BRAZILIAN STARDOM
From Radio to Casino and the Creation of the Baiana
When Carmen Miranda takes Broadway by storm in Lee Shubert’s 1939 musical The Streets of Paris, her performance that lasts a mere six minutes is the first major appearance of the baiana on a live North American stage. Carmen Miranda’s unique star persona of the Hollywood years, with the extravagant, over-the-top creations, daring in color, texture, and design and superbly enhanced by flashy Technicolor, is far removed from the initial baiana Miranda brought to Broadway and has long eclipsed the more humble origins of the “Lady in the Tutti Frutti Hat.”
Before her frequently rhapsodized “discovery” by Lee Shubert in Rio’s Urca Casino in February 1939, Miranda was a most successful recording artist, a popular celebrity, and a well-liked radio and stage performer throughout Brazil and neighboring Argentina. Miranda has been immortalized by the iconic image of her towering, imaginative turbans, clunky and sparkly jewelry, platform shoes, and daring, bare-midriff, luxurious gowns, but her departure to Broadway was certainly not the beginning of her career. Given the exuberant, camp, stylized Carmen Miranda of the Hollywood films and the greater preservation of images and footage from this period, critics have mostly overlooked Miranda’s Brazilian years. In particular, it has become commonplace to trace without contextualization the origins of the “international baiana” (as she became known) to the star’s last Brazilian film, Banana da terra (Banana of the land), a 1938 Sonofilms production in which she is featured performing what became her signature song, “O que é que a baiana tem?” (What does the baiana have?) It is also this song and most likely a similar performance that Lee Shubert witnessed on the stage of the Urca Casino, located at the foot of Rio’s scenic Sugarloaf Mountain.
In this chapter, I reassess Miranda’s Brazilian years of stardom by examining the stylized Miranda baiana in its original Carioca context vis-à-vis the cultural, political, class, and gender politics of the time and the artistic license that enabled its creation. To illustrate how Miranda interprets Brazilianness through the baiana, it is important to consider how Miranda’s baiana dialogues with Rio’s cultural imaginary of the time, the Carnival baianas, Praça Onze (a square at the center of Rio that since the late nineteenth century was known as the “Little Africa” of Rio and the metaphorical cradle of samba), characters such as the famous and influential Tia Ciata, and the traditional samba schools. Although Banana da terra is a lost film, the scene in which Miranda performs as a baiana has been preserved thanks to its inclusion in Helena Solberg’s documentary, Bananas Is My Business (1995), and constitutes without doubt the closest existing footage of the Miranda-baiana before Broadway, thus providing an invaluable visual approximation of her staged Brazilian performance of the baiana.1
Carmen Miranda as a baiana in her last Brazilian film, Banana da terra (1939). Courtesy of FUNARTE/Rio de Janeiro
The Origins of the Baiana
Generally speaking the baiana refers to Afro-Brazilian women from the Northeastern state of Bahia, hence the name. The term originally corresponded to a large contingent of West African women brought to Bahia during the slave trade and their descendants. The Bahian women and their customs, dress, and roles in Brazilian religious societies such as candomblé have been broadly documented and analyzed, mostly by anthropologists, in works such as Donald Pierson’s Negroes in Brazil (1942), Ruth Landes’s The City of Women (1947), and Joaquim Ribeiro’s Folclore baiano (1956), among others. The baiana women’s visual aspect is the most influential for the creation of the image Miranda used for her performances, as discussed in detail below. The baiana costume is unique in that Brazil does not have a great variety of traditional costumes. The baiana dress is well defined and original, and as such it is one of the most interesting costumes not only of Brazil but also of Latin America in general (Ribeiro 13). Symbolic of the baiana’s importance as synecdoche for Brazilian culture, fourteen baiana dolls approximately two feet tall were sent to Portugal for the Exposição Histórica do Mundo Português (Exhibition of the Portuguese World) in 1940, although the dolls were removed from the Brazilian pavilion because some of the organizers judged it would be “too depressing to present Brazil as a country of blacks and macumbas” (Corrêa 178–79).2 It is a purely urban costume, worn predominantly by black women in Salvador, Bahia, in the south in Rio de Janeiro, and in the north in São Luís and originating from the allegedly “more culturally developed” groups in coastal West Africa, such as the Yoruba and Fon, who were mostly found in cities, rather than from central West African people, such as the Kongo and Mbundu.3
There are certain key elements that define the typical baiana dress code. Pierson provides a detailed description of the Bahian women, whom he refers to as wearing the vestimenta baiana, or typical dress, which includes a wide, hooped skirt of varied colors; a loose-fitting white cotton or silk blouse trimmed with wide lace; a heavy, striped cotton cloth worn over the shoulder or around the waist (pano da costa); a cotton or silk turban; strapless, low-heeled sandals; and numerous necklaces and bracelets of coral, cowries, or glass beads (246–47).4 According to Pierson, an additional ornament, the balangandan, has disappeared from the casual baiana ensemble and is mostly worn, tied at the waist, on festive occasions; the unusual term ultimately remained fixed in Carioca vocabulary as “balangandãs.”5 The item consists of a gold or silver frame on which mystical, mnemonic, whimsical, or religious objects can be hung, and it crossed all class divides, as these objects were used by the upper classes as lucky charms and were more easily accepted in high-class society because of their ornamental quality (Ribeiro 28).6
If nowadays the typical baiana dress is mostly reserved for candomblé religious ceremonies, Carnival parades, and street vendors or worn near tourist attractions for gratuities, during the late 1930s and early 1940s, the use of authentic clothing was waning but still visible enough to carry the tradition of the baiana costume. The baianas are frequently mentioned as standing out during festivities because of their spectacular costumes, coming down from Rio’s hilltop neighborhoods to celebrate Carnival, singing, dancing, and dominating the religious festivals.7 Events such as the popular festivals of Bonfim in Salvador, Bahia, were largely taken over by the lower classes, and on these occasions the baianas are very visible in their traditional garb (Pierson 366). At religious ceremonies, such as the macumbas or candomblés, the baianas dress elaborately to carry out their official roles as filhas de santo or, in some cases, mães de terreiro.8 It is in the privacy of these religious ceremonies that the baiana regalia are at their most extravagant, often overorna-mented with amulets and jewelry.
The baiana has come to symbolize more generally the female Afro-Brazilian food and fruit vendors throughout Brazil. As is still the case today, in the 1930s the baiana vendors were not confined to Bahia and its capital city Salvador or to festive occasions but constituted a strong presence on the streets of Rio and other urban centers. From the last quarter of the nineteenth century, a constant flow of Bahians came to the capital, resulting in a significant lasting presence in Rio as a result of multiple factors, most obviously economic and social changes following abolition but also the hospitable tendency of Rio’s already established Bahian population, who assisted newcomers with basic needs such as food and shelter and facilitated their integration into the new city (Moura 86). Although the Bahians were only a small proportion of Rio de Janeiro’s total population, the baianas were very visible due to their presence in public spaces and the fact that their traditional dresses were used as a costume during Carnival (Carvalho 140–41).9 Publicity for carnivalesque films, theater revues, and casino shows invariably pictured a baiana, reinforcing the figure as a typical seasonal costume for a national public and a synecdoche for Brazilian folklore for the benefit of foreign tourists. The Portuguese poet João de Barros (1881–1960) corroborates this visibility of the baianas in his impressions of a very colorful and animated Praça Onze during Carnival, commenting on the baianas in their picturesque dresses alongside women in traditional costumes from the Minho region of his native Portugal and Indians donning feathers (qtd. in Carvalho 150). As João de Barros’s account suggests, Praça Onze brought together a mixture of traditions and ethnicities—black, Indian, and white European cultures—symbolized by their diverse dress. The group of black Bahians that inhabited this heterotopic space became the city’s social leaders among the mixture of other ethnic groups,10 such as the Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian immigrants and Brazilians from the Northeast, imposing along with their leadership their customs and traditions.11 This interaction of cultures at the heart of the city represented Carnival’s plurality, at the core of which was the figure of the baiana.
The most emblematic baianas were the Tias (“aunts” or “festive aunties”). During the first two decades of the twentieth century, these matriarchal figures were at the center of the Carioca Afro-Brazilian cultural activities, and they ensured strong black leadership in maintaining traditional festivities in honor of candomblé saints and then in promoting informal gatherings to play music and dance that required special permission from the local authorities. Indelibly linked to Carnival, the earliest rancho groups of organized revelers would make an obligatory stop at the Tias’ homes and receive their blessing before continuing on to participate in the parade (Diniz 21). Without doubt the most influential, prestigious, and well-known baiana is Tia Ciata. Because she was hardworking and energetic and had a great spirit of initiative and an enviable knowledge of religious and culinary matters, Tia Ciata became part of the early twentieth-century Carioca tradition of the baianas quituteiras, who sold quitutes (specialties) and whose activity, grounded in religious meaning, was well received throughout the city.12 Part of the baiana appeal was its marked exoticism, which immediately distinguished these women on the city streets. Tia Ciata was never seen in public without her full baiana outfit and is remembered as one of the most emblematic, sought-after, and well-respected baianas. Her home on the street Visconde de Itaúna near Praça Onze was the capital of Rio’s “Little Africa” and brought together the Afro-Brazilian artists, stevedores, public workers, police, mulatos, and whites of the lower middle class, all intrigued by this vibrant locale of samba, batuque groups, festivities, and Carnival (Moura 103; 106). Over time, and even after its demolition for the construction of the multilane President Vargas Avenue in the 1940s, Praça Onze grew in mythic and symbolic status. Praça Onze was the heart of the area known in Rio as Cidade Nova, or New City: its role in the etiology of modern Brazilian identity and its importance for the development of Rio’s music, through samba evenings held in the houses of the Bahian matriarchs, cannot be underestimated (Carvalho 137). Tia Ciata’s house was the most famous and is historically remembered as the birthplace of the first samba, “Pelo telefone” (On the telephone), allegedly composed there in 1916 and recorded the following year.
Along with her central role as a quituteira, Tia Ciata started a small business providing typical baiana costumes made by black seamstresses, which were in style for the theater and especially popular for the Carnival groups of the Democráticos, Tenentes, and Fenianos of the lower middle class (Moura 100).13 One of the most interesting aspects of Tia Ciata’s clothing business is that many of her clients were men seeking the baiana dress to don during Carnival festivities.14
Gay men only began to have an organized presence in Carnival in the early 1930s. In 1930, a drag performer named António Setta formed the Carnival group Caçadores de Veados (literally meaning “deer hunters”), a wonderful play on words with the term viado (homosexual). They paraded through the streets of Rio in luxurious sequined gowns, adding a camp element to their apparel, which was very different from previous heterosexual cross-dressers in Carnival, who would dress up in everyday female attire or as pregnant women or prostitutes in a parody of womanhood. Following Carmen Miranda’s appearance as a baiana in her last Brazilian feature film, Banana da terra (1938), the gay presence at Carnival took a more definite form in 1939, as revelers cross-dressed as the baiana, taking carnivalesque transgressions to a whole new level through their subversive gender-play.15 James Green rightly refers to this form of playful parodic cross-dressing as the epitome of Brazilian camp performance during Carnival, given the exaggerated artificiality of the baiana imitations (204). Endowed with camp sensitivity, baianas embrace the true spirit of the Bakhtinian carnivalesque, which converges with camp through a shared inversion of hierarchy, sexual mockery, deviance, and power reversal.16 Over time, men in drag would have their own costume contests as part of the Carnival festivities. “What had started in the early 1930s as a homosexual penetration of a clearly heterosexual space became, fifteen years later, part and parcel of carnivalesque celebrations” (J. Green 211).
Alongside these baianas, there was also a vogue that became known (and criticized) as the “false baiana.” In Rio’s Carnival festivities the prevalence of falsa baiana balls were broadly documented, especially during the decade of the 1950s, when some of the balls became very elaborate events.17 “Falsa baiana” (False baiana) is the title of a song by the Carioca sambista and composer Geraldo Pereira (1918–1955) released in 1944, when Miranda as the official Brazilian baiana was at the height of her US stardom. The song lyrics, as the title indicates, point a finger at the fake baiana, who dresses up in costume only for Carnival, and mock the claim that all differences can be overcome through this communal reveling. By donning a stylized version of the original baiana costume, Miranda was from all regards the most widely known “false baiana,” yet she certainly could dance the samba beautifully and did not fit the song’s description.18 For the first few years after Miranda’s departure to the United States, her stylized baiana remained a constant reference of Carnival celebrations and would continue as such in subsequent decades, although not always as prominently.19 The exception to this trend was the samba school Império Serrano in 1972, which based their annual theme on Carmen Miranda’s art and legacy and were that year’s winners under the title “Alô, alô, taí: Carmen Miranda” and with the slogan “A nostalgic Carnival for the remarkable girl.”20 The same samba school presented another homage to Carmen Miranda in 2008 that enabled them to improve their ranking and compete the following year in the top bracket of samba schools in Rio de Janeiro, “Grupo Especial” (Special Group).
Before the creation of the samba schools, the baianas were already present in the long-standing tradition of the folkloric kings’ parades (ranchos dos reis), which consisted of a procession commemorating and recreating the three wise men’s journey to Bethlehem. Behind the first group of orchestra participants was a group of women referred to as “gypsies” or baianas accompanied by male participants carrying allegorical figures; as such, the ala das baianas (the baiana wing) was an early staple of all Carnival groups.21 The inclusion of the baiana wing in these parades indicates that, from early on, the baiana was officially endorsed with a performative quality that reinforced its festive nature. This designation of the baiana as a cultural form, transformed through a broad creative license as a stylized carnivalesque figure, removes it from the realities of the native baiana, a cultural practice similar to others that have constructed the image of a “frozen Africa, safely distanced from the contemporary realities of blacks in Brazil” (Crook and Johnson 7).
In the 1930s, the samba schools and annual parades were prominently located in Rio, further consolidating this image of the baiana with the then capital of the country. The presence of the baiana wing may have originated with the processions, but it became mandatory in the early 1930s with the measures put in place to “officialize” Carnival when federal and local government agencies began sponsoring the samba schools as part of a larger plan to attract more tourism to Rio and its Carnival (Hertzman 195–96). The Carnival regulations stipulated the prohibition of wind instruments and the inclusion of an ala das baianas, and they required each school to base its performance on a national theme.
The baiana’s presence is ubiquitous throughout Rio, and in particular in the Carnival festivities; it was the transformation of the popular baiana dress into a carnivalesque costume that enabled the baiana outfit to become so popular. Given the current status of the baiana as a widespread figure of Brazilian culture both at home and abroad, it is indeed surprising that this costume, which stemmed from a tradition closely associated with Brazil’s often marginalized black population, overcame its original stigma through its co-option as a costume for performance. This required a new understanding of the meaning of the baiana sign (in the Saussurean sense), from baiana-outfit to baiana-costume, something that did not happen without resistance, especially in Rio de Janeiro, where for the longest time the baiana costume was prohibited in upper-class dances (Ribeiro 25). For some, the disguises of a baiana (just as those of a sailor, for example) were banned from the dances of the Municipal Theater in particular because they were considered excessively vulgar.22 As such, the baianas needed to be “dressed up” for the stage, and as a consequence the stylized baiana developed a long history in theatrical traditions. In a 1941 interview, by then far removed from Rio and the Carioca carnivalesque tensions, Carmen Miranda reflected on the stigma of the baiana costume and commented on the initial resistance she encountered to her wearing the baiana on stage. Phonetically transcribing Miranda’s words, Motion Picture magazine of September 1941 relates: “You can’t put theez Baiana dress, they say, because theez dress only Negroes put. Bah! I put, but in gold an’ silk an’ velvet, an’ I seen in Rio. One week before Shubert see me in Casino, I put this Baiana dress” (76). While the chronology of wearing the baiana costume for the first time only a week before Shubert arrived at the Urca Casino is highly questionable, this quote transmits the disapproval the baiana costume continued to provoke in the Brazilian popular imaginary and the necessity to “dress up” the baiana, here in gold, silk, and velvet, to make it acceptable for the stage, a concept that will be taken to creative extremes as Miranda’s baiana heads north.
The Widespread Stylized Baiana in Rio of the 1930s
If Carmen Miranda’s performance of the baiana had been the original stylized appropriation of this popular figure, we could conclude that she draws from two different types of common vendors: the baiana food-vendors, who sold savory dishes and pastries and often transported their wares on trays balanced on their heads, impeccably dressed with necklaces of coral and beads and large gold and silver earrings; and the poorer baiana-vendors, who sold mostly fruit. Their dress was simple, and they carried the fruit in large baskets on top of their heads, using a turban to cushion the weight.23 This has been the consensus among critics who have seen Miranda’s adoption of the baiana as the first of its kind. However, such an assessment ignores the deep-rooted Carioca tradition of the stylized baiana and simplistically bypasses several generations of baiana stage and street performances before Miranda’s casino days. While naturally Miranda’s baiana bears resemblance with that of the street vendors, the circulation of its stylized counterpart already held broad currency among the Carioca cultural imaginary, and Miranda’s costume was part of the then-current vogue in Rio to dress up as the baiana. Curiously, the widespread acceptance of this stylized traditional costume is also present beyond the stage: a case in point is the “cloth witches,” stylized doll versions of the baiana which children frequently owned and that were also popular among the upper classes, where they were no longer used as toys but as decorations made out of luxurious fabrics (Ribeiro 24).24
The distinction between the authentic baiana outfit and the stylized costume is beautifully portrayed in a series of thirty-five watercolors and sketches by the renowned contemporary artist, writer, and educator known principally as a poet of Brazilian Modernism: Cecília Meireles (1901–1964). Her paintings, which are almost ethnographic in nature, and the accompanying text make a clear distinction between the authentic or legitimate food-bearing baiana or quituteira and the mediated, whimsical baiana of Carnival. While the quituteira wears a skirt of discrete colors such as gray, purple, or dark blue, the Carnival baiana dons bright colors (Meireles 22; 36). The authentic baiana limits her accessories to a few necklaces of glass beads, colorful seeds, or pieces of wood worn wrapped around her neck several times, a few silver bracelets, and the indispensable amulet, used more as a means of protection fitting with the baiana’s mystical beliefs than as a form of embellishment. The Carnival baiana takes this element to new heights, with yards and yards of glass beads of different sizes and colors—imitating all the pomp and splendor of precious stones—piled string-upon-string around her neck, arms, and shoulders.
An essential part of Carmen Miranda’s outfit is invariably a turban, headpiece, or hat that writers such as Gil-Montero have related back to the trays and baskets the baiana women carry on their heads. Whereas the authentic baiana wears a white functional scarf tied behind her neck to support the straw basket or tray used to carry her goods from the market, the Carnival baiana wears a tightly fitted scarf attached to a miniature lace-covered tray or straw basket that is filled with decorative paper flowers or artificial fruits, serving as a token reminder of a functional basket. This replica of the balaio, or round straw basket, is exactly what Carmen Miranda incorporated into her early baiana costumes with the sole purpose of likewise emulating those worn by the authentic baiana. The overall impression is a diadem-style headpiece that adds a touch of whimsy and playfulness to the baiana’s look while reinforcing the reality that this Carnival baiana is not the authentic street-vendor baiana, just a mimicking nod in her direction as she continues dancing off down the opposite path.
During the time period when the samba groups (the ranchos) were transforming into specific samba schools, the pervasiveness of the baiana was all the more significant and worn by both men and women. When the Carnival dance lines (cordões) left Praça Onze, they would congregate along the Mangue Canal until the early morning hours. There they would form samba and batuque circles, sing, and dance, with both “men and women dressed in the same clothing of the baiana” (Meireles 48). Children also dressed as miniature baianos (baianinhos); even the very young ones who could barely walk were dressed in the same manner, their costumes complete with a colorful turban and large numbers of glass-bead necklaces (Meireles 62). Meireles’s artwork is a testament to the intricacies of the Carioca baiana, which should not be collapsed into a single, homogeneous prototype for Miranda’s stage appropriation, and constitutes an important historical document for understanding the characteristics of the different baianas in Rio’s cultural imaginary at the time. It is this stylized, carnivalesque version of the baiana that Carmen Miranda would seek to emulate for an audience already well acquainted with this mediated figure.
The Baianas of the Stage
Carmen Miranda was by no means the first to perform the baiana on the Carioca stage: she was preceded most immediately by Araci Cortes (1904–1985), the beloved queen of the variety theater (teatro de revista), and Elsie Houston (1902–1943), a contemporary singer. Discussing celebrity status in contemporary culture, P. David Marshall indicates that “oppositions, distinctions, and differentiations among various celebrities reveal their functions within the culture” (58). In relation to Miranda, there has been very little discussion of her contemporary stars or those who preceded her through such points of comparison, an approach that is essential to understanding Miranda as part of a systemic conception of celebrities and not, as has been done to date, as an isolated performer of the baiana in Rio. The baiana performances were common on Rio’s stages, and this ubiquitous baiana-vogue tradition can be perceived as a Carioca “invented tradition” (Hobsbawm).
There are several different opinions as to who was the very first baiana on Rio’s stages. Orlando de Barros and José Tinhorão both concur that it is likely that Aurélia Delorme, a Brazilian actress and chorus girl, first took the baiana costume to the stage of the Teatro Variedades Dramáticas (a theater for variety shows) in 1889 as part of the revue O bendegó by Oscar Pederneiras and Figueiredo Coimbra.25 A few months later, the Greek-born Ana Monarezzi appeared as the baiana in the revue A república by the brothers Artur and Aluísio Azevedo, which premièred in the same theater on March 26, 1890, drawing her inspiration from Delorme’s version of the baiana and enhanced by the Azevedo brothers’ ditties. The Spanish-born actress Pepa Ruiz was also among the earliest stars of the revue theater to be associated with the stylized baiana, most probably in the Portuguese revue Tim-tim por tim-tim, which was staged in Rio in 1892, and also performed as one of the first international baianas, in Lisbon in 1906.26 From this point on, the baiana was a stock character of the revue theater, traditionally portrayed as a strong character—a naughty, malicious, seductive exhibitionist and queen of doubles ententes—often at the center of the plot. As stylized and stylish baianas, they were an impressive feature of the shows, wearing ornate costumes covered in lace trim, necklaces wrapped several times around their necks, often real jewelry (as the above-mentioned Araci Cortes preferred), classical sandals, and turbans (Barros 28).
There were only exceptional appearances of Afro-Brazilians on the stage, and the theatrical casting of the baiana is a case in point: those who controlled the Carioca theaters avoided including black actors in prominent roles, and at the turn of the century the baiana was typically performed by an actress of white European descent. However, this would change during the 1920s, especially when Araci Cortes began to consistently perform the baiana on the stage. In fact, the popularization of the baiana as a stage persona of the revue theater is attributed to the work of Cortes, a Brazilian singer best remembered today for being the first artist to record Ari Barroso’s patriotic hymn “Aquarela do Brasil” in 1939. She was a mulato singer, dancer, and actress of considerable presence, who exerted great influence on other female singers and performers of her time. Cortes became the most famous baiana of the popular revue, beginning her career in 1921, the very same year that the aforementioned Aurélia Delorme, who had initiated this theatrical tradition, passed away. A few years later, Cortes dressed as a baiana to interpret composer Sinhô’s song “Yaya” in the musical revue Miss Brasil (1928). After its success, she played the baiana character on many other occasions and became synonymous with the performance. Cortes’s appearance in different venues wearing full baiana dress bears great resemblance with the stylized models Miranda used later, and Cortes continued to perform as a baiana throughout her career.
Araci Cortes dressed to perform as a baiana (undated). Courtesy of FUNARTE/Rio de Janeiro
Alongside Araci Cortes there were other popular performers who impersonated the baiana to perfection, such as Margarida Max and Lia Binatti, daughters of European immigrants living in São Paulo and Santa Catarina, respectively, who frequently appeared photographed as baianas in the magazine Para todos (Barros 31). In the all-black revue company Companhia Negra de Revistas, Rosa Negra, Djanira Flora, and Dalva Spíndola (Araci Cortes’s sister) sometimes appeared as baianas, most famously Spíndola, who starred as a “comical baiana” in one of the troupe’s first plays, Tudo preto (All black) (Barros 88). For Tiago de Melo Gomes, the stage directions of the play reinforce the baiana as an eroticized Afro-Brazilian woman, thus feeding into commonly perceived stereotypes that stemmed from the conflation of the baiana and the sensual mulata in the early 1920s, while other parts of the play, fitting with the troupe’s militant mission, clearly call for a renegotiation of racial representation beyond these same stereotypes and a valorization of black culture (314–17).27 Deo Costa, better known by the moniker “Jambo Venus” (Vênus de Jambo) from the character she played,28 also appeared as a baiana in the short-lived troupe Ba-Ta-Clan Preta, created by De Chocolat in September 1926 after he left the Companhia Negra de Revistas. The print media of this period illustrates that by the mid-1920s the stylized baiana was an established and obligatory figure of the musical revues, played by white and mulato actresses. For example, at the same time that Carmen Miranda was débuting at the Urca Casino in the late 1930s, the Casino Atlântico was staging a musical show that also included, as depicted in the publicity shots, the performance of two baianas in traditional costume.29 What the majority of these stage baianas have in common, and as far as available sources confirm, is the impersonation of the baiana by white or mulato performers who invariantly sing about the baiana way of life and Bahia. A frequent claim in the publicity for these competing shows is that their baiana is “the most authentic,” an interesting concept given the stylization of this theatrical figure. Only a few of these baiana-performing women have remained famous to this day, and only in Brazil, but what is more important for our discussion is this concept of the baiana as a symbol on the popular stage, which prepares the way for Miranda and creates the backdrop for her epic baiana appropriation.
On the big screen, the baiana makes her Hollywood appearance in the film Flying Down to Rio (1933). Released by RKO and distributed abroad in 1934, it is best known as the first film to project the dancing duo extraordinaire Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, performing their routine on the steps of the Copacabana Palace Hotel. In the long dance number “The Carioca,” Etta Motten appears in full baiana costume on the stage of a deluxe Brazilian nightclub. It is significant that the director chose an African-American actress to play the baiana character who performs this maxixe-based number, which became quite a fad in the United States after the film’s release (Seigel 93). It is also interesting to note that her role is listed in the credits as “colored girl,” thus set out of context and disassociated from the song she performs so fabulously and at length. This scene, enhanced by improvements in film stock and lighting, stands out as one of the most dazzling musical numbers in the film, complete with exquisite costumes set against an Art Deco backdrop, rich in texture in the improved black-and-white film (T. Sennett 87). On the national screen, Miranda’s filmed baiana in Banana da terra also had a made-in-Brazil predecessor: in Alô, alô, carnaval! (1935), Heloísa Helena sings a beautiful samba, “Tempo bom” (Good times), that she allegedly composed with João de Barro (also known as Braguinha), and she appears wearing a baiana dress.
With such a precedence of baiana performances, Carmen Miranda’s appropriation of the baiana at the Urca Casino adds another rendition to the repertoire of this well-established figure. However, before Miranda, the baiana was mostly performed at low-budget theaters surrounding Tiradentes Square in Rio as part of variety shows that changed their productions frequently and catered to local patrons of the middle to lower-middle classes. Judging by the long tenure of the revue Boneca de pixe at the Recreio Theater, Araci Cortes’s baiana was no doubt also captivating and projected its own unique charm, but being on the ephemeral medium of the stage and without the national projection of film, Cortes remained for the most part a local celebrity of the Carioca nightlife. Miranda gave a poetic, catchy, and beautiful expression to a theme that was already in vogue. While she did not invent the baiana for the stage, she gave it irresistible meaning and embodiment, captured by the early Brazilian sound film. Carmen Miranda’s baiana transferred seamlessly between film and casino venue, en route to international stardom.
Miranda’s Baiana
Carmen Miranda appropriates the baiana at a crucial time in the context of 1930s Brazil during a moment of intense debate surrounding the construction of a new national identity under the Getúlio Vargas government. What Brazil meant as a nation both at home and abroad was high on Vargas’s agenda, especially in response to some earlier disparaging statements by leading intellectuals claiming Brazil was a territory but not a nation.30 Part of the official nationalist agenda of the New State (1937–1945) involved a greater valorization and a redefinition of an authentic Brazilian national culture, an effort constructed around a phrase that became very popular at the time: coisas nossas (our things).
Music and performance were at the heart of this new cultural awareness. The 1930s forged the important link between samba and national identity through the lyrics of influential composers (such as Noel Rosa and João de Barro) and the essential medium of the radio, which was instrumental in spreading the sound of Rio’s catchy, melodic, but simple tunes all across the nation (McCann 49, 53). Samba would soon reach the level of national song through the initial endorsement by the emergent middle classes, who were seeking a new popular form of recreation and selected samba. This democratization of samba was successful despite the disdain it evoked among certain elites who detected an expression of sensuality not found in the foxtrot or other European or American imports and who required a whitening of samba, a condition sine qua non for it to become a national rhythm, by “sanitizing” the music’s content and controlling references to malandros, a sub-genre of samba popular at the time.31
Carmen Miranda’s role within this consacration of samba as the national music should not be overlooked. The media, widely considering Miranda the most prominent popular female voice and emphasizing her noted preference for interpreting sambas, claimed her as the quintessential national singer and, by association, contributed to promoting samba to the status of Brazil’s national music genre. As early as October 10, 1933, an article in O cruzeiro praised Carmen and her sister Aurora for singing national songs, here referring to both the samba and the Carnival marchinhas: “Both sisters have the talent to sing our sambas. Our marchinhas. These musical genres are the photographs of our soul. . . . They earned the admiration of our country, they know how to sing what is ours” (qtd. in Garcia 38).32
Throughout this process of cultural nation building of the 1930s, there are conflicting sentiments between what the public, the performers, and the elite perceive as the hypercivilized, modern, white tendencies and the homegrown Brazilian variety, contemporary to an official discourse of inclusion that attempts to overlook these tensions. This process corresponds to Homi Bhabha’s reading of the locality of culture, as developed in his essay “DissemiNation”: we witness a “cultural construction of nationness” that can no longer afford to ignore the diverse narratives of the nation and that aims to be hybrid in its articulation of differences and identifications (201). Carmen Miranda’s star performance embraces, perhaps more than any other contemporary entertainer’s, this hybridity of cultural awareness. Miranda’s prominence as a singer, actress, entertainer, and well-loved public figure situated her at an opportune social and cultural intersection at a time when music, race, and gender politics coincided with what she had to offer. Before becoming one of the main attractions at the Urca Casino, Miranda was first and foremost an accomplished interpreter of contemporary Brazilian (and some foreign) songs, a popular voice on the radio, and a successful recording artist.33 Her vast repertoire of songs included quick, catchy, carnivalesque marchinhas, some of the most popular tangos of the day, and—because she was one of the most sought-after interpreters—innumerous sambas that extol Brazil’s unique beauty and natural richness. In this she was not exceptional but part of a musical nationalist endeavor that encouraged a glorified Brazilianness, a vogue that would continue well into the 1940s. The most representative song of this period is the aforementioned “Aquarela do Brasil” (Watercolor of Brazil), Ari Barroso’s exaltation samba of 1939 that achieved international cinematic visibility by its inclusion in the brilliant Walt Disney film Saludos Amigos (1943).34 The opening lyrics of “Aquarela do Brasil” set the tone for the rest of the samba and summarize its nationalist message, capturing the essence of brasilidade like no other phrase: “Brazil, my Brazilian Brazil.” As McCann acutely comments, “What adjective could begin to describe the greatness of Brazil? Only, of course, Brazilian” (70). Among Miranda’s repertoire of sambas that sang of the wonders and beauty of Brazil and emphasized Miranda’s ardent attachment to her country were songs such as “Terra morena” (Brown earth) and “Minha terra tem palmeiras” (My land has palm trees), both recorded in 1936—the latter title referring to the well-known nineteenth-century poem by Gonçalves Dias. In particular, Bahia was a recurring motif in Carmen’s songs, both before and after the recording of Dorival Caymmi’s hit “O que é que a baiana tem?” in 1939, which enforced her moniker as the rainha do samba (queen of samba).35 The lyrics of her numerous Bahian-themed songs depict the nostalgia that represented a romanticized Bahia in the mainstream, Carioca-based imaginary: a land of love and happiness, close to the original paradise, where the sensuality of the baiana is conflated with the delectable wares of her tray, the aroma of exotic oils, and the sensual movements of her hips.36
Local composers wrote many of Miranda’s sambas explicitly for her with the hope that the “queen of samba” would record them and increase the chances of their hits attaining national success. Another component of this phenomenon that may have been overlooked is the fact that before Carmen Miranda, popular music typically originated in the revue theater and then descended to the streets and to Carnival. With Miranda’s stardom, especially after the release of the Carnival hit of 1930, “Taí” by Joubert de Carvalho, which sold an estimated thirty-five thousand records in the first year alone,37 the theater lost this privilege: popular theater looked to the streets and to Carnival for its music rather than the reverse. In the wake of the “Miranda phenomenon,” composers no longer sought to début their songs on the stages of the city’s theaters but preferred to place them with successful recording artists whose hits were widely circulated by the advent of radio.38
Dorival Caymmi’s song “O que é que a baiana tem?” would become one of Miranda’s most popular recordings due to her unique interpretation that would likewise immortalize the composer. The novelty of this trademark song stemmed from Miranda’s unusual arm, hand, and hip movements that distinguished her from contemporary stage baianas and became a dance/song vogue in its own right. However, as Davis cautions, “co-optation only tells half the story. . . . Miranda’s performance and celebration of the Bahiana, like the celebration of myths and icons elsewhere, became important because of the desires and visions of the audience” (White Face 149). As demonstrated above, Miranda’s baiana was a popular enactment of a well-known figure that, through its wide circulation in the public sphere and entertainment halls, was divested of the racially grounded fears that other forms of Afro-Brazilianness might have implied.
The Miranda film enactment of “O que é que a baiana tem?” in Banana da terra, partially recovered in the documentary Bananas Is My Business (1995), culminates Miranda’s appropriation of the baiana. Although critics have been quick to comment that she is “wearing” her performance, on close examination, the lyrics do not correspond to the Miranda baiana costume that she dons for the occasion. Rather, Miranda’s attire is a variation on that described in the lyrics. Whereas the lyrics evoke a typical baiana, Miranda’s costume already distinguishes itself as a stylized version, common for decades now on the Carioca stage and as a Carnival costume, as detailed above. The song is an exaltation of the baiana: the beauty of her dress, her jewelry, and her sensuality adorn the baiana as she heads toward the Church of Bonfim in Salvador. The title-question and chorus of “O que é que a baiana tem?” is sung accompanied by Miranda’s band, Bando da Lua. The answer contained in the lyrics is that the Bahian woman wears a silk turban, golden earrings, chains, and bracelets, a lace bustier, a shawl made out of cloth (pano da costa), an embroidered blouse, a starched skirt, decorated sandals, a gold rosary, and balangandãs—and she is graceful like no one else. However, in this segment of Banana da terra, Miranda wears a tight, wrap-around satin skirt that emphasizes the movements of her hips, and the blouse she wears is neither silk nor embroidered as the lyrics of the song suggest: it is a satin top made of the same two-tone fabric as the skirt, revealing bare shoulders and arms. Likewise, her earrings, necklaces, and bracelets are not golden, and the shoulder scarf she carries over her arm is not pano da costa. Yet the conclusion of this overall image is the production of a stylized baiana model. Despite the disparity between lyrics and performance that eventually becomes secondary, it is the marriage of song, dance, and dress that in 1938 marks the creation of the prototype Carmen Miranda image.
Far from the over-the-top extravaganzas of future Hollywood films, the headdress Miranda wears as her Brazilian baiana is a playful, discrete turban adorned by two small baskets containing berries, small flowers, twigs, leaves, and other shiny elements to complement her attire. With only the resemblance of a functional basket, Miranda’s headdress recalls Cecília Meireles’s artwork of the carnivalesque baianas, whose small baskets adorned their stylized turbans. The high heels, which became indistinguishable from Miranda’s look, were originally referred to in Brazil as the “Annabella heels,” inspired by the shoes the famous French actress wore at the height of her career, including on a trip to Rio in 1938 during which she courted Tyrone Power.39 Invariably, Annabella’s role in popularizing these shoes was soon forgotten in Brazilian popular culture, overshadowed by Miranda’s stage performance. This is the baiana that will make Carmen Miranda famous. This is her signature, stylized baiana.
Much has been written about Miranda’s chance discovery through the baiana, yet the actual staging of the musical number on the proscenium scene has been overlooked. The back-and-forth discussion around the theme of “What is it that she has?” plays on the contradistinction between knowledge and mystery, which places the physical appearance of the baiana as key to understanding the secrets she holds. Such an emphasis on the baiana, with no reference to the male counterpart the baiano, reinforces the baiana’s status and prominence in the public sphere. In this unusual validation of the woman defined by her gender, apparel, and demeanor, the male is effaced. The malandros who sit sprawled out on each side of her, symbolically on a lower level as though subservient to her and the mysterious aura of the baiana, echo the title’s question as they sway their hats to the rhythm of the music. Although tradition has engendered the gaze that focuses on the female body as male, following in particular Mulvey’s work on scopophilia (60–63), nothing in the song refers to a male voyeuristic gaze, and the baiana’s positioning is further problematized by the ambiguity of her dual participation in this fetishizing project: Miranda not only embodies the baiana through the donning of her costume and all its accessories but also creates a distance from the baiana through the interrogation in the third person. This distancing is an essential part of Miranda’s performativity both on and off the stage throughout her career and is perhaps the most misunderstood aspect of her star persona. Here is found, in its embryonic form, what I refer to as the characteristic Miranda performative wink: her capacity to be part of the performance but also to distinguish herself from it in order to react, laugh, look, and, in this case, investigate with her audience so as to understand it in the broadest sense. Pointing in a simplistic and repetitive manner to elements of her costume that do not exactly correspond to the lyrics that she sings is part of Miranda’s performative game and the complicity that she creates with the knowing public. Likewise, in the reprise the boys come forward rather awkwardly—or at least without great enthusiasm or stage presence—and, with Miranda’s nodding approval, touch the same elements of her costume, as though they too are part of this coded performance. As such, Miranda is object, subject, and accomplice of this voyeuristic and fetishistic process. The sexual imbalance that Mulvey attributes to the active/male and passive/female is displaced in this baiana mise-en-scène through Miranda’s complex positioning and the manner in which she avoids, for most of the duration of the number, staring straight toward the camera as though deflecting the voyeuristic gaze. She looks at the pieces of her costume as she touches them or glances to the side and either up or down, only twice making eye contact obliquely with the public in a coquettish yet seductive manner. She disregards the camera, the live diegetic (internal) audience, and makes only an occasional gesture in the direction of the boys who surround her. After she has sung the verse through twice, the camera cuts to a wide angle as she dances toward the front of the stage and twirls around before coming back to her initial position. Miranda’s baiana—of whose beauty, mystery, and grace she sings—creates and fuels to-be-looked-at-ness that transcends any specific engendering of desire. Rather, in this scene Miranda and her boys symbolically touch the baiana: they own the gaze while inviting others to accompany them. After the first verse, the tempo of the song quickens as Miranda sings an unexpected interlude, “When you sway / Fall on top of me / Fall on top of me / Fall on top of me,” briefly evoking in this stanza sexual innuendos that invite the surrounding boys, or whomever her samba addresses, to project their fantasy onto the baiana. But the offer to receive the addressee’s fall is only momentary, because immediately afterward the samba continues at its previous cadence, and the fleeting opportunity is gone.
It was apparently on the set of Banana da terra on the day they were filming “O que é que a baiana tem?” that Dorival Caymmi suggested Miranda emphasize the swinging of her hips and hand movements, which from that moment on would become an integral part of her performance. Whether this story is true or perhaps fabricated to give Caymmi more ownership of the performance, Miranda’s fortuitous full-body enactment of the baiana became forever associated with her. However, this first filmed baiana performance is far from the exuberant, energetic, and defiantly confident “South American Way” baiana of Down Argentine Way (1940) filmed just over a year later, in which she looks straight at the camera in an assertive and provocative stance. What is encapsulated in the segment filmed in Banana da terra is only the beginning of Miranda’s baiana screen performance, which in comparison to the subsequent Hollywood versions comes across as a bashful and tentative baiana rendition. Although some may attribute Miranda’s professional success to a felicitous alignment of her stars that culminated with the ultimate chance encounter with Lee Shubert, in retrospect, and upon close examination of the baiana performance in Banana da terra that was probably very similar to her Urca Casino number, it becomes evident that more credit for Miranda’s rise to international stardom should be attributed to her early professional development and her stage presence beyond the embodiment of the baiana.
Early Brazilian Stardom and Public Presence
By considering the Brazilian years as a formative period, previous studies of Miranda’s stardom overlook her celebrity status in Brazil and focus almost exclusively on what Marshall refers to as the “elevated individual” (3), aiming to identify the different moments that led her to stardom. Such approaches, as Marshall continues, answer questions “that are looking for the core of the individual and the roots of a causal relationship between the celebrity’s actions and the successful consequences of those actions” (3). Easily established and to a certain degree accurate cause-and-effect trajectories have been drawn, for example, between Miranda’s days as a milliner’s assistant and her creative dexterity applied to hat and costume designs for her later performances, despite the fact that once in Hollywood she would be surrounded by professional costume designers, and her involvement in her own costumes, although perhaps not eliminated altogether, became greatly limited. Several stages of her developing career as a singer have also merited repeat mention by biographers such as Gil-Montero, who sees her “rebellious” singing at the Colégio Santa Teresa nuns’ boarding school (where she attended from 1916 to 1923) and her alleged spontaneous outbursts and on-demand singing for clients at different store-floor jobs indicative of her budding talent as a singer soon to become nationally renowned (19–22). Such appreciations tend for the most part to reduce Carmen Miranda’s stardom in Brazil to a preparatory phase for her subsequent Hollywood career and bypass the importance of her Brazilian career or, at best, view her Brazilian years as a series of events with pathway markers toward her Hollywood success. While the parallels are interesting and often drawn from reliable sources, to do justice to Miranda’s Brazilian years, this period needs to be interpreted as more than a mere springboard to Hollywood fame lest we risk overlooking her role as an interpreter of popular music, a cinema and stage star, and a public personality in Brazil, independent of the international baiana of years to come.
Newspapers and magazines were prompt to comment on the qualities and appeal of this unique singing voice and engaging performer, and through this widely proclaimed praise, print media fueled her rise to stardom. The weekly variety magazine O cruzeiro of May 3, 1930, presents Miranda as a “new and intelligent artist” whose “singing has soul” and who “animates her songs with the expression of her playful eyes and her attractive smile,” all qualities that will remain with her throughout her career (qtd. in Garcia 37). With the greater accessibility of the radio as a means to spread popular music and the importance of Carnival songs as the most competitive forum for contemporary voices, Miranda’s interpretation of the above-mentioned Carnival hit “Taí” confirmed her status as a celebrity of the music scene. “In the eyes and ears of the public, she was the first Brazilian woman to create a public personality—and make a living from it” (Castro 92). She became the most legitimate female interpreter of Brazilian popular music, and throughout the 1930s Carmen went from one success to the next as each of her songs was enthusiastically received by an ever-growing, widespread group of fans who owned a radio or a Victrola and who admired not only the quality of her singing but also the energy, gaiety, and soul that Miranda brought to each and every performance regardless of the venue. From this point on, Miranda was one of the most popular touring celebrities throughout Brazil (Bahia, Pernambuco, São Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul, and Minas Gerais) and abroad (Argentina and Uruguay). However, she remained true to her Carioca public and for many became the female voice of 1930s Rio de Janeiro.
Miranda’s celebrity status benefitted from newly developed technologies, such as the incipient print media industry that documented the lives and careers of these public personae, and other social developments, including gradually improving conditions for women on the stage and in the recording industry. In the predominantly male-controlled entertainment world, Miranda’s position of success and prominence was pioneering, as she dominated the radio and the recording industry and established her position with a very personal, charming, and innocently provocative performance style that set her star status on a par with that of Francisco Alves and Mário Reis, the most acclaimed Brazilian white male performers both nationally and internationally. Carmen Miranda was Carioca through and through (carioquíssima, as they would say in Portuguese), but she also became a national icon of the Brazilian music scene, crossing all regional boundaries through her interpretation of sambas and marchinhas for a far-reaching public. In this pre-television era, singers could only rely on the quality of their voices, their pure singing talent, and Miranda was at the height of her Brazilian singing career, selling records of all her releases in quantities never before reached by a female performing artist.
The consolidation of a radio culture in Brazil cannot be underestimated as instrumental in making Miranda a superstar, because it enabled her to be close to a wide-ranging public, and as a celebrity in Brazil, she was celebrated by the masses. The versatility and accessibility of Miranda’s stardom were key factors to her immediate success as a recording artist first of all, and then as a live performer. On the one hand, the clever promotion of her recordings was enabled by the record companies’ ingenuous marketing campaigns. On the other, the fact that Miranda’s voice was a sure sell distinguished her from any one specific record label and sent the message that sambas—most of all Miranda’s sambas—sung by a white, female singer were acceptable for the upper classes. She also held appeal for the masses of the lower classes and was thus a winning ticket to a national marketing success story. As a talented interpreter and charismatic performer, she corresponded to an idealized image of racial, social, and cultural inclusiveness, and in this way Miranda struck the central, emotional chords of a large, receptive public. From this perspective, we can understand Miranda’s enormous popularity as corresponding to the circumstances of the time: she gathered momentum through a solid following of the common people of 1930s Brazilian society and was simultaneously promoted by the elite who controlled the mass media and the performing forums.
Carmen’s first published photograph, in 1926, and her name officially in print as “Carmen Miranda,” on March 5, 1929, are benchmarks in the beginning of a lifelong presence in print media that would accompany her celebrity status in Brazil and abroad. In 1926 she had begun to sing on the radio, and by 1930 she signed her first major contract with RCA Victor. Allegedly, her official singing début was at a National Music Institute (Instituto Nacional de Música) event in 1927, where she sang two tangos in Spanish. From this first public appearance, Miranda would quickly gain a solid reputation and was soon booked for stage engagements at a variety of events. Rio was her main performance venue, and there alone she maintained an active schedule that included Carioca song festivals held in the city’s main theaters and singing competitions such as the official pre-Carnival competition “Feira de Amostras.” She performed innumerous engagements around town, including live shows at all the main radio stations, local theaters, and casinos, even promoting her own musical festival, “Festival Carmen Miranda,” on one occasion.40 This impressive register of live performances is a clear indication that Miranda was a much-loved celebrity at the peak of her career in Brazil.
Miranda’s short-term contract at the Copacabana Casino in January 1936 was decisive for her career: it was her first repeated stage engagement before a more elite, upper-class crowd, proving that Miranda and the music she interpreted could cross class divides and capture a sophisticated audience in a setting beyond the radio and cinema. She returned to the Copacabana in December 1937 after her contract with the Urca Casino expired and before renegotiating its renewal, reinforcing the fact that she was in charge of her contracts and their terms.
Innumerable adjectives were used in the Brazilian press to describe the singer who had taken the samba vogue by storm and made it part of her personal trademark, but brejeira, translatable into English as impish, mischievous, coquettish, wickedly funny, or provocative, was the one most often quoted. Cesar Ladeira, the radio Mayrink Veiga’s main announcer, gave Miranda the nickname “A ditadora risonha do samba” (The smiling dictator of samba) in 1933—with a wink in the direction of the country’s dictator, Getúlio Vargas—and a year later rechristened her “A pequena notável” (The remarkable young girl).41 And she remained “A pequena notável” for the rest of her career. Juxtaposing Carmen Miranda and Getúlio Vargas appeared occasionally in the press, although rumors of their having a relationship are unfounded.42 Circumstantially, however, as Davis rightly intimates, Miranda received the support of the local press (censored after the advent of the New State under Vargas), and her rise to national stardom paralleled Vargas’s own trajectory as a populist politician (“Racial Parity” 186–87). As Cesar Ladeira realized on an official assignment as a broadcaster in Argentina in 1935, about which he spoke retrospectively, there were only two “truly Brazilian” (brasileiríssimos) names recognized abroad. The champions of the popularity and sympathy of Argentina toward Brazil were Getúlio Vargas, ambassador of friendship for a brotherly country, and Carmen Miranda, ambassadress of Brazilian popular melodies, both well liked throughout Buenos Aires.43
The facts and statistics that corroborate Carmen Miranda’s celebrity status aside, what was it about Miranda that made her so “remarkable”? Her younger sister Aurora is said to have had the better singing voice. Miranda commented that she didn’t consider herself to have “a great voice,” and though she “lacked perfect pitch like that of Judy Garland,” she “had projection, and rhythm—something inexplicable” (Brito 33). Indeed, critics have frequently mentioned that Miranda’s voice had a seductive quality and a distinguishable high-pitch tone, which she knew how to use to her advantage when paired with her extremely fast yet clear diction, interspersed with spontaneous colloquialisms that added charm and playfulness to her unique performances. The famous composer Vinicius de Moraes once told Miranda she had verve (zest), and she was thrilled when she read the corresponding dictionary definition: “warmth of the imagination that animates the artist” (Brito 92). Warmth and animation certainly defined Miranda, paired with her charisma and a freshness of youth and gaiety that fueled her seductive performances as she engaged in a flirtatious complicity with her public. Equally at ease in front of the microphone, the camera, or a live audience, she aimed to please through her charm, her spontaneous interjections, and her coquettish expressions. Even her early photographs capture this love of the spotlight: she poses gaily in front of the camera, often in a forward stance, as she engages with her photographer and, by metonymy, with her public. Radiant, provocative, and seductively impish, with a sensuous smile and dancing eyes, she dominated any stage on which she performed, fully living up to her brejeira label. As Ruy Castro pointedly summarizes, “Carmen had the gift of interpretation, the projection of a popular singer—the talent to interject asides in between the phrases, to take liberties with the melodies and surprise the listener with these discoveries . . . she gave the impression of being a fully-accomplished interpreter” (50). Miranda had achieved star status through the uniqueness of a performance that exerted “affective power” on her audience and fans (Marshall xiii). She was, as is characteristic of a celebrity’s essential nature, truly unique and enjoyed the support of mass society throughout the country.44 Miranda’s performative individuality distinguished her among her entertainment cohorts. She did more than interpret sambas; she performed them. Whether on a stage or in a recording, there was something about Miranda that transcended the typical function of a singer. After her departure to the United States, there was no substitute for Carmen Miranda, despite her being one of the most imitated performers of that period.45 For many, she was the most exuberant, lively, entertaining interpreter of Brazilian music of all time.
This public celebration of Miranda as a star during her Brazilian years is also articulated through numerous references, articles, and photographs in the local newspapers. Her constant presence in the media reflects her star status as an object of admiration, as Alberoni theorizes, although some of these newspaper references were more constructed than factual. A case in point is the following example: in the weeks leading up to a beauty competition, the weekly neighborhood newspaper Beira-mar, which promoted the happenings of the trendy beach scene and adjacent commercial and residential area of Copacabana, Ipanema, and Leme (CIL), published a photograph of Carmen in her bathing suit on the first page of the November 10, 1929, issue and indicated that “Mlle. Carmen Miranda . . . will be a serious competitor for the 1930 Beauty Contest,” a statement that had no founding.46 During the decade of the 1930s, Miranda certainly had “it” as a celebrity in Rio. The magazine Cinearte summarizes her star appeal as follows: “She is a girl who has all the qualities, beyond beauty, that Hollywood has classified for the world as ‘it,’ ‘sex-appeal,’ ‘zing.’”47 Ruy Castro, with his characteristic perspicacity and humor, comments on how “it” was indefinable, but Carmen definitely had “it,” as was apparent in her first audition with Josué de Barros (Castro 39). Ana Rita Mendonça confirms that “it” was the word most used to describe Miranda, even before she became a film actress in Brazil (33).
Carmen Miranda’s constant presence in the Carioca media confirms her popularity as a well-loved radio singer and stage star, often featured in photographs on the beach or at events around town, frequently along with her sister and acting and singing partner Aurora, with the newspaper copy emphasizing its acquaintance with the stars.48 A reporter for Beira-mar published an article on Miranda a few weeks before Carnival and made reference to her ever-growing fame due to her enormous talent and the magic of her interpretation, seeing her as the strongest personality of Brazilian broadcasting and the inspiration behind the numerous imitators, who only added to the prestige of the “greatest singer of the city.”49 The media used this concept to criticize the mediocre Miranda imitations but also to promote lesser-known stars by using Miranda as a cultural reference.50
Miranda had a unique relationship with her public and fostered a closeness with her fans by maintaining a very active performing agenda and public visibility around town, and she even fueled her own popularity by sending signed photographs in response to fan requests, thus consolidating her position as a well-loved star, singer, and performer. She performed in a variety of settings for an array of audiences, from the very intimate context of her parents’ boarding house to the elite crowd of the upscale casinos, along with a constant production of radio programs and record releases.
The above-mentioned closeness was also something Miranda purposely incorporated into her performances, creating a sense of coparticipation with her audience through direct addresses, the use of slang, the inclusion of Afro-Brazilianness in content and speech, and spontaneous asides. She constructed a social position for her audience through the process that Fiske terms “hailing,” which enables the use of language to identify and create a corresponding image for the addressee (“British Cultural Studies” 259). Added interest came from Miranda’s ambiguous and playful way of addressing her public. This included using names out of context, such as saying “meu nego” (my black man) to a roomful of white Carioca elites, a verbal masquerade Miranda could pull off beautifully because she herself was white. She was the trendsetter for other radio singers to appear live on stages throughout Brazil singing the music of some of the most prominent songwriters of the time: Pixinguinha, João de Barro, Ari Barroso, Joubert de Carvalho, and Assis Valente, remembered as her favorite composer. Miranda worked her audience both from a distance, up on the stage, and from the proximity of down on the floor, coming off the casino stage to mingle with her audience, creating a sensation of intimacy and familiarity that only added to her star appeal (Castro 145).
Remembered mostly as a performer of the elite casino stage, Miranda also appeared very briefly at the theater, in a show by the well-respected authors Marques Porto and Luiz Peixoto, both geniuses of this art form, who produced Vai dar o que falar (Something to talk about) in 1930 at the new João Caetano Theater; and reason for talk it indeed did provide. The rapidly sold-out house was without doubt due to Miranda’s presence on the downtown stage in Tiradentes Square, a rare occasion in this part of town. The beginning of the revue went over very well, with the public responding to each presentation with long applauses and requests for encores, and Miranda’s performance was one of the most warmly received, as she sang some of her recent hits that were well known on the radio. She was about to return to the stage for her last number when the audience, outraged at a scandalous prostitution scene in the revue, became uncontrollable, leaving Miranda distraught and unable to perform.51 According to Mário Nunes, the audience interrupted the performance with thunderous foot stomping—as was customary to express audience disapproval—which had not happened in Rio for many years (177). Miranda would never again perform on the local theater stages and instead limited her performances to the more predictable venue of the casino.
The casino was reserved for popular artists who could appeal to middle-class, upper-class, and foreign audiences, and Miranda fit the bill. The casino was a forum more restrictive of class and race than the very numerous revue theaters that dotted the city and sponsored lesser-known artists with a rapid turnover of talent and shows in a constant effort to bring in box office revenue. Furthermore, the shows’ genres were very different: the revue theaters drew heavily from local color, fait divers, and contemporary social references, whereas at the casino the entertainment was more socially neutral and accessible for out-of-town tourists and international guests alike. Using the appeal of the most popular artists of the day, the casino owners typically cashed in on the easy sell of musical performances to attract local and foreign patrons who would spin away their fortunes at the roulette tables. While Urca was not the largest of venues, it was by far one of the most glamorous of Rio’s casinos and was considered the capital city’s “social center” (Machado 121). The lavishly built casinos were the centerpieces of Rio’s most prestigious neighborhoods of the Southern Zone and brought in the most renowned Brazilian and international stars. They were considered the utmost form of live entertainment and also the most lucrative due to the high-priced entry fee and the gambling revenues. This was the golden age of the Carioca casinos, which lasted until gambling was outlawed by a federal ban in 1946. The Urca Casino at the heart of its namesake residential area competed for the best local and foreign talent against the newly installed casino of the Copacabana Palace Hotel. This is where Miranda felt most at home and soon became the most highly paid casino performer in Rio de Janeiro and throughout Brazil.
From among the already popular radio and stage stars, the film producers of Brazil’s developing cinema industry chose its first actors and actresses, capitalizing on their established fame as a means to draw viewers to this new form of entertainment. As in the United States, in Brazil the film industry was in its early stages and still determining its categorical position in the entertainment industry. According to Marshall, in the United States, through its “affiliation with vaudeville, the film industry was part of an already established and successful cultural industry that possessed its own system of fame, prestige, and celebrity” (80). In Brazil, however, although there was some borrowing from the revue theater in terms of musical numbers and a few select actors, it was mostly from the radio and the casino that Brazilian cinema drew its first generation of talented artists.
Miranda was one of these pioneer hybrid performers who made the smooth transition to the silver screen, where she continued to be primarily a singing performer and thus brought many of her popular tunes to an even broader audience. The presentation of her performances did not change drastically as she became a movie star: camera shots at that time were incapable of performing true close-ups and therefore privileged full-stage views and wider angles, similar to the audience’s view of a live stage.
Miranda’s first film appearance was in A voz do carnaval (The voice of carnival) (1933), directed by Adhemar Gonzaga and Humberto Mauro, the first movie of the Carnival genre and also the first of the Brazilian modern films to have the sound recorded by the optical system Movietone.52 At this time, Brazilian cinema was synonymous with Carioca cinema, since the majority of films were produced and distributed from the capital and concentrated from a few main studios (Ferreira 75–77). These early Brazilian sound films predominantly portrayed the everyday life of Rio de Janeiro, and this created a sense of identity with the Carioca public, guaranteeing a solid cinema-going crowd in the country’s capital and other urban centers. Early Brazilian filmmakers drew from samba and comedy to produce what specialists view nowadays as mediocre cinema with the merit, nonetheless, of preserving a slice of quotidian Carioca life in the 1930s (Ferreira 81).
During the 1930s the studio directed by Adhemar Gonzaga, Cinédia, dominated the Brazilian film industry. The popular music scene of the period, with the explosion of samba and marchinhas destined for Carnival celebrations and heard year round in festivities and on radios and Victrolas, predated the advent of cinema’s delving into this strong Carioca tradition. Popular music and its main interpreters passed over into the new cinema medium that drew heavily from this vibrant musical scene. In A voz do carnaval, Miranda appears in two numbers, the Carnival marcha “Moleque indigesto” (Unbearable kid) by Lamartine Babo, and “Good Bye!” by Assis Valente, in scenes filmed at the radio studio of Mayrink Veiga. As Tinhorão specifies, A voz do carnaval was not a pre-Carnival film, as would later become a cinematic trend, but rather a pseudodocumentary film that used scenes from that year’s Carnival interspersed with musical numbers and starred the popular Argentinean comedian Pablo Palitos in the main role as the king of Carnival, “Rei Momo” (253).
Two years later, in 1935, Adhemar Gonzaga in partnership with Wallace Downey launched the first true pre-Carnival film, Alô, alô, Brasil! (Hello, hello, Brazil!), starring most of the biggest singers and composers of the time, with the exception of Noel Rosa. Alongside Carmen was her sister Aurora, Almirante, Mário Reis, Francisco Alves, Dircinha Batista, Ari Barroso, Aloísio de Oliveira, and five other boys from the Bando da Lua, among others. The film’s plot was straightforward and consisted of successive musical numbers presented by master-of-ceremonies Cesar Ladeira—the most respected radio announcer of the time—playing himself. Alô, alô, Brasil! cemented the partnership of radio and national cinema and guaranteed a public for this budding industry from that point forward. A publicity poster for the film drew on this impressive lineup of musical talent, boasting that Alô, alô, Brasil! marked the real beginning of an intense production of “filmusicals” in Brazil. The copy on the poster drew from the stardom of the singers: “We are going to hear the greatest repertoire of carnivalesque music sung by the stars of our radio.” Indeed, with its practically nonexistent storyline, the movie was supported by twenty-two presentations of the popular Brazilian radio singers. The title indicates the influence of the radio by making reference to the common radio greeting “alô, alô” (hello, hello!) and is also reminiscent of the song “Alô . . . alô?” composed by André Filho, which Miranda recorded with Mário Reis in 1933.53 The film was an ensemble of carnivalesque and other catchy tunes that enthralled the public, with Miranda’s performance of “Primavera no Rio” (Spring in Rio) as the last song of the film, a place of honor intended to showcase the greatest star of the cast. As the magazine Cena muda reports, “It was a smart decision to have Carmen Miranda end the film. She brings the theater to their feet, as they vibrate with enthusiasm.”54 Wide publicity was published around the release of the film in Rio, Niterói, São Paulo, and Bahia, where the eight national sound cinemas were located.55 In particular, critics praised the film’s sound quality, especially in the interior scenes, claiming that with Alô, alô, Brasil! the national cinema industry was born, capable of rivaling even the best foreign productions.56 Now consecrated as a big-screen actress, Miranda received vast media coverage for her performance and was noted for the charm of her voice, her photogenic and fascinating figure, and her magnificent interpretation of sambas and marchas.57
Similar to her performance in Alô, alô, Brasil!, Miranda’s role in subsequent Brazilian films consisted for the most part of performing musical numbers, as would be the case throughout her Hollywood career. After the success of Alô, alô, Brasil!, Miranda was the most popular Brazilian artist of the decade. Adhemar Gonzaga cast Miranda in Estudantes (Students, 1935), another vehicle for the era’s radio stars, including Aurora Miranda, Mário Reis, and once again the Bando da Lua. The film was scheduled for release in June to coincide with the popular Festas Juninas (June festivals) of São João that take place at the beginning of the Brazilian winter.58 The film transposed the radio stars to a student setting and cast Miranda in the only character role of her Brazilian film career, as a radio vedette with sex appeal (“toda sex-appeal”). In the film, two students, played by Mesquitinha and Barbosa Júnior, fall in love with her music and her charm. Carmen’s character is in love with yet another student, played by the popular singer and budding actor Mário Reis, the Brazilian beau of the time, but she humors the others to avoid their heartbreak. While the film received mixed reviews and for many did not surpass the cinematic quality and appeal of Alô, alô, Brasil!, the more lenient critics did concur that Brazilian cinema was certainly on the right path toward becoming a competitive and modern industry.59
Brazilian film directors drew from the known stars of the radio as a guarantee of success at the box office. Since it was the pretelevision era, and the public at large did not have access to viewing performances at the elite casinos, the radio provided the film industry with the idols they knew the public wanted not only to hear but also to see.60 This trend was so prevalent that one critic remarked, with irony, how talent followed the technical advances: “with the advent of radio, everyone became a singer. Now with the beginning of the cinematic industry in Brazil, everyone wants to be a star, a supporting cast member, or an extra.”61 From these beginnings of sound cinema, Brazilian Carnival was associated with cinema. The film industry both produced and launched Carnival successes and was able to present for a broad public many artists who, for the most part, were only known through the radio and photographs in the newspapers (Diniz 34).62 Before Carnival 1936, Downey, in collaboration with Adhemar Gonzaga, launched Alô, alô, carnaval! at the Alhambra Cinema in Rio on January 20, 1936, then in São Paulo the following month. The film remained on screen the whole month, a record for the time period, before being distributed throughout the country (Gonzaga, 50 anos 47).63 Opening at the Alhambra was also a sign of prestige: the home of Rio’s first escalator and elevators that could hold twenty-four people, air conditioning, and comfortable seating, it was considered the jewel of the Carioca movie-palaces, as they had begun to be called with the advent of sound cinema (Gonzaga, Palácios 167).
The Miranda sisters were the saving grace of Alô, alô, carnaval!, which, despite good directing and technical talent, showed a lack of resources, poor acting, mediocre filming, under-rehearsed scenes, and an incoherent and unrealistic plot. Dennison and Shaw excuse the poor quality of the production as “a legacy of the radio and the constraints imposed by the equipment available in Brazil” (41). One reviewer writes that Carmen and Aurora were the “queens of the cast” and that Brazilian cinema could not hope for better.64 Ironically, at the preview of the film the Miranda sisters allegedly were not pleased with their performance of “Cantoras do rádio” ([Female] radio singers), their main musical number that received the most praise by critics and fans during the film’s month-long tenure at the Alhambra Theater.65 They were the radio singers: no other singers enjoyed the same level of stardom as the Miranda sisters, both together and apart. At the peak of their careers in Brazil, they dominated the recording industry, the live shows, and now the cinema, which seemed a tailor-made vehicle for their performances. Furthermore, for Carnival 1936, Miranda’s rendition of “Querido Adão” (Dear Adam), also included in the movie, was one of the favorite hits of the season.66 In this scene Miranda is captured on tape with her unique, upbeat performance style that will remain characteristic throughout her career. She engages with the camera as if it were her audience, walking and swaying her hips in a rebolado movement from side to side while always facing forward, communicating through the sparkle and movement of her eyes, exaggerated facial expressions, twirling hands, and open arm movements—gestures meant to punctuate her singing or mime the meaning of the lyrics.67 Her charm is matched with irony and a teasingly provocative attitude expressed throughout.68 This genre of filmed musical number resembles in every way a live performance through the intimacy Miranda creates with the camera, which will remain Miranda’s signature style through the remainder of her Brazilian years and throughout the duration of her US career. Miranda also made a bold fashion statement around town as one of the first women in Brazil to wear bell-bottom pants and a striped sailor’s “husler” shirt, proving once again that she was a performing artist with the necessary class, popularity, audacity, and drive to blaze her own unique trail on the stage and in popular culture.
Carmen Miranda and Aurora Miranda in Alô, alô, carnaval! (1936). Courtesy of FUNARTE/Rio de Janeiro
Ever since Miranda recorded “Taí” in 1930, she had been associated with Carnival. Now her film roles consolidated this association. As Coelho writes, “the always-effervescent and vivacious way in which Miranda sang the marchinhas matched the carnivalesque spirit of the genre” (44). Over her career, she recorded over one hundred Carnival marchas, some composed specifically for her interpretation. As one reporter summarized a few years later, “Carnival is a beautiful evolution, it is geography studied live, to the sound of a samba by Ary [Barroso] and the voice of Carmen Miranda, within the pagan contagion of the Avenida Rio Branco.”69 Alô, alô, carnaval! confirmed and projected for many years to come the felicitous marriage between Carnival, popular music, and national cinema, and it is commonly perceived as the genesis of the chanchadas, the popular filmusicals of the 1940s and 1950s.70
Carmen Miranda’s last full acting and singing role in a Brazilian film was in Banana da terra.71 The tradition of pre-Carnival films had been interrupted for the two previous years and only started up again in 1939 with the pretext of once again launching Carnival music to a greater public through the film media. The film’s plot was based on a story by composer and singer João de Barro: an island in the Pacific Ocean, suggestively named “Bananolândia,” is faced with the problem of overproduction of bananas. The queen of the island (Linda Batista) is advised by her chief counselor (Oscarito) to go to Brazil to attempt to open a new market for the sale of the surplus bananas.72 At this stage, no one could have predicted how fitting the banana motif was for Miranda’s career; the actress and entertainer would later declare, “I make my business with bananas!” and was forever after associated with the tutti-frutti hat and the banana extravaganza of The Gang’s All Here.
The release of Banana da terra was anticipated with great hype in the media for several weeks before its début, including publicity spots highlighting the star-stacked cast of the film that brought together Carmen Miranda, Dircinha Batista, Oscarito, Almirante, Bando da Lua, Castro Barbosa, artists from the Urca Casino, and Romeu Silva’s orchestra. Dircinha Batista (1922–1977) had been elected “Samba Queen” at the Casino Atlântico in January 1939 and is mostly remembered nowadays for the many Carnival songs she made popular. Having previously starred in two of Wallace Downey’s films, Alô, alô, Brasil! and Alô, alô, carnaval!, with her striking looks, pronounced dimples, dark curly hair, and fabulous singing voice, she was a great addition to the cast of Banana da terra and justifiably received top billing immediately below Carmen Miranda. While Miranda is constantly featured in publicity shots wearing her baiana costume, Dircinha appears dressed in a typical Tyrolese costume, complete with striped knee-high socks, dungaree shorts with bold heart and flower designs, a large neck bow, wide puffy sleeves, and the signature Tyrolean felt hat and feather, which seems to have been in fashion that year given its popularity in newspapers and magazines.73 Aloísio de Oliveira, making his acting début as a Don Juan, plays opposite Dircinha. Just as Miranda co-opted the baiana costume and incorporated it into her repertoire, Dircinha, dressed as a Tyrolean, recorded “Tirolesa” (female from the Tyrol), a marcha by Oswald Santiago and Paulo Barbosa that became a great Carnival hit that year. Most importantly, as the publicity slogan indicated, the musical comedy was “gleefully carnivalesque” (carnavalescamente alegre), boasting a quick-paced, lighthearted plot with smooth sequence transitions throughout.74 The film captured the Carnival spirit of the season with the latest musical hits of the moment. A week before the film premiered at the Metro Cinema, the press emphasized the appeal of the songs and the technical perfection of the filming, pointing out that the studio had used the same equipment as that used for the Brazilian version of Snow White; in other words, this was a feat of the latest technology. The film’s music was praised with superlatives that referred to the “very note-worthy repertoire” (repertório notabilíssimo) of the star-stacked musical lineup. Miranda was repeatedly praised for her beautiful number “O que é que a baiana tem?” According to the newspaper reports, this song was one of the film’s main attractions and was constantly highlighted in the press with accompanying photographs from the scene. Miranda featured prominently in her baiana costume, its appeal romanticized in the media by repeated reference to its similarity with a dress that Miranda had apparently gifted to the popular French actress Annabella when she had visited Rio a few months earlier. The pull of Hollywood stardom cannot be underestimated as Brazilian cinema was slowly getting off its feet. Annabella had just finished filming Suez (1938), costarring her soon-to-be husband Tyrone Power, also a popular Hollywood star in Brazil. After touring the country to promote his latest film, Power had given interviews in Hollywood that, according to Diário carioca, had increased the popularity of Rio’s Carnival.75
Regardless of whether there is a direct correlation between Tyrone Power’s promotion of Brazil in the United States and the number of visitors arriving during Carnival, North American tourists traveling down to Brazil on the Normandie had apparently reserved five hundred places for the great ball at the Urca Casino on the Saturday of Carnival (Lee Shubert would be among these guests).76 Miranda’s performance at the Urca Casino was part of a series of carnivalesque shows put on specifically for tourists coming to Rio during Carnival. The Urca Casino and the Casino Atlântico were vying for these out-of-town guests’ patronage, so both venues claimed to be the most authentic carnivalesque spot. Publicity materials for Casino Atlântico, illustrated with images of a baiana and a drum-playing Pierrot, claimed, “There is no Carnival outside the Casino Atlântico,”77 while Urca Casino heavily advertised in several newspapers that their carnivalesque evenings were specifically welcoming to tourists arriving aboard the transatlantic ocean liner Normandie.78
At the same time as Banana da terra’s release, Miranda was appearing nightly at the Urca Casino, and the film’s advertising drew on this to strengthen publicity by emphasizing the importance of the “artists from the Urca Casino” in the film. A large announcement that appeared in the Diário carioca five days before the film’s release reads: “The Casino da Urca Artists are kept very busy in Banana da terra . . . and all obey the objective set out by the happy producers: to entertain.”79 The Metro Cinema typically only projected MGM films made in Hollywood, and the publicity made much ado about its screening a Brazilian film, albeit an MGM-Brazil production, “to pay homage to Brazilian cinema, but also to offer to the public in such an appropriate period a spectacle that captures the flavor of the moment.”80 Banana da terra opened simultaneously in Rio, São Paulo, Petrópolis, Santos, Recife, Porto Alegre, Bahia, and Belém do Pará, but in Rio the Metro Cinema had exclusive rights to the film for the first sixty days and ran seven shows daily hoping to lure patrons with the added luxury of its air-conditioned theater and comfortable seats.81
Concurrently to Miranda’s performance in Banana da terra, Miranda and Araci Cortes were starring in parallel shows; while Miranda was at the Urca Casino, Cortes was the greatest attraction at the Casino Atlântico, where she appeared on February 8, 1939. On February 10 the Diário carioca published a photograph of Araci in a baiana costume, and the accompanying copy praises her as “the victorious star of the stage and radio” in whose voice “samba comes alive, with spontaneity, intention and maliciousness” (2). Fitting with the festivities of the season, the article makes reference to Cortes’s bringing carnivalesque enthusiasm and vibe to the stage, with the public unable to resist singing along with great gusto. These examples of Carmen Miranda and Araci Cortes are without doubt the most illustrative of the baiana’s prominence as a carnivalesque figure in the summer of 1939, but they are not the only ones. The newspapers were packed with baianas in a variety of venues to the point that there is barely an issue of a Carioca daily that does not include photographs of a baiana. For example, printed photographs of Carnival balls at the Alhambra cinema featured baianas, children dressed as baianas were photographed in street celebrations, and the Cinédia studios’ February 1939 Carnival release, Está tudo aí, dressed the actress, singer, and main star of the film, Deo Maia, as a baiana.82 Carmen Miranda’s baiana of the Urca Casino stage later became the most broadly known and mythicized of them all, but it is important to remember that during Carnival 1939, Miranda’s baiana was part of a vogue that encompassed stage, screen, and festive gatherings that all adopted the baiana costume amidst the celebratory ethos of the season. Given the omnipresence of the baiana throughout the city, what Lee Shubert perceived in Miranda’s captivating performance was representative of this baiana vogue. The baiana had already become a most important Carioca cultural symbol, with all its inherent racial, social, and class complexities, and it was soon to be indelibly linked to Carmen Miranda.
Miranda’s last appearance in a Brazilian-made film was Laranja da China (1940), an oversimplified musical in which the producers seemed to have lost all interest in an appealing plot and no longer even sought the pretense of keeping together a storyline, preferring to merely juxtapose Carnival hits one after the other. Laranja da China incorporated archival footage Miranda had filmed for Banana da terra the year before, as by then she was already in the United States. The film’s newspaper advertisements frequently mention Miranda’s success in the United States while still claiming her as the greatest national broadcasting artist.83 Carmen Miranda’s celebrity status continued to grow, as she provided meaning and significance for Brazil’s contemporary culture even after her departure. Miranda had derived her first collective fan base from her Brazilian celebrity power, which had consecrated her as a megapopular star and set her at the height of her career, optimally placed to captivate a greater, international audience.
