this performative irony destabilises the unquestioned role of woman as answerable to the demands of the nation, and reveals the potential for subversion of the roles assigned to women.
The potential for subversion of nationalist discourse is illustrated in other songs recorded by Miranda. Close readings of the song "Mamãe Eu Quero" illustrate how Carmen Miranda was able to destabilise the traditional image of woman as natural mother and provider by taking on the satirical tones of carnivalesque parody:
Mamãe eu quero, mamãe eu quero
Mamãe eu quero mamar
Me dá chupeta, me dá chupeta,
Me dá chupeta pro bébé nao chorar
Dorme filinho do meu coraçao
Pega mamadeira e vem entrar pro meu cordão
Tenho uma irmã que se chama Ana
De tanto piscar o olho já ficou sem a pestana
Mamãe eu quero, mamãe eu quero
Mamãe eu quero mamar
Me dá chupeta, me dá chupeta,
Me dá chupeta pro bébé nao chorar
Olho as pequenas mas daquele jeito
Tenho muita pena não ser criança de peito
Tenho uma irmã que é fenomenal
Ela é da bossa e o marido é um boçal
This song, first recorded by the male artist Jararaca in 1936, explores the sexual connotations of an adult male pleading in a childlike tone to his "mother" to let him breastfeed. The mother replies generously, saying "here, take your bottle and come into my huddle" but warning suggestively that she has a sister who has batted her eyelids so much that she has lost some of them. Initially sung by a male singer, the song works around a set of overt innuendoes designed to deflect direct sexual attention from the female protagonist by providing the loaded cover of the image of natural provider, and by diverting attention to a generous sister.
Composed as a marchinha (comparable to contemporary sambas de enredo, the rhythm used in the Rio carnival processions) and written for the carnival of 1937, the song is described as "ironic, humorous and malicious, and enormously pleasing to our [Brazil's] crazy antics." As sung by a man, the sexual innuendoes are clear, but when sung by a woman, these objectifications are subverted into a parody of the infantile male. As with "Cantoras do Rádio," the boundaries between male and female gender divisions are blurred, and the carnivalesque gender-bending subverts the traditional view of natural unity between man and woman, and as an extension of this, as the basis of the nation and its future generations.
continued...
Songs like "Mamãe Eu Quero" and "Cantoras do Rádio" illustrate the ways in which Carmen Miranda subverted traditional images of woman's role with regards to the nation. Implicit within these concepts, however, is mestiçagem, which was developed as a way in which the New World countries of Latin America could use their mixed race heritage to their advantage, and develop a concept of national identity which could account for the contact between races and go beyond the notions of white superiority, progress and civilization hitherto proscribed within Old World discourses. Within the context of colonisation, women were seen as the keepers of racial purity, since their role as reproducers outshone everything else. The new nations had to be populated and whitened, so it was imperative to control women's sexual behaviour. For these reasons, the image of ideal Brazilian womanhood was configured as white, as the white woman embodies all that is "best" in a social group. Additionally, sexual control was exerted more strongly over women, whose role was to stay white and therefore reproduce whiteness, whereas men were called upon to whiten the population by procreating with black women. The personification of the whitening ideal can be seen in certain songs sung by Carmen Miranda, who, around 1935, adopted the costume of the baiana, the symbol of Afro-Brazilian tradition and womanhood. Although one of the central tenets of the new-found Brazilian identity was the celebration of diversity, this was always and only negotiable within certain boundaries - as with the concept of mestiçagem, the idea was to value difference, but within a specific framework of whiteness as superior and modern, which is why only a white woman could be seen by the nation to adopt the costume and music of black identity in the national context, as appropriation served as a form of control. The song "O Que É Que a Baiana Tem?" acts as a kind of recipe for Afro-Brazilian female identity. The lines denote what makes the Baiana a Baiana, and celebrate the notion of difference and even the exotics of Afro-Brazilian identity.
O Que é que a baiana tem?
O Que é que a baiana tem?
Tem torçal de seda, tem!
Tem brincos de ouro tem!
Corrente de ouro tem!
Tem pano-da-costa, tem!
Sandália enfeitada, tem!
Tem graça como ninguém
Como ela requebra bem!
Quando você se requebrar
Caia por cima de mim
Caia por cima de mim
Caia por cima de mim
O Que é que a baiana tem?
O Que é que a baiana tem?
O Que é que a baiana tem?
O Que é que a baiana tem?
Tem torçal de seda, tem!
Tem brincos de ouro tem!
Corrente de ouro tem!
Tem pano-da-costa, tem!
Sandália enfeitada, tem!
Só vai no Bonfim quem tem
(O Que é que a baiana tem?)
Só vai no Bonfim quem tem
Só vai no Bonfim quem tem
Um rosário de ouro, uma bolota assim
Quem não tem balagandãs não vai no Bonfim
(Oi, não vai no Bonfim)
(Oi, não vai no Bonfim)
The importance of outward appearance and decorative costume are taken as the signifiers of a woman who carries the cargo of a rich cultural heritage - golden earrings and necklaces, a silk torçal, decorated sandals and cloth from the coast of Guinea. This in itself is revelatory of the ways in which popular culture and everyday practices were co-opted by artists to elaborate an image of the "typical" Bahian woman, who, as exemplified in this song, was seen to encompass all that was tropical and exotic about the African heritage of Bahian cultural markers. The celebration of the Bahian woman is also significant in this song, in that we are shown how the dress of the Bahian is complemented by the importance of her dancing ability - "no one's as graceful as she / how well she moves her hips!" The question "what does the baiana have?" is answerable in that she has the rich cultural legacies of African heritage, in her dress, as well as her ability to dance. The boundaries of Afro-Brazilian culture are set out within a framework of female characteristics of beauty, performance and show, which allow her to participate both within the enclosure of Afro-Brazilian tradition ("Só vai no Bonfim quem tem" - only those with "it" can go to the feast of Bonfim), and because the song is sung by a white Carmen Miranda, also within the national culture of the celebration of diversity. In this sense, the Afro-Brazilian traditions are seen as capsules of culture both within and separate from the national culture. In celebrating the difference of the Bahian woman, and especially her beauty and sensuality, Miranda acts as the marker of these cultural boundaries, but as with "Mamãe Eu Quero", Miranda's performance of this song, as a white woman dressed as a black woman, and singing from the point of view of a white male, transgresses the boundaries between all these opposing subjectivities, and opens up the spaces between them. In this way, Carmen Miranda helped both to outline, and question the cultural boundaries set out within the dominant patriarchal ideology.
introduction chapter two: Gloria Estefan
back to research
Songs like "Mamãe Eu Quero" and "Cantoras do Rádio" illustrate the ways in which Carmen Miranda subverted traditional images of woman's role with regards to the nation. Implicit within these concepts, however, is mestiçagem, which was developed as a way in which the New World countries of Latin America could use their mixed race heritage to their advantage, and develop a concept of national identity which could account for the contact between races and go beyond the notions of white superiority, progress and civilization hitherto proscribed within Old World discourses. Within the context of colonisation, women were seen as the keepers of racial purity, since their role as reproducers outshone everything else. The new nations had to be populated and whitened, so it was imperative to control women's sexual behaviour. For these reasons, the image of ideal Brazilian womanhood was configured as white, as the white woman embodies all that is "best" in a social group. Additionally, sexual control was exerted more strongly over women, whose role was to stay white and therefore reproduce whiteness, whereas men were called upon to whiten the population by procreating with black women. The personification of the whitening ideal can be seen in certain songs sung by Carmen Miranda, who, around 1935, adopted the costume of the baiana, the symbol of Afro-Brazilian tradition and womanhood. Although one of the central tenets of the new-found Brazilian identity was the celebration of diversity, this was always and only negotiable within certain boundaries - as with the concept of mestiçagem, the idea was to value difference, but within a specific framework of whiteness as superior and modern, which is why only a white woman could be seen by the nation to adopt the costume and music of black identity in the national context, as appropriation served as a form of control. The song "O Que É Que a Baiana Tem?" acts as a kind of recipe for Afro-Brazilian female identity. The lines denote what makes the Baiana a Baiana, and celebrate the notion of difference and even the exotics of Afro-Brazilian identity.
O Que é que a baiana tem?
O Que é que a baiana tem?
Tem torçal de seda, tem!
Tem brincos de ouro tem!
Corrente de ouro tem!
Tem pano-da-costa, tem!
Sandália enfeitada, tem!
Tem graça como ninguém
Como ela requebra bem!
Quando você se requebrar
Caia por cima de mim
Caia por cima de mim
Caia por cima de mim
O Que é que a baiana tem?
O Que é que a baiana tem?
O Que é que a baiana tem?
O Que é que a baiana tem?
Tem torçal de seda, tem!
Tem brincos de ouro tem!
Corrente de ouro tem!
Tem pano-da-costa, tem!
Sandália enfeitada, tem!
Só vai no Bonfim quem tem
(O Que é que a baiana tem?)
Só vai no Bonfim quem tem
Só vai no Bonfim quem tem
Um rosário de ouro, uma bolota assim
Quem não tem balagandãs não vai no Bonfim
(Oi, não vai no Bonfim)
(Oi, não vai no Bonfim)
The importance of outward appearance and decorative costume are taken as the signifiers of a woman who carries the cargo of a rich cultural heritage - golden earrings and necklaces, a silk torçal, decorated sandals and cloth from the coast of Guinea. This in itself is revelatory of the ways in which popular culture and everyday practices were co-opted by artists to elaborate an image of the "typical" Bahian woman, who, as exemplified in this song, was seen to encompass all that was tropical and exotic about the African heritage of Bahian cultural markers. The celebration of the Bahian woman is also significant in this song, in that we are shown how the dress of the Bahian is complemented by the importance of her dancing ability - "no one's as graceful as she / how well she moves her hips!" The question "what does the baiana have?" is answerable in that she has the rich cultural legacies of African heritage, in her dress, as well as her ability to dance. The boundaries of Afro-Brazilian culture are set out within a framework of female characteristics of beauty, performance and show, which allow her to participate both within the enclosure of Afro-Brazilian tradition ("Só vai no Bonfim quem tem" - only those with "it" can go to the feast of Bonfim), and because the song is sung by a white Carmen Miranda, also within the national culture of the celebration of diversity. In this sense, the Afro-Brazilian traditions are seen as capsules of culture both within and separate from the national culture. In celebrating the difference of the Bahian woman, and especially her beauty and sensuality, Miranda acts as the marker of these cultural boundaries, but as with "Mamãe Eu Quero", Miranda's performance of this song, as a white woman dressed as a black woman, and singing from the point of view of a white male, transgresses the boundaries between all these opposing subjectivities, and opens up the spaces between them. In this way, Carmen Miranda helped both to outline, and question the cultural boundaries set out within the dominant patriarchal ideology.
introduction chapter two: Gloria Estefan
back to research