Wednesday 28 June 2023 – Monocle Minute

Opinion / Fernando Augusto Pacheco

Excess of virtue

There’s something alluring about divas, the iconic female performers whose strong personalities have left a mark across the world’s film industries, opera stages and popular music. They have always played a strong part in my life, so it’s gratifying to see that they are now being celebrated in a new blockbuster exhibition, Diva, at London’s V&A.

Though the word means “goddess” in Latin, diva has been used negatively to describe female celebrities whose edgy personalities have been perceived as “difficult” in the male-dominated entertainment industries. The exhibition challenges this view: here, divas are presented as revolutionaries whose hard-headedness and eccentricities have changed societal…