FRIDA AND THE LOOK

(Self Portrait II, 1940)

There's a great article up at The Smart Set about Frida Kahlo and what the author, Morgan Meis, refers to as The Look: The level stare that Frida of the self-portraits aims at us the viewer. The articles begins with:

"It's The Look that gets to you. Frida Kahlo took up a variety of subject matter and dabbled in a number of styles. All of it worth seeing. But in the end it is the self-portraits that endure and that fuel her ever-increasing stature in 20th century art. That's because in the portraits you get The Look. The Look is the Frida Kahlo stare. If you've seen any of her self-portraits then you have seen it. It is an expression that barely changes throughout a lifetime of paintings. Costumes change, parrots flutter into the frame, monkeys come and go. The Look never wavers."

But, he says, Frida Kahlo in her photographs does not have The Look. This author considers why that might be so, suggesting perhaps the photos are more authentic. It could be the other way around, of course. Or one of several other theories I could create rather quickly.



Each new generation seeks to define itself. Within that generation, subgroups also draw their dividing lines, their boundaries of identity, usually with an air of "no one has EVER done this before" and "we have stumbled upon an immutable truth here". When subgroups within a generation are unusually large and/or economically privileged, as in the case of Baby Boomers, these delusions will be more pronounced.

In my generation, we rejected the post-war definition of woman and instead rifled through every human attribute regardless of previous gender assignation to come up with our own construct. Some of us did this from an essentialist perspective, i.e., we believed we were "reclaiming" or "reaffirming" innate qualities of womanhood which had been stolen under the patriarchy. Others of us were more clearly coming from a consciousness-raising spawning ground of believing that by examining our conditioning with others like us (in this case, women raised as girls), we could destroy the artificial constraints of gender and create a new kind of woman -- as Judy Grahn put it, "Look at me as if you have never seen a woman before." These two theoretically contradictory groups were able to work together in community without much conflict for a time because our primary task, that of redefining woman, necessarily began with separatism.

Separatism seems to be an essential liberation stage for all groups who are target for oppression living within a larger society dominated by those who are not target for that oppression. It is an ongoing process, as some members pass beyond the need for separate space to self-define and new members arrive to take their place. It's neither a sacred territory nor a "phase" to be ridiculed; it's just part of a process.

However, once you enter another stage, when you have reconstructed or reclaimed your identity, the differences become problematic. Women who were essentialists quite rationally, according to their principles, would seek to continue on in community without the deleterious influence of those who were innately oppressive. Women who were constructionists, on the other hand, would prefer community with those who had likewise done their work of self-definition and sought to create a larger culture where the old beliefs would no longer be visited on any child, in alliance with anyone who loosely fit a similar description.

It's hard to know how this division might have resolved itself, of course, because the dominant power structure asserted itself in a highly-effective, multi-pronged backlash against all the separatist, identity-based movements of the 1960s and 1970s. This backlash is still ongoing and has been incorporated into the fabric of education given to succeeding generations, especially at the university level. Higher education has been returned primarily to those with class privilege or a willingness to seek approval from the elite. This trend is accelerating.

The so-called "third wave" (or beyond) of feminism has its own definition of woman, which is at times an anti-definition, and its own community wherein essentialists and constructionists choose to ignore the contradiction of their belief systems in order to promote a perceived common agenda. In the "new" feminism, gender itself is seen as malleable (a constructionist view) but also somehow innate for those who are "born in the wrong body" (an essentialist stance). Masculinity and femininity are theoretically detached from gender and available to all, but are still primarily linked to the traditional gender and are usually proclaimed to be innate and congenital, as is sexual orientation. Naming males, male conditioning, and/or masculinity as the dominant end of the power dynamic is often considered, at best, old-fashioned.

There is, as in previous generations, a touching but completely unrealistic faith in the ability of individuals to overcome conditioning by simply choosing to be different. Thus, just as my generation believed aspiring to working class ethics and values was enough to sidestep our classism (and racism), the current generation cannot see its own sexism and screams in protest when it is pointed out to them, demanding that intentions and "suffering" trump behavior. This is common to American culture, a by-product of our being an addiction-based owning-class empire (as outlined by Anne Wilson Schaef), where good intentions provide a free pass for those unwilling to embrace the incremental, painful change of recovery.

Under a white capitalist patriarchy, whatever genuine truths are uncovered by a particular generation will be blocked from transmission to succeeding generations by any means necessary. I therefore predict that within twenty years, those who currently identify as "trans" (by any of the current definitions of that term EXCEPT for those who believe gender is biologically innate and can be adequately transfigured by purchasing technology and appearance alteration -- because that belief system supports the dominant structure) will be open to ridicule and the target of scathing dissection by academic theories and papers. The genuinely revolutionary thinking which can be found in trans theory -- that all gender exists on a continuum and is equally available to anyone regardless of appearance, behavior or birth -- will be buried under another wave of backlash, some of which will arise within their own ranks. Ironically, the move to name "trans" as its own category deserving of separate protection instead of insisting that previous anti-sexism legislation applies to anyone of any gender will be part of what undoes the current movement. Insisting on a victim stance instead of finding common ground with the majority is what always does us in. Pity and even empathy run dry, eventually.

But drop the clutching-at-straws "cis" designation (as if there is ANY woman out there who will say she's never discriminated against because of how she doesn't fit the gender norm) and instead claim commonality with a working class, terrified-of-queers housewife by pointing out how she's considered "not a normal woman" because she wears too much make-up and trashy clothes, and you've forged an alliance that would make Dick Cheney shit in his pants.

(Self-Portrait by JEB in Dyke, Virginia, 1975 © Joan E. Biren, from Eye to Eye Portraits of Lesbians)

In 1979, Joan E. Biren (JEB) toured women's communities in the U.S. with a slide show containing the work of several lesbian photographers from the past. She was promoting the theory that we could recognize lesbians of any era or class by three often subtle identifiers: The Look, The Stance, The Clothes. At that time, our definition of "lesbian" would be more or less identical to at least one definition of "transgender" today. I saw her slideshow three times, because it raised questions in me I found exhilirating, about the ability of humans throughout time to step outside the boxes of oppression and find another means of expression -- and, beyond that, community.

When I was in my teens and not yet out to family and community, living in poverty in an impoverished rural area, my main outlet for hope and mind expansion was reading. The books available in libraries were my conduit (and the limits that implies, overwhelmingly white, class-privileged, and male-dominated works of literature). Without manipulation, let me give you a list of the writers whose works I found most meaningful, usually memorizing and/or copying out lines to put up on the walls of my bedroom:

Edna St. Vincent Millay
Emily Dickinson
Langston Hughes
Henry David Thoreau
Christopher Isherwood
Robert Frost
Mazo de la Roche
William Faulkner
Dorothy Parker
W.H. Auden
Mary Renault
Edgar Allen Poe
James Thurber
Margaret Mead
A.E. Housman
Lewis Carroll
Dalton Trumbo
P.G. Wodehouse
May Swenson
Patricia Highsmith
William Shakespeare

Every name on this list evokes a strong memory in me, a sense of their art having permanently changed my world view, much more than other writers. But it was not until I was in my 20s that I began to discover, here and there, slowly, that 14 of these 21 authors were unequivocally bisexual, lesbian or gay at some point in their lives. Two out of three -- what are the odds of that happening, unless something was being communicated between the lines? Whether it was an innate or a collected identity, somehow the way they strung words together found a response in my brain, a brain also seeking to collect my identity as a lover of women. Art can do that, because it is created by humans for other humans.

So, when I read about Frida Kahlo's "Look", I thought of something else entirely. I saw a sister in that expression, read into it a refusal to look away or play the heterosexual game. That's just me, of course, me with my conditioning and a product of my generation. You can come up with your own explanation. Below are several of her self-portraits and photographs of her taken by others. Go look.

(Self Portrait, 1926)

(Frida Kahlo in her patio, 1931)


(Self Portrait, 1930)

(Frida Kahlo in San Francisco, 1931, photo by Imogene Cunningham)


(Self Portrait 1937)

(Frida Kahlo 16 October 1932)


(Self Portrait with Monkey, 1938)




(The Two Fridas, 1939)




(Self Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, 1940)




(Me and My Parrots, 1941)




(Self Portrait as a Tehuana, Diego on My Mind, 1943)

(Frida Kahlo 1938, photo by Niklas Muray)


(Self Portrait with Loose Hair, 1947)




(Self Portrait with the Portrait of Doctor Farill, 1951)