Mexican artist Frida Kahlo is now a Barbie doll—is that a good thing?
Welcome to Plain English for Thursday, March 15, 2018. I’m Jeff and you are listening to the podcast that goes at just the right speed for English learners. On today’s episode we’ll talk about the latest line of Barbie dolls from the toymaker Mattel—and why that has some people in Mexico upset. At the end of the show, we’ll go over the English phrase, “on solid ground.”
Today’s episode is number 29, so the transcript can be found online at PlainEnglish.com/29. The transcripts are helpful if you can’t quite make out every word, but you don’t always want to press pause and go back. And if you’re in luck if you speak Spanish, Portuguese, French or Chinese because the transcripts have instant translations of difficult words from English to your language. Once more, the web site is PlainEnglish.com/29.
Let’s get started with the main topic for today.
Frida Barbie doll sparks criticism
The toy maker Mattel released a Frida Kahlo Barbie doll to commemorate International Women’s Day—and in the process sparked a social media firestorm in Mexico.
Many of you probably know who Frida Kahlo is, but for those of you who don’t: she is one of Mexico’s two most famous and recognizable artists and was married to the other most-famous artist in Mexico, the muralist Diego Rivera. She had a bohemian image—dressing in a unique style and addressing issues of gender, class, disability and identity in her artwork. She herself was disabled as a child and lived most of her life in La Casa Azul, a house in Coyoacan, a neighborhood in Mexico City. (Her house, by the way, is now a museum, which I have been to and highly recommend to anyone visiting Mexico City.)
Anyway, over the years Frida has turned into a cherished symbol of Mexican art and culture, and her image has been revived in recent years. She appears on t-shirts, posters, and tequila bottles, and her artwork has increased in value; Madonna recently bought one of her self-portraits. San Francisco is even going to re-name a street in her honor.
So, the moment should be right to honor Frida with a Barbie doll, especially on the occasion of International Women’s Day, right? Well, maybe. For one thing, don’t Barbie dolls represent an unattainable, perfect, and very commercialized physical ideal? And isn’t that kind of the opposite of Frida’s genuine bohemian image? Another complication is that one of Frida’s descendants—her great niece Mara Romeo—claims that Mattel doesn’t have the legal rights to use Frida’s image and she’s trying to block the doll’s production and distribution. She also criticized the doll’s “light-colored eyes” and said she wants Mattel to change the image to match who Frida really was.
Mattel, not surprisingly, has a different perspective. They say that their intention with the doll was to honor Frida as a trailblazing woman in the arts and as a role model for young girls today. And they say that they did purchase the rights to use Frida’s image from a Panama-based company called the Frida Kahlo Corporation, which owns the rights to the name and identity of Frida Kahlo; the corporation paid Kahlo’s family for the rights in 2005. The strangest thing of all is that this grand-niece is actually a board member of the corporation that signed the deal with Mattel, so I think Mattel is probably on solid legal ground here.
However, I do agree with some historians who point out that Frida, based on her politics, would probably not approve of having her face on merchandise like keychains, t-shirts, or something as crassly commercial as a $29 Barbie doll.
I took a look at this doll and it looks like Mattel made a good effort, but the true Frida who shows through in the artist’s self-portraits would probably never look good as a plastic doll. The doll is missing Frida’s signature unibrow, the wardrobe is a little plain for Frida’s style, and her figure seems to be a little slimmer than it probably was in real life. Still, the doll is recognizable and does appear to be a fair, if over-simplified, version of the artist, who, we must admit, is a difficult person to capture. And I also think that there will always be people who are unhappy with the likeness of a national hero being used by an American company to make money. Take a look at the show notes, where I’ll post a link to a picture of the doll side-by-side with a photo of Frida, so you can see for yourself if they stayed true to life or not.
For an authentic Mexican perspective, I consulted the producer of Plain English, JR, who is Mexican, and he said that the important thing isn’t whether the Frida Kahlo doll looks authentically Mexican, but that a Mexican artist is gaining prominence through the promotion.
Mattel also released dolls depicting Amelia Earhart, who became the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, and the mathematician Katherine Johnson. Mattel said that the Frida Kahlo story is an inspiring one that they believe can inspire more girls. The first batch sold out and Mattel says it is making more.
I wanted to say hi to a listener, Ezio from Italy. Ezio wanted some suggestions of books to read in English, so I thought I’d share what I wrote back with the rest of you. I didn’t think it would be fair to recommend the most recent books I read in English, since those are probably pretty tough for someone just learning. So, I recommended the book I most recently read in Spanish, which is called Turtles All the Way Down, by John Green. If I can read that in Spanish, then I bet you can read it in English. One thing that has helped me in Spanish is reading books using the Amazon Kindle app on my iPad. By reading Kindle books on that app, I can look up definitions of tough words and even use Google translate right from inside the app. It’s pretty cool. So, Ezio, thanks for listening, and good luck with your new books! And for the rest of you, if you’re interested in some extra fun tips for studying English, just go to PlainEnglish.com/mail
, and I’ll send you my top four tips just like I sent Ezio.
Great stories make learning English fun
