Sigh. The Daily Kos gleefully reports that the statue of Donald Trump unveiled in New York’s Union Square Park yesterday was just one multiple statues of the GOP nominee. San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Cleveland received their own crude likenesses of a naked, pot-bellied Trump.
The artist has emerged from the shadows as well. He is Joshua Monroe, and according to The Daily Beast, his goal was “to create a mocking tribute to the ‘modern day Emperor of Fascism and Bigotry.'”
The one in New York has already been removed, but the phenomenon has made some liberals nervous. Kaitlin Kilmont, writing at Romper, has a piece titled “Why The Naked Trump Statues Might Not Have Been The Best Idea Ever.” She quotes an “anonymous spokesperson for the group” responsible for the statues who told The Washington Post:
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Like it or not, Trump is a larger-than-life figure in world culture at the moment. Looking back in history, that’s how those figures were memorialized and idolized in their time — with statues.
Meh. Public art of tyrants never depicted them in unflattering, much less vile, poses, which renders such concerns baseless.
Kilmost closes by noting:
While the statue [in New York] is out of physical sight, the image will surely remain ingrained in social media for some time. During that time, however, Trump-opponents should be prepared for any type of graphic, unflattering, disrespectful aftermath that may ensue in the coming days or weeks. And if this election has taught anything, there’s a good chance of that happening.
Some might say it’s already happened. A bust of Hillary Clinton quietly went on display in New York last week. However, the sculpture is not meant to mock the Democratic nominee and, in fact, exaggerates her physical endowments in a manner opposite to those of the Trump depictions:
The title of the work, by Daniel Edwards, is optimistically titled “The Presidential Bust of Hillary Rodham Clinton: The First Woman President of the United States.” In it, Clinton isn’t actually nude. She is wearing a filmy support garment that hugs what USA Today aptly refers to as her “ample cleavage.”
Edwards explained:
Her cleavage is on display, prominently portraying sexual power which some people still consider too threatening.
If there is one less-than-desirable detail about the Clinton work, it is on display at Manhattan’s Museum of Sex, which has also featured exhibitions of sex toys, nipple rings, panda porn, and the like.
