The Laugh of Niní Marshall: Comic Performance and Gender Performativity in Argentinean Classical Cinema

Niní Marshall (1903–1996) was one of the most important comic actresses of Argentina. She worked in print media, radio, film, theater, and television—both in her native country and in Spain, Mexico, Cuba, and other nations of Latin America. Born for the radio in the mid-1930s, Marshall’s creatures burst into the cinema at the end of that decade, providing recognition patterns to basically two new social subjects that had emerged in Argentinean society: immigrants and urban popular sectors, and specially the women within those groups. However, like Helene Cixous’ version of the myth of Medusa,1 the female characters created by Niní Marshall laugh about stereotyped roles assigned to women by classical film narrative.