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Reckoning with Icons: Frida Kahlo and Cultural Appropriation
Harvard Political Review ^ | 1/6/24 | Diana Ochoa-Chavez

Posted on 01/07/2024 2:07:32 PM PST by DallasBiff

Recently, Kahlo has become a polarizing figure in the conversation about cultural appropriation. While some express profound admiration and reverence for the artist, others passionately argue that Kahlo profited off an exoticized, calculated self-image at the expense of Indigenous people. To some, this accusation may seem like a wrongful application of the concept of cultural appropriation. After all, Kahlo was a citizen of the country from which her clothes originated, and she was immersed in Indigenous culture. Therefore, some claim that she was justified in wanting to embrace her Indigenous roots as a form of self-expression.

Both supporters and critics of Kahlo engage in the wider debate on who can reclaim parts of their heritage and identity — a complex, evolving concept. To better comprehend the grievances of Indigenous Mexican communities, one must examine Kahlo’s genealogy and the way she chose to portray her identity.

Kahlo was the daughter of a German man and a mestiza woman; the term mestiza refers to a person of mixed Spanish and Indigenous descent. Kahlo’s mother held tenuous ties to the Indigenous people of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, a region in the state of Oaxaca.

(Excerpt) Read more at harvardpolitics.com ...


TOPICS: Arts/Photography
KEYWORDS: appropriation; cultural; fridakahlo
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Have no idea, who Frida Kahlo is/was, but this is what is important to Harvard students now?

There are more important things to worry about, you woke z'ers.

1 posted on 01/07/2024 2:07:32 PM PST by DallasBiff
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To: DallasBiff

She’s a Marxist icon so it’s good news if she’s being devoured by the left. The snake is eating its own tail.


2 posted on 01/07/2024 2:15:05 PM PST by Ge0ffrey
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To: DallasBiff

She’s only got one eyebrow, a unibrow.


3 posted on 01/07/2024 2:19:03 PM PST by Eagles6 (Welcome to the Matrix . Orwell's "1984" was a warning, not an instruction manual.)
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To: Ge0ffrey

Yes, she was.


4 posted on 01/07/2024 2:22:18 PM PST by georgia peach (georgia peach)
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To: DallasBiff

Wasn’t she German?


5 posted on 01/07/2024 2:23:19 PM PST by nickcarraway
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To: DallasBiff

Leftist mental masturbation. Either you like her art or you don’t. Personally, IMHO, if she were not a Latina bisexual communist I don’t think we would have ever heard of her save for being married to Diego Rivera.


6 posted on 01/07/2024 2:24:11 PM PST by Rummyfan (In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man.)
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To: DallasBiff

Did she and her husband help kill Trotsky?


7 posted on 01/07/2024 2:24:21 PM PST by nickcarraway
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To: DallasBiff

The original Frau Unibrow. She never heard of a dipilatory?!


8 posted on 01/07/2024 2:25:08 PM PST by Rummyfan (In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man.)
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To: DallasBiff

Mental grave digging masturb*tion.
On a shallow note: I love those earrings!


9 posted on 01/07/2024 2:28:11 PM PST by leaning conservative (snow coming, school cancelled, yayyyyyyyyy!!!!!!)
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To: DallasBiff

Mexican artist of the first half of the 20th century…. Salma Hayek played her in a biopic … which has some great nude scenes if nothing else. Like many other ‘intellectuals’ of the period she was a commie, even spent time with Trotsky when he was in Mexico and before he was assassinated.


10 posted on 01/07/2024 2:30:27 PM PST by Rummyfan (In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man.)
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To: Ge0ffrey
In the future the only artistic representation you will be able to generate is a photo of yourself. Anything else will be considered appropriation.

How dare you paint a portrait of another person, or a dog, or a bowl of fruit, or a landscape! That's not you, you appropriator!

11 posted on 01/07/2024 2:35:05 PM PST by who_would_fardels_bear (What is left around which to circle the wagons?)
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To: DallasBiff

“[T]his is what is important to Harvard students now?”

Yes, this this and only this. Not a discussion of Kahlo as an artist even but an interrogation of “her genealogy” and how she “chose to portray” her own existence.

And if she’s insufficiently colored, she’ll be found wanting.

Pretty sure she was married to famed muralist Diego Rivera (if it’s Jeopardy and it’s murals, it’s him!). Pretty sure he’ll be judged too darn white, although I know nothing about his “genealogy”.

They were both big commies, but even that is not enough anymore, as you see. One must be a commie of color! And they don’t even mean Red anymore, or even Pinko!

I feel bad for any young person who wants to actually study ANYTHING. Good luck!


12 posted on 01/07/2024 2:47:17 PM PST by jocon307
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To: DallasBiff; SaveFerris; PROCON; gundog
Just leaving this here.


13 posted on 01/07/2024 2:49:00 PM PST by Larry Lucido (Donate! Don't just post clickbait!)
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To: Eagles6

The proverbial knitted brow....


14 posted on 01/07/2024 2:51:03 PM PST by gundog (It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. )
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To: Rummyfan

Kind of ignored that movie because I really dislike Frieda and figured the movie had no redeeming qualities.

Now you tell me it has Salma Hayek nude scenes?

That changes things.

May have grit my teeth and see if I can get through till the end.

And there is always the mute and fast forward buttons


15 posted on 01/07/2024 2:58:28 PM PST by rdcbn1
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To: who_would_fardels_bear

75% of her paintings are self portraits.


16 posted on 01/07/2024 3:00:12 PM PST by Ge0ffrey
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To: Ge0ffrey

This is a good lesson in how committed lefties can expect to be treated in the new regime. They’ll still find an excuse to hate them!


17 posted on 01/07/2024 3:00:33 PM PST by aynrandfreak (Being a Democrat means never having to say you're sorry)
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To: DallasBiff

Kahlo had a terrible life medically. At an early age, she contracted polio which crippled one leg. At 18, a handrail impaled her pelvis during a bus accident. Later on in life her crippled leg had to be amputated.

She was interested in anarchism, Communism and having affairs, including with Leon Trotsky. I suspect that her marriage to artist Diego Rivera was part of her fame.

She’s part mestizo and was born in Mexico. Why that doesn’t qualify her to paint with Mexican imagery, I don’t understand. Being half-German makes her all white and privileged? If so, then Obama isn’t our first black president. These people are illogical.


18 posted on 01/07/2024 3:03:42 PM PST by skr (Righteousness exalteth a nation: sin is a reproach to any people. - Proverbs 14:34)
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To: DallasBiff

It’s always something.


19 posted on 01/07/2024 3:25:43 PM PST by left that other site (Romans 8:28)
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To: Ge0ffrey

not to mention the Snake is eating its own tale.


20 posted on 01/07/2024 3:28:15 PM PST by Qwapisking ("IF the Second goes first the First goes second" L.Star )
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