11.27.2005

Tequila de Frida?

Artist Mark Vallen on the marketing of a Frida Kahlo-branded tequila by Isolda Kahlo, the famed artist's niece:
Isolda P. Kahlo and her Frida Kahlo Corporation are marketing lies when they equate Frida’s consumption of tequila with "her love for Mexico, her strength and her passion for life. Tequila, her favorite drink, accompanied her in the greatest moments of her life." The idea of the artist’s alcoholism being somehow romantic could not be further from the truth. It was not a sense of romanticism that led Kahlo to drink a bottle of tequila a day, but the debilitating pain she endured from the accident suffered in her youth. Add to that the grief she experienced with husband Diego, and it’s plain to see that drink was not so much a pleasure for Frida as it was an escape.
He's got a point. In her lifetime, Frida Kahlo was anything but the "style icon" Tequila Afficionado makes her out to be: as an active Communist (she's alleged to have had an affair with Trotsky), this type of capitalism wasn't her cup of, er, tea.

Found on eBay: Che Guevara Rum, which is perhaps a bit more fitting...

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