Frida Post

Frida was a well planned film that allowed the audience to gather an understanding of who she was as a person and an artist. While the biopic mainly covers her physical and emotional struggles that encouraged her to act out in obscure ways, the movie successfully explained the marriage of Frida and Diego Riviera. The tough times she endured led to her many art works that expressed love, anxiety, surrealism, and general oddities that could relate to the world in a dark, yet over-the-edge style of painting. Paintings of her's must be seen to understand, but her attitude in her style of painting was easily demonstrated in the film as she used blood, gore, fear, and depression in her paintings to create an understanding for the audience. Her work could express the harsh realities of certain situations in the world and the film's creative mise-en-scene, which depicted an artistic, yet depressed world, was successfully explaining the world seen through Frida's eyes. The coloring, music, and constant slow motion close ups were not necessarily the vision of Frida's eyes, but this style of filming gave a more spiritual look that blended well with the description of who Frida was.
Due to the time era that Frida was created, there are several statements of Ortner's that should be taken into account. As Frida's most notable years were in the 1930's through the 1940's, this was still a very sexist and at times cruel world. Although Ortner's article was written in 1974, there are valid points that could be still argued in some areas of modern times. Her argument states that women could be classified with nature as men match well with culture. For a 1970's article, such statements were well articulated and relate to Frida. There was a large part of the film that focused on Salma Hayek's devastatation as she lost her unborn baby. A large part of Ortner's articles takes notice of the mutual effort in creating a baby. This relates to the unjust treatment of women at the time of Frida. "Whereas in serving the species, the human male also remodels the face of the earth, he creates new instruments, he invents, he shapes the future" (Ortner, 75). Unfortunately, males have dominated the social aspect and have therefore, had more power in certain areas. For example, Frida was only selected to do a few art shows in her life, one of which was the reason of her cheating, degrading husband who does not understand the concept of a faithful marriage. Regardless, she struggled, dealt with his constant cheating, and played him well as she received her personal exhibit which demonstrated her passion in art. The reason her husband Diego could get away with cheating was not only that Diego explained to Frida before they married that he liked many women, but because Frida was growing up in an unjust world where this happened more than people wanted to face. The theoretical approach of Ortner and many others through time is the female has the beautiful body (nature) and can create the child through such a body (nature). However, the male is the one who conceives the child and therefore, questionably, people look at males as culture, and such advantages of being able to conceive children, help the role of culture vs. nature. This is unfortunate, but at the time of Frida and Ortner's writing, such statements could be argued.
"What is it about about Kahlo that promted Madonna to add her to her repertroire of appropriate female images?" (Bergman, 1). This quote was chosen to demonstrate the passion Madonna has for female artists who have encountered the many unfortunate circumstances in life. Madonna loves Frida for her ability to portray her emotions through her artwork. Argtuably, a combines point of the Bergman and Mencimer articles is that some, if not, all women have to endure a psychologically unsettling experience in their life in order to gain recognition in the art world. Although Frida's husband Diego did help a lot, her message was the importance. Madonna acknowledges her passion and this is why she privately owns the Frida paintings to herself. Unfortunately, Madonna has purchased some of the more prestigous paintings which are only seen by Madonna herself. Regardless, ther two final essays of Mencimer and Bergman accurately reflect Frida and what women must endure to succeed in the art business. This is undeforunate, but these essays and history has demonstrated that some women have had to go through imbalanced, emotional situations in order to gain recognition throughout the art world. Kahlo herself is the prime example.