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)

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BROAD CAST 8 SEPTEMBER 2007: REALITY OR REAL-LITE?

I've written more than once about the American myth of self-invention and what trouble it's gotten us into. I guess great minds (?) think alike, because Stephen Colbert just produced a "The Word" segment on this topic. Here's a quote from it:
But now, Wiki-Scanner threatens another concept that’s even more American than democracy: self-invention. The idea that you can be whoever you want to be, whoever you say you are. Now you may come from generations of Connecticut blue-bloods and gone to the finest prep schools out east, but if you clear brush and talk with a Texas twang, you are a cowboy!

(Quilt "Talk of Nation" by Anna Young of the extraordinary Gee's Bend quilters)
Orcinus (I seem to recommend them a lot) has produced another superb essay on the intersection of racism and classism at What's Lynching Got To Do With The Price of Cotton? It's very worth the long read, and especially going to the suggested essays at the end on an effective truth and reconciliation process. For now, here's a quote from it:
"It's old news that economic stress increases tension between the various working classes in America. But [a new study linked to in the article] study brings up a couple points that shed some new light on where we find ourselves today.

"First, the study is striking in that it shows very directly how a poorly-performing economy correlates with extreme forms of racial violence. Whether it's violence against African-Americans in the South during the lynching years, Asians on the West Coast in the first part of the 20th century, or Mexicans in today's faltering market, a depressed white working class always means those just below them in the economic pecking order are sitting ducks for a wave of vigilante violence. The more you look at the history, the clearer it appears that the cause-and-effect relationship is both ubiquitous and inevitable. It's a fact of American life that whenever the economy tanks, people of color are going to pay the price in blood.

"Right now, of course, the wealth gap in this country is yawning ever-wider. It's as big now as it was during the 1920s heyday of sundowning and lynching across the country. (snip) When you get this many have-nots, there are only two ways to go. They're either going to turn on each other -- or organize.

"Which brings me to my second point. This kind of violence has always been instigated with a hard shove from the economic royalists, who would rather have the lower classes killing each other on the courthouse lawns rather than going inside the courthouses to challenge the structural inequalities they find so profitable. We know the Minutemen are backed by wealthy supporters, who are using the group to promote exactly the same kind of racial scapegoating that tore apart the early Populists -- and, no doubt, for exactly the same reasons. Now, as ever, divide-and-conquer is proving to be a handy-dandy little trick that never fails to prevent people with similar economic interests from recognizing their common concerns, and pulling together for real, long-term change."


I was fascinated by an article in the Washington Post about how Persistence of Myths Could Alter Public Policy Approach. I'm going to quote from it at length because it has some subtle, precise points that I think we need to learn in order to effectively counteract the massive lying of Bushistas:

"The research is painting a broad new understanding of how the mind works. Contrary to the conventional notion that people absorb information in a deliberate manner, the studies show that the brain uses subconscious "rules of thumb" that can bias it into thinking that false information is true. Clever manipulators can take advantage of this tendency.

"The experiments also highlight the difference between asking people whether they still believe a falsehood immediately after giving them the correct information, and asking them a few days later. Long-term memories matter most in public health campaigns or political ones, and they are the most susceptible to the bias of thinking that well-recalled false information is true.

"The experiments do not show that denials are completely useless; if that were true, everyone would believe the myths. But the mind's bias does affect many people, especially those who want to believe the myth for their own reasons, or those who are only peripherally interested and are less likely to invest the time and effort needed to firmly grasp the facts.

"The research also highlights the disturbing reality that once an idea has been implanted in people's minds, it can be difficult to dislodge. Denials inherently require repeating the bad information, which may be one reason they can paradoxically reinforce it.

"Indeed, repetition seems to be a key culprit. Things that are repeated often become more accessible in memory, and one of the brain's subconscious rules of thumb is that easily recalled things are true.

"Many easily remembered things, in fact, such as one's birthday or a pet's name, are indeed true. But someone trying to manipulate public opinion can take advantage of this aspect of brain functioning. In politics and elsewhere, this means that whoever makes the first assertion about something has a large advantage over everyone who denies it later.

"Furthermore, a new experiment by Kimberlee Weaver at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and others shows that hearing the same thing over and over again from one source can have the same effect as hearing that thing from many different people -- the brain gets tricked into thinking it has heard a piece of information from multiple, independent sources, even when it has not. Weaver's study was published this year in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

"The experiments by Weaver, Schwarz and others illustrate another basic property of the mind -- it is not good at remembering when and where a person first learned something. People are not good at keeping track of which information came from credible sources and which came from less trustworthy ones, or even remembering that some information came from the same untrustworthy source over and over again. Even if a person recognizes which sources are credible and which are not, repeated assertions and denials can have the effect of making the information more accessible in memory and thereby making it feel true, said Schwarz.

"Experiments by Ruth Mayo, a cognitive social psychologist at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, also found that for a substantial chunk of people, the "negation tag" of a denial falls off with time. Mayo's findings were published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology in 2004.

"If someone says, 'I did not harass her,' I associate the idea of harassment with this person," said Mayo, explaining why people who are accused of something but are later proved innocent find their reputations remain tarnished. "Even if he is innocent, this is what is activated when I hear this person's name again.

"If you think 9/11 and Iraq, this is your association, this is what comes in your mind," she added. "Even if you say it is not true, you will eventually have this connection with Saddam Hussein and 9/11."

"Mayo found that rather than deny a false claim, it is better to make a completely new assertion that makes no reference to the original myth. Rather than say, as Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) recently did during a marathon congressional debate, that "Saddam Hussein did not attack the United States; Osama bin Laden did," Mayo said it would be better to say something like, "Osama bin Laden was the only person responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks" -- and not mention Hussein at all.

"The psychologist acknowledged that such a statement might not be entirely accurate -- issuing a denial or keeping silent are sometimes the only real options. So is silence the best way to deal with myths? Unfortunately, the answer to that question also seems to be no.

"Another recent study found that when accusations or assertions are met with silence, they are more likely to feel true, said Peter Kim, an organizational psychologist at the University of Southern California. He published his study in the Journal of Applied Psychology.

"Myth-busters, in other words, have the odds against them."

(Willow Rosenberg and Tara Maclay)

One of the most effective tools we mythbusters DO have is humor. For all you Buffy fans, here's a short, hilarious quiz: GOP Frontrunner or Buffy Villain: You Decide!



A recent article from the Sci-Tech section of CBS News covers a study which illustrates in interesting detail how one of the evils of sexism -- the reduction of women to their appearance -- is internalized and reinforced by both genders:

"In the study, participants were asked before the session to fill out a questionnaire about what they were looking for in a mate, listing such categories as wealth and status, family commitment, physical appearance, healthiness and attractiveness. After the session, the researchers compared what the participants said they were looking for with the people they actually chose to ask for another date.

"Men's choices did not reflect their stated preferences, the researchers concluded. Instead, men appeared to base their decisions mostly on the women's physical attractiveness. The men also appeared to be much less choosy. Men tended to select nearly every woman above a certain minimum attractiveness threshold, Todd said.

"Women's actual choices, like men's, did not reflect their stated preferences, but they made more discriminating choices, the researchers found. The scientists said women were aware of the importance of their own attractiveness to men, and adjusted their expectations to select the more desirable guys.

"Women made offers to men who had overall qualities that were on a par with the women's self-rated attractiveness. They didn't greatly overshoot their attractiveness," Todd said, "because part of the goal for women is to choose men who would stay with them".

But, he added, "they didn't go lower. They knew what they could get and aimed for that level." So, it turns out, the women's attractiveness influenced the choices of the men and the women."

(Image from the wonderfully irreverent Art Is Not A Scam)

And, back to humor for our conclusion, a completely heartening story from the Asheville, Tennessee IndyMedia covers how creative and courageous prostestors used ridicule in a brilliant way to drive a Nazi and Klan rally out of Knoxville. Read it and pass it on! White Flour Forever!

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