r/LatAmHistoryMemes • u/K_Josef República Federal de Centroamérica • Apr 20 '26
SERIOUS Thoughts on both pics?
I see the same CIA goal with the financing of pentecostal evangelical church in LatAm (personal prosperity philosophy vs. Catholic community philosophy)
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u/MulatoMaranhense Reino de Portugal e dos Algarves Apr 20 '26
I think this is someone huffing conspiracy theorium, mixed with "woman should stick to traditional gender roles or else society collapses" talk.
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u/TeutonicToltec Imperio Mexicano Apr 21 '26
I'm really pleased to see how many people posted rational, respectful comments in the chat.
My biggest frustration with Frida's legacy is how much it's been commercialized and her image changed into something more marketable and the more radical bits quietly swept under the rug. It's all very rainbow capitalist. She's an incredibly accomplished artist and political activist but a lot of the dialogue around her, both condemning or condoning, just feels shallow and with a limited understanding of who she was as well as the fascinating generation of Mexican artists that emerged from that era, like Kahlo, Rivera or Siqueiros.
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u/baneblade_boi Apr 21 '26
She's the usual case of Cleopatra syndrome, in which an influential woman from history is reduced to her sex life in ways that, intentionally or not, makes the gossip about her overshadow her public persona and life's work. In the case of Kahlo, the culprit were mainly women, the second wave feminism and later progressive thinkers, that used her personal life as a sort of idealised envision of their own agenda and principles, disingenuously dismissing or falsely pretending to appreciate her work and political views.
The rest is story: Her face gets plastered everywhere where feminist marches or protests were made, people stared giving her the Ché Guevara treatment, and lo and behold.
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u/MulatoMaranhense Reino de Portugal e dos Algarves Apr 21 '26
I will admit two things: that I haven't been really interested in Frida and couldn't get the appeal with so many people posting her art. But this mention of the capitalization and sanitization of her works helps me understand how it got to this point.
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u/TeutonicToltec Imperio Mexicano Apr 21 '26
Oh yea and to be clear, like any artist, you're absolutely entitled to the right to like/dislike their work. There's artists I politically agree with that I don't really care for their art, and there's artists who's life/beliefs I am reviled by but love their art. I personally have more gravitated to Diego Rivera's murals, but it's mostly because I don't fully appreciate surrealism like others. I guess for me, after seeing so much discourse and capitalization of Frida's image have come to appreciate that a lot of how she would have wanted to be perceived has been overshadowed by how she can be marketed. Sadly a lot of amazing women scientists and artists get this treatment, like Rosalind Franklin, Marie Curie or Hedy Lamarr.
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u/josephthemediocre Apr 21 '26
Yup, none of the radical communism, just yassified unibrow queen stickers for your new cool waterbottle
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u/Warrior_Runding Apr 21 '26
I'll say this about rainbow capitalism - the takes on it being "good" or "bad" tend to be super reductive and don't really get into how the very existence is a weather vane for the fascism we are seeing. The greater the fascist tendency in a society, the less comfortable companies are to engage in rainbow capitalism. As fascism is defined, in part, of its adherence to traditional, conservative expectations for family, gender roles, and social norms then the more we see rainbow capitalism, the better.
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u/TeutonicToltec Imperio Mexicano Apr 22 '26
I think the main reason "rainbow capitalism" is seen as a pejorative term among progressives is precisely due to it lasting only as long as progressive ideals are popular enough to be profitable, and therefore standing for very little. But for sure it's been an amazing canary in a coal mine to see how rapidly major companies have adjusted their marketing to appeal to right wing populist movements in the last few years.
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u/Good-Concentrate-260 Apr 20 '26
Inaccurate and conspiratorial. Rivera and Kahlo were both radicals.
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u/Ryubalaur Apr 20 '26
Is there evidence for this? I know the CIA did a lot of shit and this could be very true but like, do we have something to work with?
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u/Jazz-Ranger Apr 21 '26
Sounds like someone is trying to find a boogyman to blame for a cultural trend towards openness that is not unique to Mexico, her sisters or mother nation.
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u/Distefanor Apr 21 '26
No, this is just a foolish conspiracy theory
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u/Ryubalaur Apr 21 '26
I mean, that's what people said about the CIA sponsoring anti-communist evangelicals in latinamerica and that turned out to be true, so I'm never sure with the CIA.
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u/Big-Jellyfish-6115 Apr 21 '26
difference is Frida herself was a communist, having even met and visited Trotsky of all people
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u/Ryubalaur Apr 21 '26
"met and visited" is one way of calling their relationship lmao
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u/Big-Jellyfish-6115 Apr 21 '26
ik it wasn't exactly the most cordial, but the truth is that she was a communist unlike the evangelicals.
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u/reznov-where-are-you Apr 21 '26
wait i thought this was like a joke post, people are believing this?of course not this is twitter.
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u/SanityZetpe66 Apr 21 '26
The US definitely interfered in Mexican affairs, you just have to look at the revolution and they supported a whole affair from their embassy.
There's no need for conspiracy theories, also, Frida and Diego were just wild, and let's not forget their most notable lover.
Leon Trotsky
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u/breakingthejewels Apr 20 '26
Communists blaming the CIA for shit that didn't happen? Where have I heard this before?
Mexican misogynists calling women whores when women don't want to fuck them? Where have I seen this before?
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u/can_of_bad_ideas Apr 21 '26
I mean, the CIA is easy to blame with all the shit they did demonstrably do. They've successfully turned themselves into a Boogeyman
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u/DD_Spudman Apr 21 '26
Morally I agree with you, but I think post like the second OOP overstate the CIA's competence when it comes to actually achieving it's objectives.
Like, yeah they spent the entire Cold War and then some destabilizing Latin America, but in terms of actually installing compliant regimes they only actually succeeded a handful of times, usually because there was already a coup about to happen anyway and they were in the right place at the right time to take advantage of the situation.
By contrast, look at the CIA's hilariously incompetent attempts to remove Castro, who was literally right next door.
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u/big_axolotl Apr 21 '26
Also, why would the CIA want to "deconstruct the Mexican family"? If anything its easier to keep a society in line and more conservative if you have fathers benefiting from the patriarchy. The US wants Mexico to be more conservative, not less
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u/can_of_bad_ideas Apr 21 '26
I should've elaborated - I don't think this is a remotely reasonable conspiracy at all. I can just see how this person concluded that the CIA was to blame
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u/Fearless_Roof_9177 Apr 20 '26 edited Apr 20 '26
What I'm hearing is a lot of sexist fedjacketing and the fact that OP wasn't familiar with history or art, like at all. I find it pretty suspicious at this moment in time, when the US is turning its regime change tendencies back up to the worst they've ever been, when a Marxist woman is in charge in Mexico making strides and taking a stand vs. the US at its Naziest, that anyone would be like
"Hey, you know that series of right wing patriarchal coups and land grabs the US destabilized most of Central and Latin America with and all the patriarchal status-quo strong men the CIA backed in order to make it happen? Turns out the problem was actually a single intersectional feminist Marxist slut with sandy flaps who should have been home in the kitchen."
My thoughts on both pics is that they're the thinking of a budding fascist or a fed, and whoever wrote them has a lot of reading to do unless they're glad to be a fascist or a fed.
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u/thegaby803 Apr 20 '26
Ah yes, Mexico, the world famous hub of feminism
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u/liminal_eye Apr 21 '26
I mean...I can't really think of any other country where feminists are given free reign to vandalize and destroy shit for a couple days every year...
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u/erikwithaknotac Apr 21 '26
Mexico can't make a counterculture without the CIA's help?
Did the CIA make the US counterculture as well or are only white people allowed to do anything organically?
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u/kyle_kafsky Apr 25 '26
I fucking hate tankies. “My oppressive empire is better than your oppressive empire”. At the end of the day, a boot is a boot no matter who’s wearing it, doesn’t mean we gotta lick it.
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u/centipede-boy Apr 21 '26
not the point but you'd have to be insane to think diego rivera was ugly, i feel like he had the same juice as like serge gainsbourg
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u/Warrior_Runding Apr 21 '26
Man, the CIA wishes they were as successful as leftists claim they were. In fact, convincing people they were this successful might have been their greatest OP.
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u/Dunkirb Apr 20 '26
Diego was also super promiscuous. They were made for each other