Girls under contract: the work of entretaining men in South America´s atlantic vaudeville circuits

SCHETTINI, CRISTIANA

Pittsburgh

Workshop; Seminar Gender and Race in Latin American Labor History; 2024

Center of Latin American Studies and Center for Global Studies

By bringing these performers back into the labor history of the entertainment market, I propose to reconsider their work as artistic creators – rather than celebrities with no talent. From this perspective, it is crucial to understand what their work meant to them, even at a time when collective organizing initiatives or moral crusaders denouncing the labor and sexual exploitation of varieté performers were scarce - all of this would come later, after the war.