Since we didn't have time to discuss the reading for "Frida," this post should address the two articles. What points do you find especially pertinent? Do you agree with their assessments of "Fridamania"? Why do you think Frida Kahlo suddenly became so popular--popular enough to generate a whole "Frida industry" and a major motion picture?
The article entitled, “The Return of the Kahlo Cult”, Joy Press explains the ways in which society has revived their interests in Freda Kahlo's work and life. The authors voice in this piece is much more favorable then the other article, “The Trouble with Frida Kahlo”, by Stephanie Mecimer, which has a rather negative opinion at times over the exaltation of Frida Kahlo’s life and works.
The social construction of the “great artist” in our culture usually includes the troubled life and a desperate untimely end usually at their own hand or consequences of their lifestyles. Here Mecimer explains where these notions came from. “Caravaggio helped cement the romantic ideal of the artist as troubled rogue bohemian who flouts the norms of polite society…In biopic there is a notion that artists must suffer to experience the deep emotion that infuses their art... they suffer during their lives and when their art is recognized after their death.”
Mecimer trivializes and lumps the typical schematic structure of artists lives together however it is true that many great artists do end up fulfilling this preordained plot structure and it is also true that Frida Kahlo certainly did not adhere to norms in society.
“Kahlo’s story lends itself to mass marketing because she consciously forged her own “brand,” painting herself over and over with that trademark uni-brow and the traditional Tehuana costumes she wore to reclaim her indigenous heritage.” Mecimer also notes in her article, “Rejecting the conventional standards of beauty, Kahlo not only didn’t pluck her uni-brow or mustache but groomed them with special tools and even penciled them darker.” (28)
The Imagery associated with Frida Kahlo is iconic her trademarks looks as previously mentioned have been disseminated into our culture much like Marilyn Monroe’s iconic lips immortalized in Warhol’s, Marilyn Lips. She (like Marilyn) is so iconic we don’t even need to see her whole face to recognize her. Her trademarks along with her personal history make her life and resulting work all the more interesting. “Her life was also crammed with movie ready melodrama and tragedy”. Her work is impressive and the plot of her life parallels to that of a Greek epic; full of shameful lust, tumultuous love affairs, live changing tragedies, death, and addiction. “She was a painter a morphine addict, the first woman psychoanalyzed in Mexico- she’s a retype of female modernity”.
The time period Kahlo lived and worked in is a key factor to her cultural significance. The social political and economic revolutions of that time were present in her time and her feelings and ideologies are expressed in her art and the art of her husband Diego Rivera. Diego and Kahlo were active supporters of the communist party. Their interest in painting and in communism is what eventually led to their tumultuous 25 year love affair, which is what Kahlo referred to as the “second accident in her life”.
“The return of the Kahlo Cult" article by Joy Press explains that “Taymor sees her movie as a love story and has no sympathy for Diego detractors… if you admire Frida you could never present her as the kind of women who would just be abused. “ In the film there were never any scenes of physical abuse but way Diego emotionally abused Frida with his actions is clearly presented.
“She (Frida) took on the marriage knowing that the chance of fidelity was pretty slim… the way she dealt with it was phenomenal ...she took out her own sex life.” What a perfect response for a major motion picture to depict. Throughout her life Frida Kahlo had multiple affairs with a myriad of different partners of both sexes. Sex sells and Frida was not shy about her sexuality which she exalted in her art and her day to day activities, which included other deviant behaviors as smoking and drinking. Society loves to watch people act on their impulses and desires and over indulge to what might be the point of no return. On the other hand we also love a “happy ending”. “What is so fabulous and disturbing is that they way they never stopped loving each other through all that and at the end when her health was failing and she was an alcoholic and addicted to drugs because of the pain- he came back to her.” This article calls attention to the positive aspects of a revival in interest of Frida’s life and art; and does so in such a way that suggests the film and Fridamania is a good thing and that “Frida Kahlo probably would have loved all of this attention.”
Mecimer ‘s “The Trouble with Frida Kahlo”, however contradicts the previous quote included in the previous essay and cites a quote by Frida herself, “I paint myself because I am so often alone, because I am the subject I know best. ” (28) The intimate relationship Kahlo had with herself was due to the hours she spent alone and still in her bed recovering from the trolley accident that left her physically unable to bear children. Mecimer asserts that, “this elevation of the artist over the art diminishes the public understanding of Kahlo’s place in history and overshadows the deeper and more disturbing truths in her work” (27) Not only does Mecimer go onto say that the reason her art wasn’t the same style or technique in the later stages of her life because she was so addicted to morphine.
“Fridamania has a downside, revealing particular dangers for the work of women artists who are treated as phenomena rather than simply as artists… Kahlo’s move into the cult of personality is a familiar pattern in which women stop being the artist and become the subject of art, transformed from a powerful creative force to an ideal of quietly suffering femininity. (30) I somewhat disagree with this statement as her art doesn’t exactly convey the image of a “quietly” suffering female. If anything I find her art to convey to viewers that she is anything but the dainty feminine ideal.
I completely agree with your take on Fridamania and how the articles portrayed Kahlo. I am somewhat confused by/disagaree (my opinion) with your last paragraph though, particularly the idea of the 'quitely' suffering female. I did view Frida as a quietly suffering female because she wasn't outspoken about her abortions, she just chose art as a creative outlet for her emotions and her paintings were for herself. I agree, she obviously doesn't portray the dainty female ideal by any means but she was a woman and her suffering was kept internal, only shared between her and her canvas.
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