Keywords
Carmen Miranda, Brazilian Identity, Cultural Representation, Estado Novo, Hollywood, Latin America Cinema
Abstract
This honors undergraduate thesis examines how Carmen Miranda’s performances shaped Brazilian national identity in both Brazilian cinema and Hollywood in the mid-twentieth century. Through film analysis, historical research, and cultural theory, the study examines Miranda’s public persona and the symbolic significance of the Baiana costume, with respect to Brazil’s Estado Novo regime, and Hollywood’s own depictions of Latin America. Overall, it argues that Miranda’s image functioned as a site of cultural negotiation, where Brazilian cultural expression met Hollywood’s exoticizing portrayals, but the encounter did not always stay as a fixed stereotype. The study also examines the tensions between authenticity, commodification, and the wider global reshuffling of national identity through media. In the end, the thesis maintains that Miranda exercised creative agency in shaping international perceptions of Brazilian identity via performance, and that this, should add to scholarship across performance studies, cultural representation, and Latin American media history.
Thesis Completion Year
2026
Thesis Completion Semester
Summer
Thesis Chair
DiLiberto, Stacey
College
College of Arts and Humanities
Department
Department of Philosophy
Thesis Discipline
Latin American Cultural Studies
Language
English
Access Status
Open Access
Length of Campus Access
None
Campus Location
UCF Online
STARS Citation
Pineiro Serrano, Nicole M., "Performing Brazilian Identity: The Cultural Politics of Carmen Miranda" (2026). Honors Undergraduate Theses. 668.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/hut2024/668
Included in
Film and Media Studies Commons, Latin American History Commons, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons
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