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Riffed by Dr. Geek |
| Frida Kahlo: both sublime and ridiculous |
I wish I could say that this entry was going to be a sublime literate statement regarding the subtleties of the work of artist Frida Kahlo. Alas no. This entry is rather a cautionary example of the ridiculousness of capitalism taken to an extreme. I'll leave it to you decide if Frida would approve. Last night, Fiancee S. showed me an advertisement for a childrens picture book about Frida Kahlo. Fine and good, I thought, that children should be exposed the lives of different kinds of people including Mexican communist women artists (which must be some kind of important Politically Correct trifecta in certain learned circles). Where things got a little weird was what you could get with the book: a Frida Kahlo children's doll, complete with unibrow. With this in mind, I decided to do some searching on the Net to see what this whole Frida Kahlo doll thing was all about. I did it out of curiousity, just so I could share the fact that such a thing existed with others. I found several dolls. Some were very cartoonish children's dolls, such as this offering from GiftMania.com: 
One other doll from Faszination Fashion Doll was much more elegant and realistic: Things took a decidedly tacky and surrealistic turn from there, however. It seems that dolls and art prints are not enough when it comes to Frida merchandise. No, I discovered that a collection of Frida tchotchkes connot be complete without the "Frida Kahlo Bobble-Head Classic Thong" from CafePress.com: 
Closer inspection shows that this fine garment does indeed possess a detailed image of a Frida Kahlo bobble-head doll on the front: 
This disturbs me slightly. I'm not sure why. Maybe it is because it immediately evokes an image where two earnest young college intellectuals have spent an evening in some kind of hipster hangout, high on the discussion of the oppression of women and the disenfranchised to the smell of clove cigarettes, the taste of cheap beer, and the sounds of Morrissey, Morphine, and old school punk. He is relatively cute and full of socialist fire; she is blonde, fit, tan, and full of the feeling that she must somehow make her parents feel guilty for living in a capitalist suburban wasteland while others are oppressed by multinational corporations to make American consumer goods... such as her running shoes. They both decide that the evening has gone particularly well, and being good post-modernist sexual experimentalists, want to end the evening enjoying some liberated, non-oppressive, and safe casual sex. A destination for the coupling is negotiated, and they set out, moving confidently and quietly to her place. They move to her bedroom (so as not to disturb her equally liberated and oppressed female vegan roomates) where kissing rapidly progresses to the shedding of garments. As our young hero moves down her body to remove her lowrider bellbottom jeans, he pulls them back to reveal a thong with the image of a Mexican communist artist bobble-head with a unibrow on them. He recoils in surprise. I say: just say no. said drgeek on 2003-08-21 at 11:52 a.m. |
those first two estates - 2009-02-04 12:58 p.m. |