I’m Argentina…and always will be.
Two years after Argentina’s post-World War II saga of oppression, corruption and mismanagement climaxed in a humiliating $132 billion default on its national debt — history’s biggest bankruptcy, the nation has finally found a figure to salve its woes. Eva Perón.
Everywhere you go in this elegant but dysfunctional Paris of the South, her haunting eyes stare at you from posters, T-shirts, billboards of a new play (“La Duarte“) and covers of books such as Thomas Martinez’s “Santa Evita” or her autobiography, “La Razon de Mi Vida.”
A fleet of “Evita Tour” buses crisscross the city from the CGT Building (housing an Eva Perón Eternal Flame) to the Casa Rosada Presidential Palace (with its famous Evita balcony) to the National Library, where the city dedicated a new Evita monument in 1999.
Her tomb in the posh Recoleta Cemetery has long been the city’s top tourist attraction, but the number of domestic visitors that daily pass by her sarcophagus is said to have more than doubled since a 2002 devaluation wiped out most Argentines’ personal savings.
Last year, the city opened its Museo Evita (carrying the subtitle: “My Life, My Mission, My Destiny”), a lavish new government-supported shrine in the Palermo district that bills itself, outside of Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum, as the world’s largest museum devoted to a single person.
Veteran Latin American expert Steven F. Dachi says, “Evita’s popularity is nothing new, but this government-promoted image of her as a symbol of unity, stability and some Peronist golden age IS new, and perhaps indicative of just how desperate their situation has become.”
In case you came late, Eva Maria Duarte was a humbly born (out-of-wedlock) small-town girl who came to Buenos Aires at age 15, had some success as an actress on radio and in the movies and married an obscure but ambitious army colonel named Juan Perón in 1944.
Together, they formulated a new kind of Argentine populism that championed the cause of the “descamisados (shirtless ones),” gained the backing of organized labor, challenged the power of the oligarchy and made Perón president of Argentina in 1946.
Visitors at the new Evita Museum in Buenos Aires
In office, Peronism became the usual South American dictatorship, but, by promoting women’s rights, aiding the poor and using her show-business savvy to stage vast rallies that bonded the nation in anti-elitism, Evita became the object of an almost mystical devotion.
She died of cancer in 1952 at the age of 33 and Juan Perón was deposed by a military coup in 1955. He returned to Argentina after 20 years of exile and was elected president again in 1973, but he died in office a year later and was succeeded by his third wife, Isabel.
Actor Viggo Mortensen, who grew up in Argentina in the ’70s, said recently, “When I was a kid, you really didn’t hear much about Eva, and you heard a lot about Isabelita. But when I went back last year, the tables had turned and Evita had become part of the landscape.”
Two things brought about this transformation. One was the so-called “Dirty War” that Isabel’s generals waged against their own people (killing 30,000 civilians, and forever blackening her name). The other was the smash Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, “Evita,” which gave Eva to the world.
Because “Evita” chronicles some of their heroine’s character flaws and financial irregularities, the Eva Perón cult has never officially smiled on the musical, and even took to the streets to protest the profanity of casting Madonna for the 1996 movie version.
But the Peronist Party government that replaced Isabel’s generals actively aided the filmmakers, even allowed them to film in the Casa Rosada, and the musical’s shop-stopper, “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina,” has virtually become the national anthem.
And there’s no doubt that the film’s fiery imagery, rousing score and subtle glorification was a much-needed high for the Argentine people: Eva’s flaws seemed piddling in comparison to the epic malfeasance of the genocidal generals and corrupt politicians who followed her.
Click on FULL ARTICLE to read more
Article by William Arnold
Source: Seattle Post
The neo-Evita cult has been building off the lingering impact of the movie, the endless litany of economic problems and the ever-increasing government sanction of her iconic image ever since, and has now found its grandest expression in Buenos Aires’ Museo Evita.
Housed in a turn-of-the-century Spanish renaissance building that was once used by the Eva Perón Social Aid Foundation as a temporary shelter for destitute mothers, the museum is a masterpiece of populist propaganda and the Valhalla of Peronism.
Upon entering, the visitor passes through a gallery of Eva and Juan portraits to a theater where, to a haunting tango song, a widescreen movie loops black-and-white images of the million mourners who lined the Avenida 9 de Julio to see Eva’s 1952 funeral procession.
After this magnificently theatrical opening, the path leads to a room devoted to Eva’s childhood and adolescence in the Pampas village of San Toldos, with displays of her school books, report cards, family pictures and other miscellaneous childhood mementos.
The next room is devoted to her career as a model and actress, mostly on radio soap operas. Her face on framed magazine covers of the early ’40s cover an entire wall and attest to the fact that she was much more than the “bit player” her detractors later claimed her to be.
Adjoining this room, another theater shows clips from her films, including 1940’s “La Carga de los Valientes” (“Only the Valiant”), 1942’s “Una Novia en Apuros” (“Bride in Trouble”) and the only one in which she starred, 1945’s “La Pródiga” (“Prodigal Woman”).
These movie images are particularly fascinating because, more than the still photographs, they convey her unique charm and charisma, which can be shrewd and sexy, but more often soft and maternal, exuding a compassion that’s quite palpable.
The rest of the museum, which occupies two large floors, has entire rooms devoted to “Meeting Perón,” “Marriage,” “First Lady,” “Trip to Europe,” her work for women’s rights, her ambitious social programs, her illness and death, and her legacy.
Each room contains poster-size photographs, blown-up excerpts from her speeches and writings, and reverential displays of her clothing. The final “legacy” room admits she “made mistakes” but contends that she was by far “the most important woman in Argentine history.”
The museum, which also contains a cafeteria, gift shop and the Eva Perón Historical Research Library is staffed by a corps of idealistic young people who seem to be amazingly knowledgeable about Eva’s career, and openly contemptuous of their own government.
When I asked my guide if she thought the politicians might be callously using Evita’s image to help them weather a crisis of their own making, she said, “Of course.” But that didn’t really matter because she was “above politics — like Joan of Arc or Princess Diana.”
“To Argentines, Evita does not represent the Peronist Party. She’s a more subversive figure who tells us we don’t have to accept the status quo, that we can do better. She’s a symbol of hope, and that is something we desperately need right now.”
Article by William Arnold
Source: Seattle Post