In the 1910s, Carioca cosmopolitanism was expressed, not without a certain discomfort (according to various chroniclers of the time), through French and English clothes, words and customs. Population growth and an increase in the number of inhabited areas were accompanied by problems inherent to large metropolises. The city she came to know was going through an intense process of urban expansion and rapid growth, with a population of over one million which continued to grow rapidly. Therefore, before we follow the trajectory of Carmen Miranda’s life and work, it is worth asking which socio-cultural spaces she experienced, and which set of codes and languages she manipulated in her ever-frenetic way.ĥ Born in Portugal, in Marco de Canaveses (a district of Porto) in 1909, Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha arrived in Rio de Janeiro when she was only a year old.

By the same token, I consider that “artists are creative subjects who can only be fully understood by analyzing the socio-cultural space (traditions, customs, patterns and values) to which they belong, not as automatons, but as re-inventors of codes and languages” (Velho, 2006: 140). I have chosen to study her trajectory by analyzing the songs Carmen recorded during each phase, in order to shed light on the indissoluble relationship between her trajectory and the identitary context on which this study is based.Ĥ I would like to emphasize that, as Gilberto Velho aptly expressed it, adhering to this principle means treating “artists as individuals who negotiate and create their unique identity within the culture, the set of social codes and the relations of which they are part, and which are transformed by their artistic contribution”. In order to do this, I have divided Carmen Miranda’s trajectory into three different phases, each associated with specific points in the equilibrium between the dialectics mentioned above. In this way, I intend to carry out a historic-anthropological reconstruction of a process in which a large part of the Brazilian socio-cultural agenda is still immersed. My analysis consists in examining the complexity of local/cosmopolitan dialectics, together with biography/national identity duality, whilst avoiding the antagonism with which these issues are frequently approached. Stimulated by these issues, my aim here is to outline some reflections concerning the trajectory of Carmen Miranda, the first Brazilian (or even Latin American) star. In the wake of the development of the Carmen Miranda myth-an ever-present figure in the national imaginary-the restraint with which her centenary was celebrated at the beginning of this year speaks volumes. Though, at the time, this characterization led Brazilians to doubt the legitimacy of her ties to the national culture that she evoked with so much love, because the image that she projected often lacked a supposed authenticity.ģ In both Brazilian history and memory, words such as embarrassment, pride, polemics, caricature, alienation, pioneerism, daring, originality and artificiality are commonly used to refer to the myth embodied by the persona of Carmen Miranda. The radical “Brazilian-ness” of the proto-Baiana turned her status as a foreigner into her greatest asset in Hollywood. Today, as we commemorate 100 years since the birth of the most international of all Brazilian women (or should we say Portuguese?), we remember her name as a symbol of both localism and internationalism in a formula as complex as the cultural dynamics inherent to the phenomenon of cosmopolitanism.

” This statement by Carmen Miranda at the end of her life touches on one of the most significant (and most sensitive) aspects of her trajectory: the issue of her national identity, as she experienced it throughout her life, and as it was dramatically echoed by the important identitary project embraced by the Brazilian government during the 1930s and 1940s.Ģ Carmen Miranda, with her Portuguese origins, Brazilian life, Carioca spirit, American dollars, the “South American Way” and her Baiana clothes (see ill. 2 ), turned her career and her biography into an exemplary and pioneering case of mid-20 th -century cosmopolitanism. I am much more a carioca, 1 more a sambista 2 from the favela, 3 I have more to do with carnival than fado. 1 “What matters is what the Americans call ‘environment’, the influence of the country and the customs that made us.

A la samba meaning