latimes.com
Sunday, June 10, 2001

That Was No Lady

I have a difficult time believing Alma Lopez's stated reasons for creating her so-called "feminist" version of Our Lady of Guadalupe ("Our Lady of Controversy," by Agustin Gurza, May 27). She professes reverence, but sexualizes the images to forward her agenda on lesbian relationships. Someone so supposedly rooted in Mexican culture would understand that Our Lady of Guadalupe is held in the highest esteem by men and women; she is viewed as our collective mother.

Lopez's "art" more closely represents the objectifying images in Playboy than any of the strong and hard-working Latinas I know and respect. Her choice of young, slim and unrealistically busty models seems to reflect more her own personal sexual interests than any feminist perspective on women's beauty or strength. Lopez's "art" only confirms that heterosexual males do not corner the market on the objectification of women's bodies for their own titillation and self-aggrandizement.

GABRIELA MAFI
Seal Beach