Reaction to Evita, the Film and the Person, Is Fire or Ice

Not surprisingly, some critics have been as merciless in their attacks on the movie “Evita” as many were half a century ago on the real-life Evita, nee Eva Duarte. There was no middle ground then or now. One either loved or hated Evita and, it seems, one either loves or hates “Evita.” Why was she so hated? The answers lie in the thick tapestry of myths, half-truths and lies about her.

Evita rose from a poor, fatherless home, to become the mistress and wife of Argentine strongman Juan Peron. She challenged the military leaders and state institutions and, for the first time in a long while, gave hope to the peasant and working classes in Argentina. She was a woman who refused to accept her place. To many, she became the symbol of women coming of age in a rigid male- and class-dominated society, where wealth and power were tightly concentrated in the hands of a small, medieval-thinking oligarchy.

The Evita haters spit epithets at her and branded her a whore who seduced a president and a nation.

Evita was a pivotal figure in the age-old conflict of class, gender and power. Why was she so hated? There were many myths, and many reasons:

* La Gran Puta: The Evita haters played the sex card and permanently tagged her with the label of “the great whore.” It was a cheap and dirty way to demean her life and work by claiming, as is often done in the case of independent women, that she had achieved success not by her talents and abilities but by sleeping her way to the top. Evita hadn’t. She left her impoverished village with a third-rate tango singer she hoped to marry and went with him to Buenos Aires to pursue her starry-eyed dream of becoming a famed actress. She worked for a radio station, toured with a theater company and acted in small movie parts, but there is no evidence that she bed-hopped to get roles.

Several years later, an army coup brought Peron to power. Evita met and fell in love with the new dictator and became his mistress. This did not make her a sexual tramp. In Argentina (and elsewhere in Latin America), it was socially accepted, indeed expected, that wealthy and middle-class men kept mistresses. Many of these women eventually became their wives and respected members of society. By all accounts, Evita, as Peron’s mistress and later devoted wife, was his staunchest political supporter. Peron increasingly sought her advice on important issues.

* She was manipulative. Substitute the names Bill and Hillary Clinton for Evita and Juan Peron and it’s the same old story: A woman is attacked for being an equal political partner to her husband. Evita was not a sexually-obsessed airhead who twisted Peron around her little finger to get her way. She was an activist with a positive vision and program to improve the lives of workers and peasants.

She was the major inspiration for the organization of the descamisados, “the shirtless ones.” These were the millions of workers and peasants repressed by the military, ignored by the politicians, scorned by trade union leaders and ruthlessly exploited by industrialists and landowners. When Evita became their champion and principal advocate in the government, their economic plight changed dramatically. Evita pushed for huge increases in wages and health benefits and for union protections for the descamisados.

* She did it for personal gain. Evita royally feathered her nest. She wore the most expensive clothes. She traveled in queenly luxury to Europe, where she was wined and dined by heads of state. She had enough expensive jewelry to fill the Argentine national treasury building. Her highly orchestrated daily gift and money giveaways to the poor smacked of photo-op paternalism. And she and Peron at times ruthlessly suppressed press criticism of her profligate ways. But at the same time, Evita pushed and prodded the government and Peron to build and fund health clinics, hospitals, schools and public housing for the poor. This shocked and momentarily challenged the ironfisted grip of the big landowners and industrialists.

* She was a feminist. By today’s standards, Evita would not be considered an advocate for women’s rights. She played almost no public role in the successful fight to get women’s suffrage in Argentina in 1945. She saw nothing wrong with women serving as dutiful housewives and mothers. She did not consider herself as anything other than a helpmate to secure power for Peron. But Evita was brash, bold, smart and wildly successful. In supporting and encouraging women to organize as women, she unleashed the hidden and untapped power of women. This vastly increased women’s political consciousness and sent a message that women, by taking control of their lives, can play an equal role in shaping public policy and bringing profound social change.

The military leaders and oligarchy were terrified that she would become a powerful symbol to women, workers and the poor even after her death from cancer at age 33. They thwarted Peron’s plan to enshrine her body in a permanent memorial for public display.

Three years after her death, Peron was overthrown and sent into exile. But the myth of Evita grew. She was passionately praised as a saint by many and damned as a cheap hustler and charlatan by others. Even in death, Evita defied the parochial and suffocating conventions of a class- and male-dominated society.

Like the man she was married to, she used power for both good and bad ends. This should be the only reason to like or dislike Evita the woman and “Evita” the movie.