Rosa, Miranda, and Brazilian National Identity

Rosa, Miranda, and Brazilian National Identity
Daniel Huchla and AJ Haight

Both Carmen Miranda and Noel Rosa were prominent Brazilians associated with samba and the development of a Brazilian national identity in the 20^th century. While the works of both Miranda and Rosa appealed to the Brazilian lower classes, the subject matter of their work differed greatly, especially in matters relating to Brazil's role with the foreign nations, especially the United States, as well as the role of women in Brazilian society. Furthermore, both artists were highly controversial figures in their time, often opposed by the ruling, upper classes of Brazil. Despite this opposition from the top, they were undoubtedly highly influential in the creation of Brazilian nationalism.

The 1930's was a time of international strife and turmoil. Nationalism was on the rise in many countries, most prominently displayed in the highly nationalistic regimes of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, in Germany and Italy, respectively. Other countries, Brazil, under Vargas, at the time, sought to capitalize on this nationalism as well, and as a result, popular music in Brazil began to carry nationalistic overtones. Furthermore, the world was just beginning to recover from the Great Depression, and was teetering on the brink of another massive conflict in Europe. As a result, industrial Latin American countries, such as Brazil, were courted by the major powers at the time, among them the United States, which had, in what was described as the Good Neighbor Policy, reached out to the industrialized countries in an attempt to prevent them from supporting America's enemies¹ (Girard, 2013). It is in this context that Rosa and Miranda first rose to prominence in Brazil.

Noel Rosa, born in Rio de Janeiro in 1910, was a skilled and prolific musician who composed sambas that were primarily linked to Brazilian urban culture² (Béhague, 2013). He is regarded as one of the first composers to link samba to Brazilian national identity (McCann, 2001, 1). He primarily identified the “national essence” of Brazil as coming from the urban lower classes (McCann, 2), and his music reflects this belief, with much of his music glorifying the malandro, who, as described in class, is a petty criminal, who constantly seeks to take advantage of everything, and has become something of a folk hero among the urban poor of Brazil. Rosa identified the malandro as being the “guardian of popular cultural essence,” which was in stark contrast to how the malandro was usually unfavorably portrayed (McCann 6). This portrayal of the urban lower classes as being a significant part of Brazil's essence gave Rosa immense popularity amongst the lower classes, but earned him the enmity of the Vargas regime, which did not approve of the glorification of the malandro.

Carmen Miranda, born in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1909, was also associated with Samba during the regime of Vargas³ (Budds, 2013). Like Rosa, she also identified the essence of Brazilian culture as being from the lower classes. However, while Vargas sought to emphasize the malandro as being the essence of samba, Miranda drew primarily on the African roots of the samba. One such example of this would be Miranda's well known Bahian costume, which emphasized the African roots of Brazil (Roberts, 1993, 13). Miranda's choice of clothing while performing indicates how in the 1930's, Brazil began to embrace it's history as a multi-ethnic, multi-racial society (Roberts, 12). Furthermore, like Rosa, Miranda, as discussed in class, Miranda also met with opposition from the upper crust of Brazilian society. One such example of this would be the Brazilian censorship of the song “The Lady in the Tutti Frutti Hat,” from the film The Gang's All Here. The film sexualizes Miranda by portraying her “as the overseer of countless enormous, swaying phallic bananas buoyed up by lines of chorus girls who dance above other girls who have oversized strawberries between their legs,” (Roberts, 15). This was highly controversial in Brazil, because Miranda portrayed Brazil as a highly sexualized place, a stigma that remains to this day, while Brazilians themselves claim that their emphasis of the human body is more aesthetic than sexual⁴ (Athens-Banner Herald, 2007).

While Miranda and Rosa were somewhat similar in regards to the origins of Brazilian identity, they differed in many other regards. Both held starkly contrasting roles regarding Brazil's role with foreign powers. Miranda remains, to this day, most notorious as Hollywood's “Brazilian Bombshell⁵” (Budds). She acted in American movies, and worked as a cultural ambassador from Latin America to the United States, emphasizing, perhaps inadvertently, the necessity of cooperation between Latin American countries and the United States of America. However, this cooperation often came in the form of Latin American countries having primarily export based economies, exporting goods to the United States, as demonstrated in the film The Gang's All Here, which opens as the “SS Brazil unloads the major exports of Latin America-sugar, coffee, fruit, and finally Miranda herself,” (Roberts, 5). Rosa, however, fought against this exploitation of Brazil. This is best demonstrated in his songs “Nao Tem Traducao” and “Quem Da Mais.” Both of these songs, as discussed in class, portray Brazilians as selling off their national identities to foreigners. Thus, Rosa held a more fiercely Brazilian nationalistic outlook, fighting against foreign involvement in Brazil, while Miranda worked to welcome foreign involvement.

Another point of contention between the two would be the roles of women in Brazilian society. Noel Rosa, for example, often portrayed women, called in his works, mulattas, as a threat to samba, as they cause the malandro to settle down, and provide for his family, rather than writing and performing samba. To Rosa, the ideal woman is what Brazilians call the Amelia, a housewife, who wholly supports her husband, an issue that, as discussed in class, remains a problem in Brazil to this day, often leading to cases of domestic violence. In Rosa's mind, women should not seek work, because “by working in a factory the woman leaves his [her husband's] sphere of influence and succumbs to the authority of another man,” (McCann, 8). Miranda, however, is the exact opposite of Rosa's view of an ideal woman. She was a wealthy, famous, and relatively powerful woman who was able to compose samba as well. This goes against Rosa's view that a woman should remain at home, tied to her husband, and that only men could be composers of samba.

The 1930's was a time in which many countries throughout the world were attempting to define their national identity. In Brazil, this national identity was defined primarily through samba, through the works of artists like Carmen Miranda and Noel Rosa. These two were able to link Brazilian culture to the urban lower classes and explore the multiracial composition of the Brazilian populace. However, they differed in thought regarding both the role of gender in Brazilian society, and the role of foreigners in Brazil. Up until very recently, Brazil took Noel Rosa's approach in regards to gender roles, with most of the country believing that the role of women was to be housewives. On the other hand, Carmen Miranda was successful in promoting her views on foreign roles in Brazil, as she was able to spread aspects of Brazilian culture to the United States.

Works Cited

"At Brazil's Carnival, Naked Bodies Aren't Always Sexual." Online Athens. Athens Banner-Herald, 18

Feb. 2007. Web. 27 Feb. 2013.

Béhague, Gerard. "Rosa, Noel." Oxford Music Online. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Feb. 2013.

Budds, Michael J. "Miranda, Carmen." Oxford Music Online. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Feb. 2013.

McCann, Bryan. "Noel Rosa's Nationalist Logic." Luso-Brazilian Review 38.1 (2001): 1-16. Web.

Girad, Jolyon. "Good Neighbor Policy." In Encyclopedia of U.S.-Latin American Relations, edited by Thomas M. Leonard, vol. 2. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2012 http://library.cqpress.com/uslar/euslarv1_394.1

Roberts, Shari. "The Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat: Carmen Miranda, a Spectacle of Ethnicity." Cinema

Journal 32.3 (1993): 3-23. Web.

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3http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/47014?q=carmen+miranda&search=quick&pos=1&_start=1#firsthit

4http://onlineathens.com/stories/021807/news_20070218038.shtml

5http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/47014?q=carmen+miranda&search=quick&pos=1&_start=1#firsthit