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starberry-cupcake · 1 day ago

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Let's talk about current Argentinian politics and musical theater.

Yes, really, hear me out.

I've gotten conservative hate from people from my own country before and I know the Argentina tag is filled with Other Things most often than not, even if the country is going through it atm.

But art imitates life, in a turn of events that's making me reflect upon some things.

I have always been of the opinion that the musical Evita is an Englishman simplification and conservative-washing, with a sprinkle of misogyny, of both the figure of Eva Perón herself and of Justicialismo/Peronismo as a movement in general. It's one on the very long list of gringo media in which Justicialismo is depicted as blind fanaticism or shallow idolization, to hide the fact that it should be, in essence, a movement rooted in social justice and in the figure of the State as an agent to provide equality for all, seeing the country as a federal republic and not a centralized pyramid for the economic powers, a left-wing populist party, independently of any particular figures.

I saw a video of Rachel Zegler singing as Evita in the Palladium balcony and I know it's a Jamie Lloyd gimmick but, hearing her pronouncing "Argentina" closer than most, singing to the streets of London of all places, in a country with which we have a history of confrontation and war, made me wonder if maybe they were ready to do something right, especially in the current world-wide political climate.

(Photo source)

I was too hopeful, turns out, but that's not really the point of this post. The point is people's absolutely tone deaf views, especially of people who claim to be left-ish in their political stances, that show how blind gringos can be to anything that isn't in English.

I just saw a MickeyJo video where he talks about the changes on the show and he said: "the creatives and Jamie asking themselves what does Eva Perón have kinship with in today's society? The idea of her becoming this hugely famous and beloved figure, who are those people now in society? Because it's not political first ladies necessarily, not in the current political climate (...) and, you know, it's popstars".

This is crazy. Hearing this in June 19th 2025, as an Argentinian, is insane.

Yesterday, in a boiling point in the current situation of the country, thousands of people (allegedly close to a million), from peronistas, to the traditional left, popular classes, students, retirees, universities, teachers, scientists, the working class, professionals, lgbtq+ activists, fat activists, artists, people from all walks of life took to the streets to oppose the decision of the rotten judicial power, influenced by the current far-right government and the economic powers at play, to incarcerate the most prominent leader of the popular opposition, the two times ex president (and ex vice president and ex first lady) Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (who happens to be peronista), because the ruling was notoriously plagued with suspicious inconsistencies and had the sole intention of removing her from being able to be a candidate, both in this year's legislative elections and in perpetuity. On this note, she has already survived an attempted murder.

(Photo source)

This is not new in South America, it happened incredibly recently to the current president of Brazil, Lula da Silva, who was set free in 2019 and ended up winning the following elections, removing the far-right government of Bolsonaro.

Cristina's imprisonment isn't just a political and economic maneuver, it's a clear violation of democratic values, a process this fascist government is perpetuating with political decrees, which are going against the democratic rights for everyone, especially now protesters.

People's support of Cristina was so vast that, fearing a massive protest, the judicial power made her stay in her house arrest rather than have her detained at Comodoro Py, as was initially stated.

So, people reacted, more than ever.

Thousands of people on the streets. Some were detained illegally by police forces before they could enter the city limits, in a feeble attempt at reducing the number of protesters and gathering information through the previously mentioned anti-democratic political decrees.

The conservative media has been boiling with rage at the fact that she, in her house arrest, was able to step into her b a l c o n y (see the connection?), where hundreds of people gather every day to show support. They called her showing up in her own window a "political act" and forbade her from doing so, until later today.

(Photo source)

So, she recorded a voice message, which was transmitted in Plaza de Mayo, online and on TV.

Among other things, she said: "Today is the time to demonstrate that we will defend democracy with the same tools with which we have built it. Without violence, but with courage. Without fear, but with absolute clarity of the historic moment that all we Argentinians are facing. With love. We will do it with tons of love, as always. With a deep love to this mother country that so many, many times they tried to force to kneel, so many times it knew how to get back up, once and again. The Argentinian people has proven it a thousand times, that it knows how to stand up, it knows how to resist, it knows how to organize itself, it knows how to fight and, if it is thrown out, it also knows how to come back".

She received support from other women in politics currently, from different parties (like the traditional left representative Myriam Bregman), from similar political stances (like the activist and ex legislator Ofelia Fernandez), as well as trans feminist activists, among others. Just to point out more examples of women in politics in this "current political climate" the video I mentioned was questioning the existence of.

It might be shallow to bring up something so important in relation to something so superficial as the damn ALW show, but I thought it was such an immediate evidence of how disconnected people are to what goes on around them, even in a world that is instantly communicated, and how media has the power to simplify, hide, obscure or warp things, to remove their value and their potential reach.

Understanding the political situations of other places, especially those going through the same issues as your own, or with a past that reflects similarities, can have a huge impact on how we act politically and socially. Nadie se salva solo, as they say in the tv adaptation of the very politically influenced Argentinian comic El Eternauta. Nobody saves themselves alone.

The idea of Evita needing to be a "popstar" as an equivalent also has the underlying issue that plagues politics in general right now, which is the centering of political ideas into faces. The idea of people voting candidates because of them as a person, waiting for them to check every single box of their personal preference, fearing being seen as "stans" of the candidates if they so much as consider them as choices for voting, is a ridiculous situation that only helps to fraction the left-sided parties, due to arguments on specifics, and strengthen the right, which is always united under the clear flag of hate and the easy personification, due to the fascist values they uphold.

You don't have to be a stan of a candidate, you have to align with their political actions during a specific election.

During this march, many people were vocally supportive of Cristina but, more than anything, they expressed gratitude for the type of country she tried to build and what that meant to them. There were testimonies throughout the day about the gender identity law, the same sex marriage legalization, assisted reproductive technology, the help towards retirees and for housewives to be able to have a retirement fund, the accessibility to computers for kids in school, among many other things people shared during the day.

It's not just about people, it's about what they do.

MickeyJo saying that the production's use of screens and whatnot helps reinforce that Eva Perón had become "unreachable" at a certain time is insane to me because Evita was the least "unreachable" person in the political sphere at her time. It was her reach towards people, her involvement, what made her who she was.

This only proves to me how shallow the view of this situation is, seeing Evita as an "unreachable popstar" is taking away her political actions, her social stance, her work, her influence and the movement she created, especially on women in politics.

It's a dress and a wig and a song, without any of the substance that could be important to discuss in the world of today. When it's more relevant than ever.

It's not the first time, nor will it be the last, that English speaking countries, especially the UK, take cultures that aren't their own and use the shallow versions of them as toys, but in this current political landscape, it's frightening that this isn't even a conversation when talking about a new adaptation of this work.

Because the economic and political powers of these countries are and have always been behind the far right and military governments of many places, especially South America.

I had to work for an internship in a scientific magazine of CONICET where I spent months going through archives from the US Department of State Library, reading and indexing reports of the Dirty War, including lists of disappeared detainees. My dad, a survivor of the dictatorship who had to flee on foot to the border with Brazil, who saw friends being taken, some of them came back tortured, some never returned, told me how they never believed them when they said the US was involved (what is now known as Operación Cóndor). I was lucky enough that the universe put me in a place and a time to be able to show him the evidence. And that is just one example.

Furthermore, the first thing I thought when I saw Zegler on that balcony was "well, singing the most iconic song to the people outside rather than the theater goers with paid tickets, would be an Evita move" and MickeyJo argued, in his video, that this was rather ridiculous because among theater goers were people whose tickets were afforded through different means of assistance and aid. Added to that, he said that people paying tickets are rather upset that the big number isn't happening on stage for them.

You know who can see it, if it's outside, though? Aside from whoever is in the street at the time? It can be filmed. We can see it. People who can't go to the UK to watch it, especially people from the country you're using as a stage.

Because no, I don't expect the English musical Evita to be the epitome of respect to our country or South America as a whole (it would be like expecting the same of Miss Saigon and Vietnam or Here Lies Love and the Philippines), but I know for a fact that English speaking folk prefer spectacle to realism as a means of communication and if that's a good way to introduce what is happening now or what happened then and how learning about it can help us all, then by all means, sing on the balcony.

Actually, an even better move would have been to sing it outside AND in Spanish. Not only for us in Argentina, but also for all the Latines who are now being persecuted and deported, disrespected and questioned. For all the Latines who are now either trying to survive the far-right governments that are plaguing us, rebuilding after them or being denied a home by the countries who helped put those governments there in the first place.

But, what do I know.

Maybe me using the spectacle of a known musical to talk about what is happening right now helps send the message to people who would otherwise not know what is going on. And, perhaps, if I'm right and you have read this post and learned something new through it, then my point has some merit.

#argentina #long post #argentina con cristina #eva perón

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