Defend the Indefensible: Che Guevara kitsch

better than the reagan kitcsh that rips it off?

actually i don't know if that's true.

never seen anyone wearing or owning either, tbh

Most of the people - read: douchebags - wearing these things don't have the slightest idea who Che Guevara is. Not that knowing who he is would stop these twats from wearing the shirts or anything. Just like those hotties in Brooklyn wearing 'ironic' Nazareth shirts and shit. Why can't they all die some Final Destination-esque ironic death?

what if someone knows who he is and still gets a che tattoo?

i guess using the word "kitsch" in the title sort of stacks the deck. maybe "che guevara paraphernalia"?

brooklyn hotties, RIP

amasteurist if assholes whatever is a fascist guy, so he would not like anything to do with che ever

i think a che TATTOO is sorta beyond kitsch isnt it? xp

The taliban "thumbs up" comic panel is the Che Guevara tshirt of ILX.

http://www.theseminal.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/jay-z-che.jpg

i mean, i heart jay-z and all ... but still, PLEASE -- jigga would be one of the FIRST that che would go after.

and i've said it before, but i'll say it again: stuff like che t-shirts and the like are especially offensive to those of us who had relatives who lived in communist countries run by folks like che guevara. radical chic be damned.

same thing with nazareth t-shirts.

my dad had to hear that shit on the radio, man >: (

nazareth actually did rule a small island nation in the south pacific. i have a friend whose uncle has some horror stories about that.

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/images/martiancher2.jpg

Most of the people - read: douchebags - wearing these things don't have the slightest idea who Che Guevara is.

-- If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Monday, August 4, 2008 4:17 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

"communism is great IN THEORY"

on the real though my mom got me a giant che flag for my room once and i was way too fucking embarassed to ever take it out of the closet

coming from a dude whose aim name is chelives1986

just sayin

hoos u apparently missed the followup sentence of if assholes whatever's post

is this mom who gave you the che guevara poster which you were always too embarrassed to post the same mom who is married to another woman who you have a problem with because both unironically equate obama with osama?

because if so i mean this in the best way possible: you are an interesting person

yes it is true

Did you ever consider using this novelty flag as a bedsheet?

too thin! it's still folded in my closet lol

can i also say

and i've said it before, but i'll say it again: stuff like che t-shirts and the like are especially offensive to those of us who had relatives who lived in communist countries run by folks like che guevara. radical chic be damned.

-- Eisbaer, Monday, August 4, 2008 4:28 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

cuban gf and her grandparents (fought on castro's side and fled when things went extra-south, amazing surely embellished stories from this guy) have educated me on this, and i'm extra-thankful for it.

LOL at not liking Che = 'fascist guy'

Do you know anything about the dude, man?

http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/59585122/480800

:=D

cuban gf and her grandparents (fought on castro's side and fled when things went extra-south, amazing surely embellished stories from this guy) have educated me on this, and i'm extra-thankful for it.

I had a Cuban co-worker with similar background. Unfortunately was also fanatical worshipper of mindless clothes-horse money-marrying Jackie Kennedy/Onassis.

I've had friends of relatives whose death certificates were signed by Che. "Kitsch" isn't even kind.

I encountered someone who, on vacation bought a Che T-shirt from. He claimed to have "bought it just because he's a communist," although he made it clear that aside from that fact he had no idea who he was, and I imagine no idea as to what communism is either.

Bff once got a me a set of Che kleenexes.

Once I got my head cleared of Che worship I was happy to wipe my nose on the dude.

so no one will defend this? i was hoping for a good argument.

i was ready to defend it but the people who are like "that guy on your tshirt actually killed actual people i actually knew" kindve fucked that up, blame it on them

I mean for reasons of ideological consistency I think it's actually pretty indefensible for any self-respecting commie to be Che-adorned; those aside, it's also indefensible for anyone who really understands who this guy was and what he did.

"Rebellious" kids are gonna keep spending their allowances on capitalist-approved icons of rebellion, but they'll grow out of it. They'll look a little foolish in the meantime, but what teenagers don't?

I like the parodies.

> I like the parodies.

A personal WTF favorite:

http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/1662/ramboposterwl6.jpg

I don't know if (and how) that's a parody as much as just a Rambo stencil.

It always looked to me like a cop of the Alberto Korda photo, plus the (faked?) stencilled appearance of it evokes the whole graffiti as voice of the revolutionary spirit thing. To me, anyway.

For comparison

http://greg.org/archive/fitzpatrick_che.jpg

"Rebellious" kids are gonna keep spending their allowances on capitalist-approved icons of rebellion, but they'll grow out of it. They'll look a little foolish in the meantime, but what teenagers don't?

i know a 60-something guy who is considering getting a che tattoo.

My in-laws bought our three-year-old a Che t-shirt (from the airport!) because they thought it was cute (I guess) and because (I guess) they just saw it as some sort of lefty symbol that let them feel superior to other people. I smiled politely but refuse to let her wear it in public.

I doubt his image would be so popular if he'd been butt-ugly, rather than a handsome rebel. It's interesting, somehow, that both he and Saddam Hussein remained defiant at the moment of their execution, if reports are accurate; did the same ideology that made them murderous also help them to meet death with a certain bravery? Or is Guevara more akin to, say, Danton, or Marat?

Meanwhile, Paquito burns Santana for wearing a Che T-shirt.

Oh, and in case the above isn't clear enough, fuck Che paraphernalia/worship/whatever. If you need an icon, pick someone who didn't execute shitloads of innocent people.

I was about to go make a Che stencil-style image of Ryan Stiles as a reply to that just now... but then I realized that it's exactly the kinda shit those ironic tshirt sellers peddle in. Fuck that shit too. (Though having a Karate Kid shirt > Che shirt)

T-shirt companies killed fun.

In Italy they have Mussolini kitsch. Kinda puts a perspective on the Che Guevara t-shirts.

http://www.skewsme.com/disney/princeharry.jpg

Kinda puts a perspective on the Mussolini etc

"T-shirt companies killed fun."

I bet you want this on a T-Shirt.

http://www.atoa.ws/Spring01/GREEN.jpg

I saw a guy on a beach in Italy wearing a Che Guevara speedo with Che's face across his ass. It was a nice ass too.

was the cigar--

oh, never mind.

The iconic Che photo was cropped from a larger photo also featuring Sarte and Simone Beavoir. In retrospect it's no wonder the handsome Che sold a billion t-shirts while t-shirts with this face

http://img111.imageshack.us/img111/5844/sartre2cy0.jpg

Never made it past initial development discussions.

sartre shirts are pretty common also

closest thing i've read to a 'defense' in that it's the only thing i've seen that tries to actually make sense of it - http://www.slate.com/id/3137/

if there's any defense it's one of degrees - that the american left's embrace of che hasn't resulted in nearly as many deaths or bad policy as the american right's embrace of franco or pinochet or apartheid era south africa or the shah of iran or the sandinistas or jonas savimbi or o yeah saddam hussein or osama bin laden. that even as horrendously bad judgment calls by the left go it doesn't compare to embracing stalin in the fifties (hello again mr sartre) or the mao love among the western left (mainly in europe i think, in the us i think they either jumped right on che or, if really edgy, ho chi minh. or actually the fashion went mainly w/ the black panthers or the weathermen, which at their worst i'll take a million times over a psycho like che guevara nevermind mao or stalin) at the height or his evil. that even then in the us at least these poses tended to rarely (but not never, cf. mcgovern and ceausescu) ever come from any prominent member of the american left whereas on the right these poses were most prominent among the leaders of the party, govt when in charge, and conservative movement (hello there mr buckley) leading to acts - overthrowing democratically elected govts, installing brutal dictators, usurping the us constitution, funding terrorists - that imo at least are worse than buying a bad t-shirt. that maybe the current che kitsch somehow blocks even worse targets like say shining path or hamas or hugo chavez from becoming trendy(er). the best defense i could muster though is that che kitsch has or is slowly robbing him of the power of his image, that even now it's hard to see his image as anything but the commodification of rebellion and that, even more hilariously, more and more it's the commodification of a commodification of rebellion so that we get wonderful moments like this. you get what you deserve.

chavez would only be worse because he's current.

mao love is equally, if not much more, indefensible, of course. chris marker's riposte to french maoists in his LE FOND DE L'AIR EST ROUGE is pretty brutal and wonderful. i mean, news from china ca. 1967 wasn't perfect , but it's still astonishing that people would be big-upping mao at the fucking HEIGHT of the great proletarian cultural revolution.

we all have Andrew (Genocidal) Jackson in our wallets.

I wish.

I was gonna say, except for and what

and twat, morelike

I've sometimes wondered if critique of che t-shirts (either 'you don't even know who he is' or 'omg he killed all these people') is there to distract us from the sweatshops in which all t-shirts, whether or not they feature che, tend to be made?

I only buy my Che shirts from reputable Made in USA sources.

You can now see the Amazing Che! (1969) on Blu-ray! Starring Omar Sharif and Jack Palance as Che and Fidel. Soto, don't disappoint me.

https://www.cineaste.com/articles/emcheem

http://cinapse.co/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Che-still.jpg

Che and Chong

Amazing Che Flow

Soto, don't disappoint me.

I must do my duty, ma'am.

disappointed it's not called The Amazing Che!

also: just finished Reinaldo Arenas' memoir.

Amazing Che!

How sweet the sound.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFa9wSgG5p8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFa9wSgG5p8

http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u120/kingkonggodzilla/20161030_102717_zpsi0jlseqh.jpg