Updates
I am puzzled by a
book on Eva that disputes many of the claims made about her early life,
her liaisons with persons other than Peron, and her effects on Argentina's
culture and politics. Who's right?
This account
seems balanced-- as far as it might be possible to be about a woman who was
determined to mold her own image.
What is indisputable-- and
acknowledged even by her defenders-- is that Evita was extravagant and
self-indulgent, and consistently tried to control and manipulate her public
image. She is legendary for kissing the poor, but she is also legendary
because she ensured that her "charitable" activities received maximum exposure. And the media understood
exactly why they were to give her prominent exposure. She had a forged
birth certificate created with an altered birth date in honor of her wedding
to Juan Peron, in order to conceal her humble origins and real age.
She traveled the world at state expense and demanded to be treated like
royalty. She famously refused the position of vice-president-- after
moving mountains to secure it-- as an act of "self-denunciation", as if she
would not have declared that a willingness to serve in that post would not
also have been an act of supreme self-denunciation.
She received the poor in front
of portraits of Christ... and of the Perons.
Like Diana, she embraced and kissed
individuals with visible manifestations of infectious, disfiguring diseases.
Passion? Or a case of the actress beginning to actually believe she
is the part she plays?
Yet some biographers continue to
insist that the negative press she received was undeserved.
The final word? How about this,
from the Boston Review above: to understand the people, she said from her
sickbed, one must "become one body with them, so that every pain, every
sorrow and worry, all the joys of the people is as if it were ours. This is
what I did . . . in my life."
This is what I did. An act of
monumental narcissism.
What, pray tell, is remarkable about
Eva Duarte Peron, other than her steely-eyed devotion to promoting herself? The truth is, had she not met Colonel Juan Peron at
a charity fund-raiser, nobody, today, would remember or care about "Evita".
In short, she was remarkable for nothing except for the remarkable ability
to become well-known in spite of a completely unremarkable accomplishments.
And that, I suppose, is an
accomplishment.
1998-04-21
April 21, 1998
Updated January 16, 2009
The real "Evita" in action, leading a
rally (left).
Not the first
revision... when introduced in Europe, the musical was controversial -- did
it glorify a woman associated with Fascism? When brought to America by
producer Hal Prince, the authors (Rice and Webber) apparently agreed to
develop a character based on Che Guevera to "balance" the role of Eva.
He tells the audience what to think... a bad development artistically,
if not morally. You can hear it in his songs-- let me frame
it for you, so you understand just how bad she is. Or good. Or
both.
Still, the
best lines in the show are Che's reaction to the monumental funeral of Evita:
"Oh what a circus, oh what a show...."
Madonna as the little darling.
On the other hand... keep in mind
that in the process of extorting millions of dollars from workers, the rich,
and corporations to give to the poor (in a manner that suggested to them
that they were personal gifts from Eva's own pockets), Eva was merely
practicing a form of socialism that benefited families and individuals who
managed to come into her orbit. The actual numbers helped probably
pale in comparison to the numbers helped by, say, an increase in the minimum
wage, which applies to everyone, regardless of whether they have the
opportunity to personally thank Evita. It's a bit like a socialist
lottery. In this context, it's hard to have any sympathy for the upper
classes who thought that politics was more than "entertaining peasants".
Most people going to see the movie version of EVITA or renting the video
for a snuggly Friday night probably never listened to the original recording by Andrew
Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, and are even less likely to have seen one of the early stage
productions. What percentage only saw the movie? It's hard to say-- the movie was
not a great success. But let's make a conservative guess: 70%?
That's the percentage of people who will get a slightly different picture of EVITA than
the ones who heard the original recording or saw an early stage production (the newer
stage productions are likely to be modeled on the movie version). The original was based
fairly closely on the known historical facts about the life of Eva Duarte Peron, who
rocketed to fame and power in Argentina in the 1930's and 40's and then died very young,
of cancer, at the height of her influence, on July 26, 1952. The picture of Evita, as
drawn in the original, is somewhat ambivalent. If she is admirable in any sense, she is
admirable only for her remarkable ability to rise from almost nothing to one of the most
powerful women in the world. But the original EVITA also makes it clear that the way she
accomplished this feat was by whoring herself up the rungs of a ladder of influential men.
And once she was married to the top dog in the military, Colonel Juan Peron, she became
co-responsible for one of the most brutal and repressive regimes ever to rule Argentina.
Snubbed by the aristocracy, she extrapolated bundles of money from everyone--including the
labour unions-- for her celebrated "Foundation Eva Peron", and distributed
unknown amounts (no books were kept) to the poor. Without a doubt, most of the money went
into her own pockets, and to pay for jewels and dresses and her extravagant lifestyle as
unofficial queen. It was a little like the Ontario lotteries, except that the lotteries
steal from the poor instead of the rich. Eva stocked government officialdom with her
relatives and cronies and severely punished any newspapers (including La Prensa)
that dared to print critical commentary about her or her husband.
Now, I don't mean to brag, or maybe I do, but not many of the people sitting in the
movie theatres watching the Madonna version of EVITA know every single word of every song
in the original. I do. And I immediately noticed many significant changes to the
lyrics. Furthermore, I noticed a distinct trend. All of the changes functioned to improve
the image of Evita herself. One of many examples: when an aristocrat observes that
"statesmanship is more than entertaining peasants", in the original, Evita
snarls, "We shall see, little man!" In other words, yes,
statesmanship is merely a matter
of entertaining peasants. In the movie version, this line is given to a minor character.
The result leaves open the possibility that Eva was more far-sighted than that.
The most disgusting change--because it is so patently self-serving--is the reversion of
the beautiful aria, Another Suitcase in Another Hall, to Evita herself,
when it
was originally performed by Peron's young mistress after Evita gave her the boot. This aria
(remember, this is not a musical, but an opera, in spite of what the movie promoters tell
you), had an important function in the original. It followed Evita's initial seduction of
Peron, during which she portrayed herself as a humble, innocent girl, who was so
overwhelmed with Peron's goodness and charm that she couldn't help but throw herself at
his feet. Then she nastily tosses Peron's 14-year-old mistress out into the streets. The
mistress sings a very plaintiff, introspective song about her dismal prospects.
Interestingly-- and in sharp contrast to Evita-- she claims to be hard on the outside but
confesses that, in her heart, she is devastated.
Time and time again, I've said that I don't
care/
that I'm immune to gloom/
That I'm hard, through and through/
But every time it matters, all my words desert me/
so anyone can hurt me/
and they
In the original, you feel a twinge of your heartstrings for this poor,
vulnerable girl. And your perception of Eva's heartlessness and ruthlessness is enlarged.
The contrast with the scheming Eva makes it plain that her seduction of Juan Peron is
nothing more than a ploy to whore herself up another rung of the ladder.
In the movie version, Evita herself sings this song! This is a little
like rewriting THE SOUND OF MUSIC and taking "Do Re Me" away from Julie Andrews
and giving it to Goebbels. What a fun-loving, charming guy!
The reason for the change is obvious, and no, it's not quite as sinister
as you might think. Though the Peronista's are still a force to be reckoned
with in Argentina, I don't think their reach extends all the way to
Hollywood. No, it's more banal than that. It's Madonna's Evita-like ego.
Madonna didn't just get asked to do this picture: her representatives
played an active role in getting her part, and, indeed, in getting the movie made (the
property has been around for years but no-one was able to put the package together until
recently). Strings were pulled. Everybody knows that the most captivating song in the show
is the little aria sung by Peron's mistress. Well, Madonna wanted that song for herself,
and if she had to revise history a little in order to get it: so be it. In fact, all the
other little changes also seem calculated to present Eva less as a conniving slut and more
like a poor girl who was merely ambitious and clever. As a result, many people will leave
the theatre thinking that Eva Peron may have been a little rough around the edges, but
maybe she was genuinely in love with Juan Peron, and maybe she really cared about the poor
and dispossessed, and maybe her death was a real tragedy because Argentina was deprived of
her gossamer presence as a result of it.
And you know, when you think about it, there are a lot of parallels with Madonna's
life. After all, hasn't she been accused of the same things that Eva was accused of?
Didn't Madonna exploit her sex for money and power? And wasn't Madonna reviled by some
critics who didn't really appreciate how sweet and vulnerable she really was, inside? And
thus that obnoxious song they added, to ensure airplay for a "new" release:
"You
Must Love Me". That's all the poor girl wanted: to be loved.
The truth is that Peron was a Hitlerite and a fascist (Argentina was
Germany's very last ally), and Eva was a little dominatrix who abused her husband's
office for pure personal gain. The tragic results of her ascendancy to power--violence and
social and economic instability--were still felt up until the 1970's. The idea that she
really wasn't so bad is not a harmless delusion. When Bill Clinton talks about
teaching Saddam Hussein a lesson, and when Jesse Helms spouts off about Castro, and when
Le Pen in France denounces foreigners, and when Bouchard talks about
"humiliation", we are hearing echoes of the same demagogic impulses. EVITA could
have done us all a favour by showing us, unflinchingly, just how attractive an evil
political philosophy can make itself.
By the way, as a movie, EVITA isn't great either, though it's not as bad as some
reviewers have decreed. And Madonna's performance is relatively faultless: the girl does
have a set of pipes. But there are too many moments where the singers don't really know
what to do with themselves. See Jesus Christ Superstar for an example of what they could
be doing.
One last note: when is someone going to do an opera based on the story of Eva's corpse?
It was embalmed remarkably well and apparently remained quite life-like for years
afterwards. It was stolen by the government when it feared Juan Peron would use it to
regain political power, after he was turfed in 1955. After years of chaos, Peron was
invited to return and he did so, but only after her corpse, which had been hidden in a
crypt in Italy, was returned to him. He kept it on a living room table and his third wife,
Isabel, (Eva was wife #2) dusted it every day for him, when she wasn't occupied with her
duties as vice-president! Isabel, eventually achieved what even Eva had not been able to
achieve: the Vice-Presidency. In July 1974, upon the death of her husband,
she became President of Argentina.
Her administration
was an unmitigated disaster, as Eva's likely would have been.
So how about it, composers?