Saturday, October 8, 2011

Che™ Was Launched On This Date In 1967

Tickle Me Che Pictures, Images and Photos

He just won't lie still, will he?

Career-wise, getting killed in Bolivia at age 39 (see the declassified documents reporting all the details here) was the best move Che could have made. If he had made it back to Cuba he would probably be in the same nursing home as Fidel Castro today, the two of them trying to remember their glory days of show trials and firing squads while nurses spoon soft food into their mouths.

Che avoided that pathetic fate by being re-branded from a failed revolutionary into an enduring image of adolescent revolutionary romanticism, thanks to the famous photo shot by Alberto Korda in 1960, seven years before he was killed.

The British art historian Martin Kemp identifies that Korda photo as one of the most iconic images of all time in a book to be released next month, Christ to Coke, How Image Becomes Icon:

Christ to Coke is the first book to look at all the main types of visual icons. It does so via eleven supreme and mega-famous examples, both historical and contemporary, to see how they arose and how they continue to function. Along the way, we encounter the often weird and wonderful ways that they become transformed in an astonishing variety of ways and contexts. How, for example, has the communist revolutionary Che become a romantic hero for middle-class teenagers?


Here's the face that sold a million tee-shirts:














Call me crazy, but doesn't that photo bear a certain resemblance to that other great cultural product of the 1968, Planet of the Apes? There is definitely a stylistic similarity.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

TSB: How about an iconic photo of our Atty General Holder who has been working tirelessly to know nothing about guns going to Juarez
via the Sinaloa Cartel? gwb

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-atf-guns-20111009,0,6431788.story
Fast and Furious weapons were found in Mexico cartel enforcer's home

Anonymous said...

TSB: Interesting how the OWS differ. Portland, Ore had a huge turnout (well over 3000) of both young and old and complete cooperation from the police and mayor. SF a more "elite" response of arrest em and take their stuff, and in DC the politicians don't even notice. (yet!) Babies in strollers cheering street guitars and GWOT vets! Pretty iconic here!
gwb

TSB said...

Some people got pepper-sprayed at the Air and Space Museum the other day, during an anti-war (or anti-drone) protest. But I'll say this for the DC Police - they handle protests better than just about any other force in the world. On any given day there might be one or more going on, and the cops are completely at ease with them.

Anonymous said...

http://www.propublica.org/article/the-man-behind-pakistani-spy-agencys-plot-to-influence-washington
TSB: good example of what they are protesting. Everyone in DC is for sale to foreign agents. EVEN BILL CLINTON! (lol) gwb

TSB said...

Surely not Bill Clinton. That must be a mistake.

Anonymous said...

TSB: How is this for iconic? Whitey Bulger nabbed by 1974 Miss Universe contestant from Iceland. She was named "Miss Congeniality" !! gwb

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/10/anna-bjorn-whitey-bulger-_n_1003638.html?icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk2%7C103161

Anonymous said...

TSB: The 1st US politician to endorse "Occupy Wall Street" is my favorite ex-senator RUSS FEINGOLD! He says "the plutocrats are quaking in their boots" and until we rise up and overthrow "citizens united" democracy is dead! So far he can only say this on Current TV but that will change! gwb

Anonymous said...

Bill says he doesn't even remember the guy, just went to the party because an old friend needed an escort! gwb

TSB said...

It's funny that Feingold talks about plutocrats. The U.S. Senate is what comes to my mind when I think about "plutocrats."

Anonymous said...

Feingold was the only senator to vote against the Patriot Act. He worked hard to get $$$ from dominating elections (McCain-Feingold) and now heads a PAC to overturn the Citizens United decision. He worked with those Plutodopplers for 15 years and tried hard to get us out of Iraq. He was never for something before he was against it. gwb