It’s Been Said about “Her”. Gender Significance in the Biographic Discourses about Tita Merello

Authors

  • Mercedes Liska Universidad de Buenos Aires

Keywords:

Biographic discourses, gender studies, tango, Tita Merello

Abstract

A movie about Tita Merello’s life, one of the most salient tango singers between the 1930s and 1960s, premiered in 2017. A “sensual heroine” and an artistic representation of popular Buenos Aires cabaret and nightlife women, Merello was an important actress from the Argentinean golden age of cinema valued more for her work in films and theater than for her place in popular music history (where she is often criticized for her vocal quality). In the context of the growing presence of gender and sex discourses on Argentinean society, the movie features a new type of biographical narrative about “La Merello” in which the present is assumed to be a better time for women than the past in reference to a singer like her, who was born in the brothel scene and became one of the most acclaimed feminine figures in the 20th-century Argentinean entertainment industry. This article analyzes and problematizes the biographic discourses fashioned about Tita Merello at different moments by a wide variety of biographers —from conceptual frameworks developed within the social sciences in conversation with popular music studies as well as gender and communication fields— in order to examine the current constructions of gender’s significance in the history of tango and tango singers.

Author Biography

Mercedes Liska, Universidad de Buenos Aires

Mercedes Liska (1979) estudió piano y etnomusicología en el Conservatorio de Música Manuel de Falla. Es Magíster en Comunicación y Cultura y Doctora en Ciencias Sociales por la Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA). Realiza investigaciones sociales de la música para el CONICET (Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas) y trabaja en el Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani. Se desempeña como docente en la Carrera de Ciencias de la Comunicación (UBA) y en el Conservatorio Manuel de Falla, donde anteriormente coordinó la carrera de Etnomusicología. Sus estudios abordan marcos teóricos y metodológicos de los estudios culturales, las teorías de género y sexualidad y el activismo feminista. En 2018 publicó el libro Entre géneros y sexualidades. Tango, baile y cultura popular y participó en la elaboración de la Ley Cupo Femenino y Acceso de Artistas Mujeres a los Eventos Musicales, sancionada en noviembre de 2019. Entre 2018 y 2020 integró la comisión directiva de la Asociación Internacional para el Estudio de la Música Popular en América Latina (IASPM-AL), en el rol de presidencia.

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Published

2021-03-23

Issue

Vol. 22 No. 1 (2021): Dossier: Musical biography in Latin American musicology of the 21st century

Section

Dossier

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