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| Beyond Reach: Frida Kahlo and
Salma Hayek |
| By Ed Hutmacher |
 Salma
Hayek portrays a foxy Frida Kahlo in the Academy Award
winning movie, “Frida.” And that’s
just the beginning of my problem with understanding
women in general and these two super stars in particular.
Perhaps the confusion is just another
indication of the how wide the rift is that divides
men and women -- a Mars and Venus conundrum and beyond
reach of male comprehension. Cosmic forces abound in
this movie, making the alien fog surrounding the female
gender more obscure. Indeed, Frida Kahlo and Salma Hayek
are otherworldly women. When worlds collide, I start
asking questions.
Should I esteem Frida Kahlo for her
artistic talent, for her intellect, for the fact that
she was a real heroine of her times: a Latina who refused
to settle for the passive role Mexican society required
for women? Should I feel sympathy for her because of
the horrific physical afflictions she suffered most
of her 47 years, and then be inspired by the never-quit
attitude that enabled her to still live a remarkable
and productive life?
Women answer that I should feel all
of these, and more. I do.
Before the movie, I knew a few things
about Frida Kahlo -- mostly that she was an eccentric
Mexican artist, and a popular one. One can’t venture
far in Puerto Vallarta without seeing something emblazoned
with “Frida” on it: clothing, beach towels
and coffee mugs, for example. Prints of her art hang
in restaurants, in stores, in my house. There’s
even a bar on Calle Lazaro Cardenas named after her
and adorned with Frida trappings.
And it’s not just in Mexico
where “Fridamania” reigns. Last year’s
biopic helped propel Frida Kahlo to international fame
and cult-like status. In the United States, a postage
stamp bearing her image has been issued, joining her
with pop celebrities Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley
as immortal cultural idols.
But after seeing the movie, I know
a lot more about Frida Kahlo. And that is largely due
to Salma Hayek, whose performance was as fantastic as
the flesh-and-blood Frita was surreal. Salma happens
to be one of the most beautiful people to grace modern
cinema, so I was easily captivated by the unfolding
drama of Frida’s life and times. It didn’t
hurt that she takes off her clothes and cavorts in making
love with a variety of partners, including her husband
from time-to-time, the muralist Diego Rivera.
In the chronicles of notable Mexican
women, Frida Kahlo stands out. She was a remarkable
product of Mexico’s post Revolutionary 1920s and
1930s -- a period of artistic and political renaissance
in Mexico -- and a genuine protagonist for a country
lacking of popular heroines.
As a child, she dealt with the misfortune
of contracting polio. At 18 or 19 (the age varies by
different accounts), she suffered gruesome injuries
from a trolley accident that required multiple operations
and several years of agonizing recovery. During that
long recuperation Kahlo taught herself to paint and,
afterwards, took some of her art to the famous muralist
Diego Rivera for his opinion (a telling moment in her
saga, testifying to the bravado that shaped her whole
life). Impressed with the young woman and her talent,
Rivera encouraged her to continue in her artwork. Later,
he married her.
 Kahlo’s
marriage to Rivera was fraught with emotional turmoil.
Through all of that, she also endured the never-ending
agony of physical degeneration and repeated surgeries.
The anguish she experienced is unimaginable. But from
somewhere within her, deep in downcast crevices few
of us have had to mine, arose indomitable grit to persevere.
Her resolve and her talent triumphed over her torment.
Since her death in 1954, Fridamania
has never been stronger or burned brighter. The movie
and Salma Hayek’s performance throws fuel onto
the fiery fame, depicting Kahlo to be a woman of independence,
courage and nonconformity. Thunderous ovations from
women around the globe resound. Men, including this
one, have joined in the accolades. But not without some
trepidation.
The movie is full of issues women
have been clamoring about for decades: education, equality,
and freedom of expression, self-determination, love,
marriage, sexuality, and politics. The 1983 biography
by Hayden Herrera, on which the movie was based, reintroduced
Frida Kahlo to a public in the midst of social movements
advancing the political discourse on multiculturalism
and Feminism. Frida -- the fierce, funny, talented,
bisexual, Mexican communist who was twice married to
the same philandering husband -- seems to have been
adopted as a new kind of role model for women. I can’t
make up my mind whether to regard Salma’s Frida
as a feminist centerfold or a fascinating weirdo.
I was surprised that one of the movie’s
two winning Oscars was awarded for Makeup (the other
for Original Score), because no matter how much effort
was expended to make Salma look like the androgynous
Frida, the persona of the renowned artist that appeared
on the big screen oozed sex appeal. Hayek creates a
full-bodied character with a definite lust for life.
Salma as Frida is a pleasure to witness.
This combination of Frida (artist-communist-historical
figure) and Salma (actress-capitalist-sexy babe) makes
me second-guess who is being portrayed and what message
is being communicated. Has Frida been transformed into
a neo-feminist icon?
Most men I talked with, Mexican and
others, were as enthralled by Salma Hayek’s portrayal
of Frida as I was. But, not much was discussed beyond
Salma’s sexy attributes. Is this the impression
of Frida Kahlo men are to have after watching the movie:
anguished sex nymph? What were the director, Julie Taymor,
and the producers (five of seven were women, including
Salma) hoping to accomplish with this movie? Salma’s
lusty performance eclipsed the more important elements
of Frida’s life, such as her art, her identification
with Mexican folkloric traditions, and her political
advocacy for the common people. I thought women wanted
men to move beyond this form of sexism.
Frida Kahlo is also a riddle, of
sorts. Apparently she fudged on her age throughout her
life, claiming she was born a few years after the fact.
An inscription painted on the wall of her childhood
home in Coyoacan corroborates the date: “Aqui
nacio Frida Kahlo el dia 7 de Julio de 1910” (Here
Frida Kahlo was born on July 7, 1910). But according
to biographer Hayden Herrera, “her birth certificate
shows Frida was born on July 6, 1907. Claiming perhaps
a greater truth than strict fact would allow, she chose
as her birth date not the true year, but 1910, the year
of the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution.”
It is quibbling to call someone on
shaving a few years off their age, but Herrera thinks
there’s more to the hoodwink than vanity. She
writes: “The inscriptions, then, are embroideries
on the truth. Like the museum itself, they are part
of Frida’s legend… She decided that she
and modern Mexico had been born together.”
If you don’t know, the making
of legends (or movies) and the sifting of fact from
myth are not mutually compatible endeavors. Some writers
on Kahlo point out that she was more than just a creative
artist: she was a calculating promoter extraordinaire.
How so? Well, the movie doesn’t address itself
to such matters. For the viewing public, another Frida
is presented.
More fitting for movie goers are
some intriguing themes found in her relationship with
Diego Rivera. Addressed are issues of anger and jealousy,
of indifference and deep affection (is it love?), of
loyalty and fidelity. That is the kind of fodder we
pay to feed on at the movies. (By the way, a ticket
costs $38 pesos in a Puerto Vallarta Theater, less than
four bucks, but we don’t get the chance to see
a movie for months after its release in the U.S.).
They were an odd looking couple,
too. Diego was mammoth and sloppy in his paint stained
overalls and huge miner’s shoes while Frida was
small and petite, often choosing to dress in colorful
costumes from the region of Tehuantepec. In the movie,
Frida’s mother disapproved of their marriage,
calling it “the marriage of an elephant to a dove.”
“It’s not a story about
falling in love,” said the actress-producer Salma
Hayek in an Entertainment News Wire interview. “It’s
a story about staying in love.”
So now we know that the movie is
meant to be a different kind of love story and not necessarily
a biographical one. Such are not as popular with the
people, says Salma, because “they’re not
as romantic.” That’s okay with me because
these two lovers are very different than the rest of
us. That’s what makes the movie so enjoyable.
What screenwriter could invent characters like these
two?
Both Frida and Diego share passionate
natures, a kind of chic bohemian lifestyle, and an equally
strong commitment to art and radical politics. Their
circle of friends includes socialist-communists like
renowned Italian photographer Tina Modotti, painter
David Alfaro Siqueiros, and exiled Russian communist
Leon Trotsky. Yet the movie touches lightly on such
hard stuff and defers to the steamy relationship between
husband, wife, and their assorted lovers.
Rivera is an overweight philanderer
and does some pretty slimy things, like having sex with
Frida’s sister. I wondered if this unrestrained
sexuality is typical of Mexican men, then or now? I’ve
read and been told that it is -- that too many Mexican
men still possess a machismo attitude that manifests
itself in womanizing. Wait a minute! Was the sister
an unwilling participant here? What does this say about
her? Still, Rivera’s sexual escapades seem to
exist apart from his devotion to Frida. And Frida is
no victim.
 Also
a curiosity to me is Salma Hayek’s comments to
Latina Magazine shortly after the movie’s release
last fall. When asked about the seven-year effort to
get the movie made, Salma boasted:
“If I believe in something,
I can sell it. I sold ‘Frida,’ which is
a love story about a hairy, crippled Mexican communist
artist and her fat Mexican communist artist husband.
Nobody wants to make movies about artists anymore because,
they say, they’re not commercial. Not to mention
movies about communists, Mexicans, or period pieces
about a fat man and a hairy woman. And yet, I sold it!”
Because I’m a man, I can see
through Salma’s crass, tongue-in-cheek description
of making movies in today’s tough Hollywood. The
bottom line is to earn money for the investors and “Frida”
must have been a hard sale. But here she expresses herself
in a very un-feminine manner, insofar as most ladies
I know, and in an even more un-Mexican way by dropping
all pretenses of politeness and courtesy. I wonder if
Frida was that plainspoken? I think so.
Though tinted with ambiguity, these
two women are appealing to me. As you’ve no doubt
concluded, I think Salma is a dream of carnality. You
might be surprised to know that, after seeing photos
of the real Kahlo, I think Frida too exudes charisma.
Not in a sensuous way but in a surreal way. Maybe I
should speak only for myself but I believe men are attracted
to such dichotomies: the familiar and the mysterious;
the real and the ethereal; the sexy and the asexual.
In the evolution of men and women
relationship, I don’t know if one gender is drawing
closer to the other, but the gap seems to be narrowing.
Movies like “Frida” and fascinating women
like Frida Kahlo and Salma Hayek definitely catch my
attention.
Perhaps that’s what art is
about, anyway. Attention. Isn’t that the first
best step toward communication?
Ed Hutmacher.
ehutmacher@msn.com
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