Critical Reviews on Latin American Research - CROLAR

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Editorial CROLAR 4(1): Gender and Deviance in Latin America

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Complete Edition CROLAR 4(1): Gender and Deviance in Latin America

Schulze, Peter

Critical Reviews on Latin American Research | 60
zum Cinema Novo (Transcript, 2015) 
and Transformation und Trance: Die 
Filme des Glauber Rocha als Arbeit am 
postkolonialen Gedächtnis (Gardez!, 2005). 
He is the editor of Transmediale Genre-
Passagen. Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven 
(with I. Ritzer, Springer VS, 2015), Genre 
Hybridisation: Global Cinematic Flows 
(with I. Ritzer, Schüren, 2013), Novas 
Vozes: Zur brasilianischen Literatur im 
21. Jahrhundert (with S. Klengel et al., 
Iberoamericana, 2013), Crossing Frontiers: 
Intercultural Perspectives on the Western 
(with I. Ritzer et al., Schüren, 2012), 
Glauber Rocha e as culturas na América 
Latina (with P. Schumann, TFM, 2011) and 
Junges Kino in Lateinamerika (edition text 
+ kritik, 2010).
Music is an art and form of expression 
whose ties with technology, cultural 
industries and mass media are not 
only evident, but also ineludible. Your 
research puts forward this issue and 
For this edition of Crolar 4 (2) on Sound 
and Dissonance: Music in Latin American 
Culture, Candela Marini interviewed 
Prof. Peter W. Schulze, Assistant 
Professor of Hispanic Studies at the 
University of Bremen. Prof. Schulze is 
currently working on a DFG-funded 
research project on Glocalising Modes 
of Modernity: Transnational and Cross-
Media Interconnections in Latin American 
Film Musicals, dealing with tango, samba 
and ranchera music and their intermedia 
and intercultural interconnections. He has 
published various articles on the subject, 
most recently “Mexicanidad Meets 
Americanism: The Circulation of National 
Imaginaries and Generic Regimes between 
the Western and the Comedia Ranchera”, 
in REBECA – Revista de Estudos de Cinema 
e Audiovisual, Ano 4, Ed 7, 2015, pp. 130-
161 resp. pp. 162-194 for the Portuguese 
version. 
His single-authored books are: Strategien 
kultureller Kannibalisierung: Postkoloniale 
Repräsentationen vom Modernismo 
 
SPECIAL SECTION 
The Mediatization of Music in Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina: 
An Interview with Peter W. Schulze
Interview conducted by Candela Marini
Duke University 
Bremen, Germany. May 29th, 2015
Vol. 4(2) (2015): Sound and Dissonance: Music in Latin American Culture | 61
made in different countries and distributed 
internationally. Tellingly, the duo was 
called Los Reyes del Gramofón, The 
Kings of Gramophone. The pronounced 
mediatization of music in the case of Los 
Gobbi was by no means an exception. And 
it was not limited to gramophone records. 
In fact, Latin American music – and music 
in general – was frequently taken up in 
different media such as film or radio, and 
subsequently on television, video and 
the Internet. These transmedia passages 
of music were often brought about by 
certain companies in order to create 
economic synergies and an aesthetic 
“surplus value” that could be employed in 
various media. In the case of Argentina, 
for instance, the media entrepreneur 
Max Glücksmann had many successful 
tango musicians and composers under 
contract and systematically capitalized 
on transmedia genre passages, especially 
between concerts, recordings, theatre, 
cinema and radio. Glücksmann was one of 
the pioneers of Latin American music and 
media industry and his practice of fostering 
transmedia synergies was paradigmatic. 
In fact, the entanglement between music 
and media in Latin America went on to 
increase, whereas global companies, 
mostly from the USA, soon dominated the 
market. Nonetheless, it was precisely Latin 
American music that served as one of the 
main “ingredients” for successful local 
media productions. 
You explained that music was taken 
up by different media to guarantee the 
success of different cultural productions. 
This was indeed the case of cinema in 
aims to analyze music production in the 
intersection with other cultural products 
and industries. How would you define 
the relation between music and media? 
How have they influenced each other’s 
industries?
Since the very beginning of the formation 
of music industries in Latin America, 
music and media have been closely 
interconnected. Early phonographic 
recordings of Latin American music were 
of utmost importance not only for the 
transregional circulation of particular 
musical pieces but also for the actual 
formation and stabilization of music 
genres. – By the way, of course the latter 
phenomenon started before the mass 
mediatization of music, and it has to be 
understood as an ongoing process of 
“genrefication” (R. Altman), that is, not in 
the sense of a static condition, but rather 
in terms of a dialectics of repetition and 
variation. – To come back to the role of the 
phonograph and subsequent recording 
technologies: the incipient global recording 
industry also partly functioned as a vehicle 
of popular Latin American music on an 
international plane, often in synergy with 
concerts, but also with older media such 
as sheet music, resulting in the boost of 
certain music genres as well as musicians 
and composers. Take the example of the 
tango. Already in the early 20th century 
tango music spread internationally, for 
instance the songs played by the Chilean-
Argentinean duo Los Gobbi. This was not 
only due to the concerts they successfully 
performed in Europe and in the Americas 
but also because of their prolific recordings, 
Critical Reviews on Latin American Research | 62
number of feature musicals starring the 
singers José Mojica and Carlos Gardel were 
being produced by Fox and Paramount, 
films that were immensely successful 
and kicked off the development of Latin 
American film musicals as an actual genre. 
What has to be kept in mind, though, is 
that the cross-fertilization of cinema and 
music began well before the advent of 
sound film. Already in so-called “silent 
cinema”, films were usually accompanied 
by music, often by Latin American popular 
music. Subsequently, since the 1930s, Latin 
American music and musical cultures were 
widely disseminated through sound film, 
resulting in synergies between the music 
industry and the film industry. Although 
the film musical was the main genre 
substantially based on music until the late 
1950s, other genres such as the biopic 
(about musicians) or concert films are as 
closely interconnected with popular Latin 
American music. Whereas the film musical 
ceased to be produced in large numbers in 
the 1960s and actually became a marginal 
genre, other music-based genres are still 
vibrant. Take the example of the biopic 
about musicians, a subgenre that has had 
a regular output in Latin America from the 
heyday of the film musical until today. Two 
films may exemplify this. In 1939 Alberto de 
Zavalía directed “La vida de Carlos Gardel” 
about the life of the recently deceased 
Gardel, embodied by Hugo del Carril, 
himself a main singer-actor tango star 
(who subsequently became a paramount 
film director). A more contemporary 
example, from 2006, is the Brazilian biopic 
“Noel – Poeta da Vila”, directed by Ricardo 
van Steen, about the life of the legendary 
Mexico, Argentina and Brazil –three 
countries, which —with their ups and 
downs— have had a strong film industry. 
In the beginnings of sound film, it was 
very common to use already well-known 
figures of the music scene, just as Tango 
singers, to play the leading roles of 
big productions, and thus guarantee 
its commercial success. Reading the 
magazines and newspapers of the time, 
it was very common to find complaints 
on the lack of professional actors, and 
how the industry was not really fostering 
that kind of professionalization. In your 
opinion, what role has musical cinema 
played in the history of Latin American 
cinema? And how important has musical 
cinema been in Latin America?
 
With the advent of sound film, many 
national cinemas gave rise to film 
musicals based on popular music. In Latin 
America, musical cinema has been of 
utmost importance for the development 
of local film industries. In the early 1930s 
several film musical genres emerged, 
most prominently the cine tanguero in 
Argentina, the chanchada in Brazil and 
the comedia ranchera in Mexico. These 
musicals were among the most successful 
local genre films up until the 1950s. 
Tellingly, the first films with optical sound 
produced in Latin America were already 
based on music: In 1930 Eduardo Morera 
made 15 short musical films, in which 
Carlos Gardel, accompanied by different 
musicians, plays some of his hits, mainly 
tango songs. Even though the exhibition 
of these Argentinean short films was very 
limited, at the same time the first of a 
Vol. 4(2) (2015): Sound and Dissonance: Music in Latin American Culture | 63
of their wide dissemination in Latin 
America and due to the conjunction 
and hybridization of these genres. 
Consequently, tango, samba and ranchera 
are highly significant objects of study for 
both the understanding of transnational 
and intercultural interconnections between 
the main media-producing nations in Latin 
America as well as for the understanding 
of national discourses in Argentina, Brazil 
and Mexico. What is more, amongst Latin 
American music genres tango, samba 
and ranchera have arguably undergone 
the most pronounced and complex 
transmedia genre passages between live 
performances and representations in 
media such as recordings, film and radio. 
Thus, they are exemplary objects for the 
study of cross-media interconnections of 
Latin American music in the first half of the 
20th century, a field of research that has 
not yet been comprehensively explored. 
The comparative analysis of tango, samba 
and ranchera productions through their 
transnational, intercultural and cross-
media interconnections will unveil an 
important sector of media history and 
popular culture in the Americas. As a study 
of media “glocalisation” in Latin America, it 
promises to give new insights into complex 
transnational exchange processes, both 
symbolic and in terms of media capital, 
including the role of the three genres for 
shaping imaginaries of the nation and 
negotiating modernity in Argentina, Brazil 
and Mexico. 
The transnational and intercultural 
processes that you mention are often 
forgotten, since these are music genres 
samba musician Noel Rosa. Currently, a 
flourishing of music films can be identified, 
giving evidence to the persistence of the 
interconnection between film and music. 
What is more, audiovisual productions 
“migrated” to other media, in which new 
musical genres have developed. In this 
regard, the video clip is a telling example 
due to the fact that it has undergone 
pronounced transmedia genre passages 
from experimental video productions 
through television formats like MTV to 
Internet platforms such as YouTube.
You are working now in the histories of 
tango, samba, and ranchera and their 
intersection with mass media. At first 
glance, these are genres that seem 
very different, but what do they have 
in common? Why did you choose those 
three genres and not others?
Indeed, both the musical structures and 
the cultural contexts of tango, samba and 
ranchera are very different. Nonetheless 
significant parallels and resemblances exist 
between these three genres that make 
them perfect objects for a comparative 
interdisciplinary analysis. Roughly in the 
same period of time, they all have obtained 
significant transregional dissemination via 
various forms of mediatization. Although 
belonging to very particular regions and 
cultures, the genres in question came to 
stand for the nation in Argentina, Brazil 
and Mexico, respectively. Complementary 
to these “national”, and even “nationalist” 
dimensions, tango, samba and ranchera 
productions also acquired “Pan Latin 
American” dimensions, both because 
Critical Reviews on Latin American Research | 64
“foreign” spectators, in order to achieve 
maximum profits. Therefore, on a textual 
level the genre productions do not so 
much aim for a closure of meaning, but 
rather for a range of meanings, allowing 
them to reach various audiences. This may 
be exemplified by a common trait of the 
three genres in question. Interestingly, 
they abide by ambivalent representational 
regimes that foreground exoticized 
regional folklore and are endowed 
with “postcolonial exotic” (G. Huggan), 
that is, they are subject to a global 
commodification of cultural difference. 
The self-exoticizing representation of 
cultural difference implies a nation-
building function for domestic audiences 
and at the same time serves as a factor of 
product differentiation and marketability 
in Latin American media markets, strongly 
dominated by US-American productions. 
Contrary, or rather complementary to the 
nationalist instrumentalization of tango, 
samba and ranchera, transnational media 
flows inherent in these genre productions 
– in terms of capital, musicians, media 
personnel, etc. – contributed to the 
emergence of latinoamericanidad as a 
unifying “global geocultural identity” (A. 
Quijano) in the Americas and at the same 
time resulted in conflicts between national 
imaginaries. This is evident, for instance, 
in the combination of ranchera and tango 
music in Argentinian and Mexican films 
of the 1940s that often brought together 
main singer-actor stars of both genres, 
like Jorge Negrete and Libertad Lamarque 
or Tito Guízar and Amanda Ledesma. 
The ambivalent range of meanings as 
well as transnational and intercultural 
that have been fiercely taken up as 
national symbols of certain countries 
(Argentina and tango; Brazil and samba; 
Mexico and ranchera). How real are these 
national limits? What role have the state 
and nationalistic discourses played in 
the development of these styles? Being 
today products of global circulation, 
what impact has their exportation had?
Tango, samba and ranchera became 
national symbols in the 1920s and are 
still today closely associated with their 
countries of origin. As I have briefly 
mentioned, the genres in question 
represent cultural expressions stemming 
from certain regions that turned into 
signifiers of national identities. Namely, in 
the case of tango the Rio-de-la-Plata region, 
principally Buenos Aires, but also including 
the Uruguayan capital Montevideo; in 
the case of samba Rio de Janeiro with 
elements of popular Afro-Brazilian 
culture from Bahia; and in the case of 
ranchera the Mexican state of Jalisco. The 
respective regional cultural practices have 
been instrumentalized by government 
policies in order to homogenize national 
identities – most prominently in the case 
of Brazilian dictator Getúlio Vargas and 
his attempts of normalizing samba, or 
Juan Perón’s censorship of lunfardo in 
tango. Nonetheless, such attempts only 
marginally influenced samba, tango and 
ranchera productions. Genres have to 
be understood as contested sites, and 
many different forces were involved in 
genre productions, with media capital 
having a particularly strong effect, aiming 
to address a large audience, including 
Vol. 4(2) (2015): Sound and Dissonance: Music in Latin American Culture | 65
Depending on the focus other disciplinary 
skills might be required; for instance, when 
considering paramusical parameters such 
as lyrics, textual analysis and literary 
theory might be needed. Certainly the 
study of music in media, and especially 
cross-media relations, is a challenge, 
not only since various disciplinary 
competencies are required, but also 
because the interdisciplinary combination 
has to be safeguarded and adopted to 
the specific demands of the objects of 
research. In regard to Latin America, the 
advantage of such an approach is that it 
enables to reveal important sectors of 
popular culture and media history that 
are highly significant but have only been 
partially explored. Being arguably one of 
the most dynamic and complex fields of 
cultural production, transmedia passages 
of music offer fascinating insights into 
Latin American culture and history. 
dimensions are particularly pronounced 
in various Hollywood films that feature the 
music genres in question. That is, from the 
Spanish-language productions made in 
the late 1920s and early 1930s – including 
the films mentioned featuring José Mojica 
and Carlos Gardel – to US-American film 
musicals of the Good Neighbor policy 
era, most evidently in films starring the 
Brazilian “bombshell” Carmen Miranda 
that hybridize some of the most “typical” 
music genres and dances as well seemingly 
“folkloric” sceneries and garments. Very 
pronounced in such productions are the 
tensions between globalising processes 
and regional (invented) traditions.
Given the issues we have discussed here, 
it becomes clear that it is quite difficult—
if not artificial—to talk about music in an 
isolated way. In your experience, what 
is the importance of studying music 
from a cultural perspective? What does 
the analysis of music offer that cannot 
be found in any other object of study? 
And what are the advantages of an 
interdisciplinary approach?
When focusing on the mediatization and 
the “migration” of music in different media, 
an interdisciplinary perspective is essential. 
Highly relevant for the analysis of trans-
generic and cross-media interconnections 
of musical productions and their specific 
historical and cultural contexts are 
disciplines such as media studies, genre 
theory, star studies and performance 
theory, but also history, sociology – and 
of course musicology, especially the 
semiotics of music and ethnomusicology. 


English

The Mediatization of Music in Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina: An Interview with Peter W. Schulze

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