Editing Eva Perón (section)

==Legacy and criticism==
===Argentina and Latin America===

{{blockquote|In all of Latin America, only one other woman has aroused an emotion, devotion, and faith comparable to those awakened by the [[Virgin of Guadalupe]]. In many homes, the image of Evita is on the wall next to the Virgin.|Fabienne Rousso-Lenoir<ref>{{harvp|Rousso-Lenoir|2002|p= 198}}.</ref>}}

In his essay titled "Latin America" published in ''The Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity'', [[John McManners]] claims that the appeal and success of Eva Perón are related to Latin American mythology and concepts of divinity. McManners claims that Eva Perón consciously incorporated aspects of the [[theology]] of the [[Virgin Mary|Virgin]] and of [[Mary Magdalene]] into her public persona.<ref name="McManner 440">{{harvp|McManners|2001|p=440}}.</ref> Historian Hubert Herring has described Eva Perón as "perhaps the shrewdest woman yet to appear in public life in Latin America".<ref name="Adams 203">{{harvp|Adams|1993|p=203}}.</ref>

In a 1996 interview, [[Tomás Eloy Martínez]] referred to Eva Perón as "the [[Cinderella]] of the tango and the [[Sleeping Beauty]] of Latin America". Martínez suggested she has remained an important [[cultural icon]] for the same reasons as fellow Argentine [[Che Guevara]]: 

{{blockquote|Latin American myths are more resistant than they seem to be. Not even the mass exodus of the Cuban raft people or the rapid decomposition and isolation of [[Fidel Castro]]'s regime have eroded the triumphal myth of Che Guevara, which remains alive in the dreams of thousands of young people in Latin America, Africa and Europe. Che as well as Evita symbolize certain naive, but effective, beliefs: the hope for a better world; a life sacrificed on the altar of the disinherited, the humiliated, the poor of the earth. They are myths which somehow reproduce the image of Christ.<ref>{{cite web |url = http://www.lasmujeres.com/evaPerón/evitamadonna.shtml |title = Evita Or Madonna: Whom Will History Remember? Interview with Tomas Eloy Martinez|website=lasmujeres.com |access-date = 9 November 2009 |archive-date = 4 May 2001 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20010504002303/http://www.lasmujeres.com/evaperon/evitamadonna.shtml }}</ref>}}

Although not a government holiday, the anniversary of Eva Perón's death is marked by many Argentines each year. Additionally, Eva Perón has been featured on Argentine coins, and a form of Argentine currency called "Evitas" was named in her honour.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/1954363.stm |title=Argentines swap pesos for 'Evitas'|publisher= BBC|date=27 April 2002|access-date=4 October 2006}}</ref> [[Ciudad Evita]] (Evita City), which was established by the Eva Perón Foundation in 1947, is located just outside Buenos Aires. [[File:Vestido de Eva Perón.JPG|thumb|right|Dress of Eva Perón in the ''Museo del Bicentenario'', [[Buenos Aires]]]]

[[Cristina Fernández de Kirchner]], the first elected female president in Argentine history, is a Peronist who has occasionally been referred to as "The New Evita". Kirchner says she does not want to compare herself to Eva Perón, claiming she was a unique phenomenon in Argentine history. Kirchner also says that women of her generation, who came of age in the 1970s during the military dictatorships in Argentina, owe a debt to Eva Perón for offering an example of passion and combativeness.<ref name="Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina"/> On 26 July 2002, the 50th anniversary of Eva Perón's death, a museum opened in her honour called ''Museo Evita''. The museum, created by her great-niece Cristina Alvarez Rodriguez, houses many of Eva Perón's clothes, portraits, and artistic renderings of her life, and has become a popular tourist attraction. The museum was opened in a building that was once used by the Eva Perón Foundation.<ref>[http://www.evitaperon.org/Principal.htm Evita Museum]. Retrieved 13 October 2006</ref>

In the book ''Eva Perón: The Myths of a Woman'', cultural [[anthropologist]] Julie M. Taylor claims that Eva Perón has remained important in Argentina due to the combination of three unique factors:

{{blockquote|In the images examined, the three elements consistently linked—[[femininity]], [[mysticism|mystical]] or spirituality power, and revolutionary leadership—display an underlying common theme. Identification with any one of these elements puts a person or a group at the margins of established society and at the limits of institutional authority. Anyone who can identify with all three images lays an overwhelming and echoing claim to dominance through forces that recognize no control in society or its rules. Only a woman can embody all three elements of this power.<ref name="Taylor 147">{{harvp|Taylor|1979|p= 147}}.</ref>}}
[[File:Cristina recorrió la "Muestra Evita- Embajadora de la Paz" en el Museo de Moscú (17051584839) (2).jpg|thumb|right|President [[Cristina Fernández de Kirchner]] in the exhibition of "Evita: Ambassador of Peace", in the [[State Historical Museum]] of [[Moscow]]]]

Taylor argues that the fourth factor in Eva Perón's continued importance in Argentina relates to her status as a dead woman and the power that death holds over the public imagination. Taylor suggests that Perón's embalmed corpse is analogous to the [[incorruptibility]] of various Catholic saints, such as [[Bernadette Soubirous]], and has powerful [[symbol]]ism within the largely Catholic cultures of Latin America:

{{blockquote|To some extent her continuing importance and popularity may be attributed not only to her power as a woman but also to the power of the dead. However a society's vision of the [[afterlife]] may be structured, death by its nature remains a mystery, and, until society formally allays the commotion it causes, a source of disturbance and disorder. Women and the dead—death and womanhood—stand in similar relation to structured social forms: outside public institutions, unlimited by official rules, and beyond formal categories. As a female corpse reiterating the symbolic themes of both woman and [[Martyr (politics)|martyr]], Eva Perón perhaps lays double claim to spiritual leadership.<ref name="Taylor 148">{{harvp|Taylor|1979|p= 148}}.</ref>}}

[[John Balfour (diplomat)|John Balfour]] was the British ambassador in Argentina during the Perón regime, and describes Eva Perón's popularity:

{{blockquote|She was by any standard a very extraordinary woman; when you think of Argentina and indeed Latin America as a men-dominated part of the world, there was this woman who was playing a very great role. And of course she aroused very different feelings in the people with whom she lived. The oligarchs, as she called the well-to-do and privileged people, hated her. They looked upon her as a ruthless woman. The masses of the people on the other hand worshipped her. They looked upon her as a lady bountiful who was dispensing [[Manna]] from heaven.<ref name="IMDB">{{cite web |url = https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2302781/ |title = Interview with sir John Balfour in the documentary Eva Perón Queen of Hearts |website = [[IMDb]] |date = 24 October 1972 |access-date = 2015-06-04 }}</ref>}}

In 2011, two giant murals of Eva Perón were unveiled on the building facades of the current Ministry of Social Development, located on [[9 de Julio Avenue]]. The works were painted by Argentine artist [[Alejandro Marmo]]. On 26 July 2012, to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of Eva Perón's death, notes were issued in a value of 100 pesos. The controversial effigy of [[Julio Argentino Roca]] was replaced by that of Eva Perón, making her the first woman to be featured on the [[currency of Argentina]]. The image in the notes is based on a 1952 design, whose sketch was found in the Mint, made by the engraver Sergio Pilosio with artist [[Roger Pfund]]. The printing totals 20 million notes; it is not clear whether the government will replace the notes that feature Roca and the [[Conquest of the Desert]].

===Allegations of fascism and antisemitism===
{{blockquote|Fewer antisemitic incidences took place in Argentina during Perón's rule than during any other period in the 20th century.&nbsp;... Upon reading the numerous speeches that [Juan] Perón pronounced against antisemitism during his first two presidencies, it immediately becomes clear that no other president before Perón had rejected discrimination against Jews so clearly and unambiguously. The same goes for Eva Duarte de Perón. In many of her speeches, Evita argued that it was the country's oligarchy that upheld antisemitic attitudes, but that Peronism did not.|[[Raanan Rein]]<ref>Rein, Raanan. [https://books.google.com/books/about/Populism_and_Ethnicity.html?id=ZX0OywEACAAJ ''Populism and Ethnicity: Peronism and the Jews of Argentina'']. McGill-Queen's University Press. {{ISBN| 0-22-800166-8}} Back cover; page 4.</ref>}}

[[File:Evita y Golda Meir.jpg|thumb|right|On 9 April 1951, [[Golda Meir]], then Labor Minister of [[Israel]], met with Perón to thank her for the aid that the Eva Perón Foundation had given Israel.<ref>Rein, Raanan. [https://books.google.com/books/about/Populism_and_Ethnicity.html?id=ZX0OywEACAAJ ''Populism and Ethnicity: Peronism and the Jews of Argentina'']. McGill-Queen's University Press. {{ISBN| 0-22-800166-8}} p. 82.</ref>]]

From the start, Juan Perón's opponents accused him of being a [[fascism|fascist]]. [[Spruille Braden]], a diplomat from the United States who was greatly supported by Juan Perón's opponents, campaigned against Juan Perón's first candidacy on the platform that Juan Perón was a fascist and a Nazi. The perception that the Peróns were fascists may have been enhanced during Evita's 1947 European tour, during which, she was a guest of honor of [[Francisco Franco]]. By 1947, Franco had become politically isolated because he was one of the few remaining right-wing authoritarian leaders who was able to retain his power. Franco, therefore, was in desperate need of a political ally. With nearly a third of Argentina's population of Spanish descent, it seemed natural for Argentina to have diplomatic relations with Spain. Commenting on the international perception of Evita during her 1947 European tour, Fraser and Navarro write, "It was inevitable that Evita be viewed in a fascist context. Therefore, both Evita and Perón were seen to represent an ideology which had run its course in Europe, only to re-emerge in an exotic, theatrical, even farcical form in a faraway country."<ref name="Fraser 100">Fraser & Navarro (1996:100).</ref>

Laurence Levine, the former president of the U.S.-Argentine Chamber of Commerce, writes that in contrast to [[Nazism|Nazi ideology]], the Peróns were not [[Antisemitism|anti-Semitic]]. In the book ''Inside Argentina from Perón to [[Carlos Menem|Menem]]: 1950–2000 from an American Point of View'', Levine writes:

{{blockquote|The American government demonstrated no knowledge of Perón's deep admiration for Italy (and his distaste for Germany, whose culture he found too rigid). Nor did they appreciate that although anti-Semitism existed in Argentina, Perón's own views and his political associations were not anti-Semitic. They paid no attention to the fact that Perón sought out the Jewish community in Argentina to assist in developing his policies and that one of his most important allies in organizing the industrial sector was José Ber Gelbard, a Jewish immigrant from Poland.<ref>Levine (p. 23).</ref>}}
[[File:Gelbard y peron.jpg|thumb|right|Juan Perón and future Economy Minister [[José Ber Gelbard]]]]

Biographer Robert D. Crassweller writes, "Peronism was not fascism", and "Peronism was not Nazism." Crassweller also refers to the comments of U.S. Ambassador [[George S. Messersmith]]. While visiting Argentina in 1947, Messersmith made the following statement: "There is not as much social discrimination against Jews here as there is right in New York or in most places at home."<ref name="Crassweller">Crassweller (1987).</ref>

''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine published an article by [[Tomás Eloy Martínez]]—Argentine writer, journalist, and former director of the [[Latin American]] program at [[Rutgers University]]—titled "The Woman Behind the Fantasy: Prostitute, Fascist, Profligate—Eva Peron Was Much Maligned, Mostly Unfairly". In this article, Martínez writes that the accusations that Eva Perón was a fascist, a Nazi, and a thief had been made against her for decades. He wrote that the allegations were untrue:

{{blockquote|She was not a fascist—ignorant, perhaps, of what that ideology meant. And she was not greedy. Though she liked jewelry, furs and Dior dresses, she could own as many as she desired without the need to rob others.&nbsp;... In 1964 [[Jorge Luis Borges]] stated that "the mother of that woman [Evita]" was "the madam of a whorehouse in Junín." He repeated the calumny so often that some still believe it or, more commonly, think Evita herself, whose lack of sex appeal is mentioned by all who knew her, apprenticed in that imaginary brothel. Around 1955 the pamphleteer Silvano Santander employed the same strategy to concoct letters in which Evita figures as an accomplice of the Nazis. It is true that (Juan) Perón facilitated the entrance of Nazi criminals to Argentina in 1947 and 1948, thereby hoping to acquire advanced technology developed by the Germans during the war. But Evita played no part.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/1997/int/970120/cinema.the_woman.html |title=The Woman Behind the Fantasy: Prostitute, Fascist, Profligate – Eva Perón Was Much Maligned, Mostly Unfairly |last=Martínez |first=Tomás Eloy |date=20 January 1997 |magazine=Time |access-date=28 January 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20011221053805/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/1997/int/970120/cinema.the_woman.html |archive-date=21 December 2001 }}</ref>}}

The governments that preceded Juan Perón's government were anti-Semitic but his government was not.<ref>[http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1039034580 ''The Jews and Perón: Communal Politics and National Identity in Peronist Argentina, 1946–1955'' by Lawrence D. Bell], PhD dissertation, 2002, Ohio State University, Retrieved 2 May 2008</ref> Juan Perón "eagerly and enthusiastically" attempted to recruit the Jewish community into his government and set up a branch of the Peronist party for Jewish members, known as the Organización Israelita Argentina (OIA). Perón's government was the first to court the Argentine Jewish community and the first to appoint Jewish citizens to public office. The Peronist regime has been accused of being fascist, but it has been argued that what passed for fascism under Perón never took hold in Latin America; additionally, because the Peronist regime allowed rival political parties to exist, it cannot be described as [[totalitarian]].<ref>Passmore, Kevin. [https://books.google.com/books?id=gee7VLcMP8gC&dq=fascism+a+very+short+introduction ''Fascism: A Very Short Introduction'']. Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|0-19-280155-4}}.</ref>

===International popular culture===
{{See also|Cultural depictions of Eva Perón}}
[[File:Liza Minnelli visits the tomb of Eva Peron, 1993.jpg|thumb|right|[[Liza Minnelli]] reading the plaque on Eva Perón's tomb, 1993. In the early 1980s, Minnelli was considered for the lead role in the movie version of the musical ''Evita''.<ref name="Fraser 195 quote">{{harvp|Fraser|Navarro|1996|p=195}}. "Stigwood next hired the flamboyant director Ken Russell, who tested Elaine Paige, who had starred in the stage version, and [[Liza Minnelli]]."</ref>]]

By the late 20th century, Eva Perón had become the subject of numerous articles, books, stage plays, and musicals, ranging from the 1952 biography ''[[The Woman with the Whip]]'' to a 1981 TV movie titled ''Evita Perón'' starring [[Faye Dunaway]] in the title role.<ref>{{cite web |last = Erickson |first = Hal |url = https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/125365/Evita-Peron/overview |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160307202058/http://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/125365/Evita-Peron/overview |title = Evita Peron (1981) |url-status = dead |department = Movies & TV Dept. |work =The New York Times |author-link = Hal Erickson (author) |date = 2016 |archive-date = 7 March 2016 }}</ref> The most successful rendering of Eva Perón's life has been the [[Musical theater|musical]] production ''[[Evita (musical)|Evita]]''. The musical began as a [[Evita (album)|concept album]] which was co-produced by [[Andrew Lloyd Webber]] and [[Tim Rice]] in 1976, with [[Julie Covington]] in the title role. [[Elaine Paige]] was later cast in the title role when the concept album was adapted into a musical stage production in [[West End theatre|London's West End]] and it won the 1978 [[Olivier Award]] for [[Laurence Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Musical|Best Performance in a Musical]]. In 1980, [[Patti LuPone]] won the [[Tony Award]] for [[Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical|Best Leading Actress in a Musical]] for her performance as the title character in the [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] production. The Broadway production also won the Tony Award for Best Musical. Nicholas Fraser claims that to date, "the musical stage production has been performed on every continent except Antarctica and it has generated over $2 billion in revenue."<ref name="Fraser 193">{{harvp|Fraser|Navarro|1996|p=193}}.</ref>

As early as 1978, the musical was considered as the basis for a movie. After a nearly 20-year production delay, [[Madonna]] was cast in the title role for the 1996 [[Evita (1996 film)|film version]] and she won the [[Golden Globe Award]] for "Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy". In response to the American film, and in an alleged attempt to offer a more politically accurate depiction of Eva Perón's life, an Argentine film company released ''[[Eva Perón: The True Story]]''. The production starred actress [[Esther Goris]] in the title role. This movie was the 1996 Argentine submission for the [[Academy Awards|Oscar]] in the category of "Best Foreign Language Film," but was not accepted as a nominee.<ref>Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences</ref><ref name="69thSubmissions">{{cite web |title=39 Countries Hoping for Oscar Nominations |publisher=[[Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]] |date=13 November 1996 |url=//www.oscars.org/pressreleases/96.11.13.html |access-date=5 October 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19990209110950/http://www.oscars.org/pressreleases/96.11.13.html |archive-date=9 February 1999 |url-status=dead |df=dmy-all }}</ref>

Nicholas Fraser writes that Eva Perón is the perfect [[popular culture]] icon for our times, because her career foreshadowed what, by the late 20th century, had become common. During Perón's time, it was considered scandalous for a former entertainer to take part in public political life. Her detractors in Argentina had frequently accused her of turning public political life into show business. But by the late 20th century, Fraser claims, the public had become engrossed in the [[cult of celebrity]] and public political life had become insignificant. In this regard, Eva Perón was perhaps ahead of her time. Fraser also writes that Perón's story is appealing to our celebrity-obsessed age because her story confirms one of Hollywood's oldest [[cliché]]s, the [[rags to riches]] story.<ref name="Fraser 194">{{harvp|Fraser|Navarro|1996|p=194}}.</ref> Reflecting on Eva Perón's popularity more than half a century after her death, [[Alma Guillermoprieto]] writes that, "Evita's life has evidently just begun."<ref name="Guillermoprieto 16">{{harvp|Guillermoprieto|2002|p=16}}.</ref>

Eva Perón appears on the 100 [[Argentine peso|peso]] note first issued in 2012 commemorating the anniversary of her death. She is also featured on a new 100 peso note, issued in 2022.<ref>{{cite web |title = Eva Peron On Argentinian Banknotes|work=Banknote World|date=29 June 2022 |url = https://www.banknoteworld.com/blog/eva-peron-on-argentinian-banknotes/|accessdate=17 September 2023}}</ref>