Desperately Seeking Frida

There is nothing that ruffles my Aztec feathers more than to see a description of one of Mexico’s most famous and prolific artists described not as a Mexican, but as a “German-Jewish-Mexican” (“Perhaps, Finally, a Frida Kahlo Film,” by Lorenza Mun~oz, Aug. 30).

That description insinuates that activists were wrong to demand that a Latina be hired to play Frida because, hey, Frida wasn’t a Mexican. She was a German “hyphenate” Jewish “hyphenate” Mexican. Kahlo was born and raised in Coyoacan, Mexico. She was a Mexican. Deal with it. If you were to hyphenate every nationality that we, as Mexicans, are, it would get really long and complicated.

Perhaps what’s most upsetting about this description is that in the U.S., if you fit the stereotype (short, brown, with a blue-collar job), you’re assumed to be “Mexican,” even if you’re from El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru, Nicaragua. No hyphenating going on there. But if you don’t fit the stereotype, hyphenating seems to become really important.

SYLVIA VILLAGRAN

Encino

*

I would like to thank Gregory Maldonado for his impassioned suggestion for me to consider Helena Bonham Carter for the role of Frida Kahlo in my film project “Viva la Vida” (Saturday Letters, Sept. 2). I agree that she is a wonderful actress and I would love to make a film with her. But in this matter I feel I must be guided by Frida herself.

Although Frida had a German father, there is a spiritual inheritance, an emotional, soul inheritance only an actress of Mexican descent could portray. I think Frida’s soul will be so much more at ease.

BETTY KAPLAN

Los Angeles

*

I have an even better idea than Maldonado. Looking at Kahlo’s picture, it strikes me that none other than Sandra Bernhard could do her justice.

PAUL DAVID LIEHR

Los Angeles

To Reach Us . . .

Write us at Calendar Letters, Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012; fax (213) 237-7630; e-mail C[email protected]. Please be brief and include name, address and phone number.