2017 Essays

Global Tango: Hollywood between Spain, Argentina, and Mexico

Montaldo, Graciela Raquel

In my essay I will focus on an early case of Transnational Hispanism: the figure of the Spanish writer Vicente Blasco-Ibáñez, who traveled by Argentina, wrote a novel with Argentine characters (The Four Horsemen of Apocalypse, 1916) and was internationally acclaimed for a movie based on his novel (1921). The movie was shot in Los Angeles where “Blascomania” begun. Rodolfo Valentino, in gaucho dress, danced the tango and started “tango fever”. I understand Los Angeles –Hollywood in particular- as a crucial scene where different Hispanic traditions converge. The city and the movie industry create the conditions for the transnational version of Hispanic and Latin identity.