October 10, 2007--Itsy-Bitsy Che Bikini

Can it possibly be true that Che died 40 years ago and that he was only 39 years old when he was hunted down by CIA agents? He may, though, be one of our cultural heroes who benefited from an early demise. Like James Dean and Elvis and Jim Morrison and JFK and Marilyn, in this way he lives on in our minds as eternally youthful and vigorous, and evokes whatever needs and fantasies we assign to him. This would be considerably more difficult to do if he were still alive and, what, 79. Che, like some of the others, also lives on as a commodity. Anywhere we are in the world we see youth of all ages wearing T-shirts emblazoned with that iconic 1960 photo of Che with shaggy beard and star-embossed beret. What they are signifying by sporting his image, from places as disparate as the Riviera to squatter towns in Rio, you would have to ask them to understand. I suspect their answers would not take into consideration anything derived from his true life story but would tell you a great deal about their inner promptings and feelings of loss and despair. Nothing, I suppose, is wrong with that. And it doesn’t hurt, I again suppose, that there is a cottage Che industry. According to the NY Times (article linked below) you can find Che postcards, Che key chains, Che paintings, and—if you can believe it—at Target stores Che-adorned CD carrying cases. What Che has to do with CDs or what his appeal might be to teeny-boppers is beyond my comprehension, but Target had enough of them on display to get in trouble. They and others marketing Che products were accused of trying to make a quick-buck from “tyrant-chic.” Che’s daughter Aleida Guevara is OK with all of this (though apparently unlike Elvis’ heirs she is not turning a profit from his mythic memory), but she worries that the mall rats and souvenir hunters are drifting from “his revolutionary ideals.” I don’t know about that. In June, while on Mallorca, most of the folks in Che T-shirts I saw being shuttled back and forth to the port from their 100 meter yachts, after shopping, looked as if they were about to head for the Bolivian mountains to take up his cause. But Señora Guevara did draw the line when she heard that some designer recently came out with a line of Che bikinis. With this concern, it is not hard to agree. I did attempt to find them advertised on the Internet but couldn’t locate any. Maybe you can help. But in the meantime, I’m left to my own Che fantasies—Where do you imagine said designer affixed the Che image or images? I can come up with a few possibilities, but think I need to get a life.