How Carmen Miranda's fruit hats became propaganda

A closer look

The woman famous for balancing a fruit salad on her head was actually a meticulously engineered geopolitical asset. Carmen Miranda is remembered for her platform shoes and chaotic tutti-frutti hats, but that entire exaggerated persona was aggressively backed by the U.S. government. Under FDR's 'Good Neighbor' policy, Hollywood was heavily incentivized to produce films celebrating South American culture to keep those nations from siding with the Axis powers during WWII. Miranda was plucked from Brazil and packaged as a pan-Latina caricature to charm American audiences, making her the highest-paid woman in the US by essentially weaponizing stereotypes.