Identifier	Thesis 1710
Author	Spaderna, Summer L.
Title	The Evolution of Eva Peron in the North American Consciousness
Publisher	Central Connecticut State University
Date	2002
Resource Type	Master's Thesis
Notes	Although historians have long been familiar with an accepted picture of Eva Peron, the elusive personality of Argentina's most dynamic female has undergone a significant evolution in the past fifty years. As an unknown actress, Eva Duarte was first exposed to the North American public in La Cabalgata del Circo (1944), a film that played to a limited audience in one of New York's foreign film theaters. Over thirty years later, Eva Peron's created persona was presented to a significantly larger audience in Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's contentious Broadway musical called Evita (1978). More recently on the silver screen in Alan Parker's 1996 film, Evita, starring Madonna, the public image of Eva Peron, better known as Evita, became a truly international personality. Consistently in the public's view from August of 1946 when Newsweek elected her "la presidenta" Eva Peron's public facade was subjected to an ever-increasing common interest as the North American fascination for this controversial female in the political arena grew. Throughout that time, Eva Peron's known image has endured continuous adaptations. During the 1960's, communications theorist, Marshall McLuhan, coined the phrase "the medium is the message." He argued that in each cultural era the medium, in which information is recorded and transmitted, is decisive in determining the character of that culture. This is also true of the perception one has for the illusive reality of Eva Peron, whether throughout her brief thirty-three year life or, as it exists 2 today. These media-generated perspectives are widely divergent. The depiction of Evita is, not in effect, the description of a notorious and unscrupulous woman alone, but rather, the product of the tempestuous relations between the United States and Argentina during the Peron regime. Evita's image was frequently the byproduct of the North American press' view of her president-husband, Juan Peron, as the "fascist-dictator of South America". Evita, more frequently than not, was unjustly on the receiving end of this public battlefield of suspicion in the media. The negative aspects of her life were featured throughout familiar newspapers and magazines of her day. She became the media focus. In consequence, this emphasis neglected to reveal the respectable aspects of her role as the first lady of Argentina, but more importantly, the fact is that Eva Peron was a powerful and influential woman who was a threat to the military, the Argentine upper class, her husband and men in general. The spirit of Eva Peron was a constant force during her lifetime. The ghost of that presence has haunted Argentina to this very day. This thesis is more than a mere retelling of the events that made up the life of Eva Peron. It is an in depth evaluation of how the various media sources manipulated the available information to create a negative image in print and later on film of one of the most important and controversial women of the late 1940's and early 1950's, Eva Peron. For more than fifty years that negative cast has endured and still continues as an important part of the North American consciousness at present. This assessment of the Perons and the times they lived in is based on an extensive examination of the following: historical manuscripts, constitutional documents, secondary sources, foreign news sources, various internet resources, video documentaries, scientific journals, biographies and Evita's auto-biography. More significantly, this study represents an exhaustive survey of the most important public opinion weekly and monthly news sources easily available to North Americans throughout that time. Appendix IV is an annotated bibliography of those sources, which can be found easily in this study. This thesis is organized topically, using a series of chapters with accompanying sub-topics within the chapters to explain how the media has created a person and imprinted this person in the minds of Americans during the almost always-unstable relationship between the United States and Argentina. How Eva's reality has evolved over the past fifty years to that paradoxical perspective of today, is the subject of this work.
Subject	Perón, Eva, 1919-1952
Department	Department of History
Advisor	Richard, Alfred Charles, 1937-
Type	Text
Digital Format	application/pdf
Language	eng
OCLC number	713734100
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The Evolution of Eva Peron in the North American Consciousness

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