Creating Carmen Miranda

This book by Kathryn Bishop-Sanchez focuses on Carmen Miranda as if seen through a kaleidoscope, suggesting several topics that deserve attention—not only about her public persona but also about her international stardom and its implications for race, ethnicity, and gender. The starting point of the study is her early death. Then the author proposes to examine the singer's rise to stardom and her participation in the popular cultural arena. As part of this Bishop-Sanchez analyzes Miranda's appropriation of the stereotype of the baiana and her competition with similar artists, ranging from her early presence in vaudeville to her success at the Urca Casino. Years before her Hollywood success, Carmen Miranda and the Bando da Lua were some of the most important artists of Latin American popular music. Carmen's success abroad seems to have been based on the fact that the American entertainment industry deconstructed her in such a way that she became a transnational icon. Throughout this process, racial hegemony reaffirmed white supremacy through the way in which Miranda “legitimiz[ed] her baiana,” as the author puts it, in the context of a Brazil dominated by white voices singing black music (p. 47). Carmen Miranda in the United States represented Latino identity and became the fantasy image of the exotic surrounded by glamour and sex appeal.A similar pattern occurs in Miranda's reception from a musical standpoint. She played a fundamental role in the creation of samba as a national symbol in Brazil. And her success contributed to establishing samba as a Latino musical rhythm. But as soon as she was recognized in the Hollywood scene as the baiana and as a sort of icon of Latin Americanness, a contradictory process took place: even though she was the spectacle of ethnicity in America, in Brazil she was accused of being “Americanized” (p. 5). Maybe she tried to bridge cultural gaps, but critics kept her linked to the idea of denationalization. From this point of view, the transculturation process was connected not only to geopolitical representation but also to gender. A sexualized and exaggerated feminine image was part of her visual representation. The iconic Carmen Miranda was reflected and re-created in films, novels, and all sorts of narratives produced even after her death.This book presents a new interpretation of Carmen Miranda by taking into account the concept of camp as a theoretical tool. This theoretical standpoint cannot be understood without considering first that camp aesthetics imply a sensitivity to exaggeration and artificiality, cornerstones of Miranda's persona as displayed in her performances. Although this could be mistaken for kitsch, the author presents an analysis of Miranda's filmography that reveals Miranda as not only an object of camp aesthetics but also its producer. The author stresses the fact that the performer created camp in at least two different ways: parody and excess.Finally, Bishop-Sanchez proposes to reinterpret Carmen Miranda as a gay icon by focusing on mimetic construction, parody, and the persistence of the original baiana in her performance. It is interesting to note how this reinterpretation is related to the concept of camp. The author interrogates the Miranda phenomenon through categories such as femininity, homosexuality, Latinness, and race as a model for hegemonic culture but also as a form of countercultural production.My only criticism of the book is that some of the historical contexts for Miranda's life and career are worthy of further elaboration. However, this is not an obstacle to grasping the importance and influence of the Miranda phenomenon.This book will not disappoint those who are interested in Latin American cultural studies and provides an exciting and well-researched interpretation of Carmen Miranda from the perspective of camp. Carmen Miranda's permanence and legacy as an icon, as this work shows, can be found in a variety of texts, cultural materials, and new interpretations

Art · Art history · Context (archaeology) · Fantasy · Hollywood · Literature · Media studies · Musical · Popular culture · Popular music · Sociology · Symbol (formal) · White (mutation) · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Cuban History and Society · History · Latin American and Latino Studies