Patrick Campbell James
Clark
Gender Roles and the
Construction of Brazilian Nationalism
Introduction
Today,
it is hard to identify a “pure” cultural identity as an industrialized mass
culture that relies on globalization, this identity tends to be fragmented from
various influences. Yet no one can dissociate the image of samba from Brazil.
In fact, samba and bossa nova are immediately associated with symbols of Brazil
and their cultural identity. It follows then, that no matter how much the world
has changed through massively overlapping cultural borders, that this music has
a purpose as a trace and a view into nationalism in Brazil. At its core, music
provides an unusual lens into cultural identity. Its ethnologic elements
provide a context for lived experiences and relationships, while reflecting the
dynamics of political and economic issues at the time. Noel Rosa, Carmen
Miranda, and Mario Andrade are very notable names in the contribution to the
realm of Samba and the nationalistic image of Brazil. Noel Rosa is considered
to be the father of samba and used it to show the Brazilian voice and way of
life. Carmen Miranda helped bring this image to the United States so that the
Brazilian image could be presented on a stage for the world to see. While Noel
and Carmen both played significant roles in Brazilian identity and meshing it
with that of Samba, Mario Andrade largely influence these writers to create
music that was truly Brazilian so that they could share it with the western
world. While both Rosa and Miranda sought to define a Brazilian identity
through their music, their views regarding gender roles and audience were
somewhat conflicting.
Gender Roles or Musical Impacts in Defining Brazilianness
Noel Rosa dedicated his time to seeking out the national essence
with which he would define Brazilianness. Rosa found this in samba, its
musicians, and the poor areas of the lower middle class Rio de Janeiro. Noel
Rosa was a particularly complicated individual in terms of gender equity. Rose
thoroughly believed that women were purely distractions from that of the male
dominated musical world. it would appear as though, Noel Rosa’s greatest quality is that
he has no interest in women: "When he writes
a samba / it is an innovation...the brown
women of that place / live in lamentation /
knowing that he does not want / to fall in love...
with a woman." (McCann, 2001: 9), this blatant, closed minded
perspective completely shuns the idea that women are capable of anything other
than fulfilling the role of a housewife, the Virgin Mary, or, as we know her,
Amelia. Rosa’s view is so radical that it actually sets back a large amount of
progress made by Chiquinha Gonzaga, whom of which we might be able to say give
precedence to the achievements of Carmen Miranda.
Carmen
Miranda was a major recording star in her adopted homeland of Brazil long
before most Americans had ever heard of her. Miranda, born in Portugal, clawed
her way out of childhood poverty and not only was able to break into a heavily
male dominated music business, but then embodied a Hollywood celebrity in the
US on her way to become the highest paid women in the US in 1944 (Solberg,
1995). Miranda created a whole new image of women at the time and shattered the
gender roles that Rosa had made known. “The Brazilian women who opened the
twentieth century were delicate, susceptible, squeamish, always well dressed,
and always feeling from men” (Gilman, 1998[1]). Miranda, on the other
hand, embodied a seductive image for Brazilian women who meet men joyously
while showing off her legs and cleavage.
We see a vision of Carmen Miranda’s life in
Helena Solberg’s “Bananas is my Business”, and within the film we observe the
challenging of said gender roles in Samba. Solberg makes an argument about the
gender roles in Brazil at the time of Carmen Miranda in many ways. In the
biopic type of film, we also see a bias from the director, not that this bias
makes her views incorrect or even skewed, this simply means that her depiction
of Carmen Miranda cannot be absolutely certain of who she was or how she
exactly lived. Solberg wanted to bring to fruition an idea that Carmen Miranda,
though an angel to the American populace and the greatest “raw material”
resource that Brazil had during her time, crossed many different concepts
seeing as though she was the Virgin Mary, the Amelia but Carmen was also the Malandro
and quite masculine. The explosion of Carmen Miranda’s popularity provided the
American civilisation
She broke through the boundaries of what a woman
was expected to do, as she was a samba icon, she “talked like a man”, and was
not the typical housewife type. We observed in the film, “Bananas is my
Business” that when Carmen was a child, she was depicted as the Virgin Mary,
which is a common connection that Brazilians make with Amelia, or our housewife
that does exactly what she is told and is always there to support the man,
never to distract him. This depiction creates the conflict between who Carmen Miranda
is in terms of how she is depicted, and how society should depict her.
Chiquinha had tried to break into the music business earlier and faced numerous
critics and hardships due to the fact that she was a female. Her family
disowned her and she was considered a monster by others (Neder, 1988[2]). Gonzaga was recognized
later on, but was not appreciated in her own time.
Cultural Identity of a Brazilian Class
In Brazil, Miranda was never considered to be
part of the elite. She may have been a popular singer, who was backed by
Gertulio Vargas at the time, but she interacted and drew attention from the
lower Brazilian classes. The rich class did not care for her Brazilian images
that concerned Africannness, as they felt she was encompassing those, “who did not
matter”. Carmen was an idol to those people who the world saw as “real”
Brazilians, the samba singers, the bahianos, and the black people of the
northeast, all which demonstrate true Brazilian culture. She was then able to
translate the black samba for a white audience. This is why Americans loved her
while, the elite and wealthy of Brazil felt betrayed by her. This indicates a
clash of cultures not between North and South America, but instead between
classes in Brazil. However, Miranda’s image changed slightly when she moved.
When Miranda went to the US, she became an oversexed, thickly-accented, living
cartoon caricature. She became typecast for roles as such. With that said, she
tried to resist the Americanization by speaking some Portuguese in her films
and making fun of the way she spoke English. Although, successful in America
(and earlier in Brazil), Miranda was scrutinized for becoming an “American” as
depicted in her song, “They said that I came back Americanized”. The culture of
Brazil is bathed in the idea, the image, that Carmen Miranda represents.
Carmen’s tutti frutti hat, the way she performs Samba, and especially her
demeanor in public, creates an interpretive function of Brazilian nationality
which is quite reminiscent to the themes that Mario Andrade has been trying to
portray ever since the Week of Modern Art in February of 1922 (Suarez and
Tomlins).
Mario shows very similar characteristics to that
of Carmen Miranda in the idea that the Brazilian culture expands beyond
brackets, beyond classes, beyond the elite or the poor, the Africans, the
Natives, and all other discrepancies that get in the way of the people of
Brazil that unify under one nationality which is Brazilian. The media that
Mario and Carmen share is writing and their works can be shared among the poor
and the elite. Mario has public exhibitions of his poetry and inspires
musicians to play and represent their culture in a public fashion, just as
Carmen Miranda represents Brazilian culture that is easily heard by any and all
who will accept her. Some might think that, in order to be exposed to Brazilian
culture, one must pay nothing but this is not the case. To experience Brazilian
culture, one must allocate the cost of what it truly means to be put out of a
comfort zone and understand life between brackets, which is a price the entire
country seems to be willing to pay. The cost of being Brazilian is a large
dedication to the ideals of the local arena. In between brackets lies a culture
so dependent on itself, that people would rather be oppressed by their
government, starve, live in poverty, and die instead of sacrificing. Their
faith in God, honor, and community is so strong that their faith in the system
is truly diminished, something that American and European systems hold entirely
absent.
Conclusion
Brazil has seen a combination of many cultures throughout the
years. Yet, it has always sought an image that was uniquely Brazilian. Miranda,
Gonzaga, Andrade, and Rosa have all contributed to that image immensely. The
influence of these Brazilians is so intense, that even today’s directors like
Helena Solberg have dedicated much of their lives to constructing their vision.
The music created by some of these individuals colored the narrative of
Brazilians and their lives both at the individual and collective levels. It’s
almost as if one can see the progression of Brazil occurring right in front of
their eyes through their musical style and lyrical depiction. Music is a
universal language, and is the driving force for these prominent Brazilians.
However conflicting the views of their masters may have been, this has allowed
gender roles to be redefined, class structures to be analyzed, and Brazil has
placed its new image on the world’s stage for all to see.
Work Cited Page
Carmen
Miranda: Bananas Is My Business. Dir. Helena Solberg. Perf.
Helena Solberg, Eric Barreto, Cynthia Adler. (1995). Film.
Gilman, Bruce. “Viva Carmen!”.
(1998). Web.
McCann, Bryan. "Noel
Rosa's Nationalist Logic." The University of Wisconsin Press Journals
Division 38.1 (2001): 1-16. Print.
Neder, Alexander. “Chiquinha
Gonzaga: Artist Biography”. (1988). Web.
Suarez, Jose, and Jack Tomlins.
Mario de Andrade: The Creative Works. London: Associated University
Presses, INC, 2000. Print.
