Redeemers by Enrique Krauze

Author:Enrique Krauze
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2013-05-21T16:00:00+00:00

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Eva Perón

THE MADONNA OF THE SHIRTLESS ONES

Thinkers and politicians through the ages have long been aware that politics is a kind of theater, but after the public opinion polls gave Ronald Reagan a victory in the televised presidential debates of 1980 against Jimmy Carter, the Cuban writer Guillermo Cabrera Infante was moved to consider the parallels between political power and the movies. Exiled from his own country by Fidel Castro, whom he considered a consummate actor, a maestro of monologue, Cabrera had personally suffered from the impact of a politician with the skills of an actor. Now the performance of Reagan, “that Errol Flynn of B movies,” convinced the Cuban writer that, while being an actor was not a sufficient qualification for becoming a politician, it surely did help a great deal. On that critical night for his campaign, Reagan spoke with ease, projecting calmness, security, even benevolence: the forthright American who within the High Noon of the Cold War would save what could be saved of the American century. “It was the best performance of his career,” wrote Cabrera Infante, “worth an Oscar, but they only gave him, as consolation prize, the presidency of the United States.”

Politicians with the skills of actors filed in a long stream across the stage of the twentieth century. Some of them were admirable, most of them contemptible. There were fewer actors turned politicians but they played equally imperious and disturbing roles in government. Jiang Qing, a minor and unsuccessful actress in low-budget films, made use of her acting gifts and experience to successfully represent a whole series of historic roles: fervent follower of the leader of Hunan, a protagonist of the Long March, and finally—a happy though not final ending—omnipotent wife of the omnipotent Mao Tse-tung. During the same period, at the other end of the world, another famous dictator, General Juan Domingo Perón, had once declared that “the Argentine who can perform on the speaker’s platform the way Gardel does on the screen will hold Argentina in the palm of his hand.” Carlos Gardel, legendary actor and singer of tangos, had died in an airplane accident in 1935. And so the stage was empty and ready but it was not Perón who would take Argentina into the palm of his hand. It would be his consort: another minor actress and veteran of low-budget films, Eva Duarte.

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