![]() It should be, anyway.Īccording to The Daily Beast, Monroe, plans to start work on a similar statue of Hillary Clinton.And now the story of - let's just call it an unusual collection. That's the difference between us and him. Though we may not always succeed at first, we take it. In a speech he gave last night, his putative "pivot speech," Trump said, "I've never been politically correct, it takes far too much time." If we ridicule him in effigy on these terms, we lose a bit of our moral right to shun him for ridiculing others on similar terms. If we laugh at him because he's fat, and because his penis could be small, and because he's got old veiny skin, then we're simply doing what he does when he mocks people. We dislike Trump because he's stupid and venal, because he's insensitive to the needs and feelings of others, because he's erratic, and because he appears to have no principles or scruples of any kind. (Side note: If that's the point of the work, then I take everything back-it's WAY more sophisticated than it appears.) ![]() It's made using Trump's sense of humor, Trump's aesthetic texture, Trump's sensibility. All stereotypes are cliches, and cliches make bad art. I'm not personally offended by any of these things-the body-shaming, the backhanded insult to the trans community and to women, the gender restrictive expectations for men-but it's easy to see that nearly every element of the statue rests on harmful stereotypes. For the analogy to work, Trump wouldn't be the emperor. He was tricked by outsiders who were counting on the emperor's royal vanity, but also his small mindedness. ![]() He's not even, metaphorically, the emperor from Hans Christian Anderson's "The Emperor's New Clothes." In that story, con men made the "clothes" for the emperor. We know that no one should shame anyone just for looking the way they do.Īnd we also know that Trump is not an emperor. We know a person's gender is unrelated to their genitals. Now that the joke is good and dead, it's easy to see that the joke rests on assumptions about what men should look like. He shouldn't be outside showing off that old, saggy skin!īrilliant. The ideal is a youthful, tan body fresh from the beach. Especially not tiny little embarrassing ones that explain why they're racist demagogues.Īnd being veiny and pasty is funny because it's less than the ideal. A normal body.Īnd having a micro-penis is funny because it's less than the ideal. And being fat is funny and/or vulnerable because it's less than the ideal. And a fat man out in public is funny and/or vulnerable, not virile, not sexy. Make America Cum Again? HA! I won't be coming anytime soon while looking at that!īut "that" is a fat man, naked, in public. Also, he's wearing a stupid hat (added to the statue, it's rumored, by a local street artist). His fat belly hangs down over his barren pelvis. I'm laughing because his body looks ridiculous. It shows me what I already assume about Trump from listening to him. ![]() The statue represents these ironies by positing Trump as a fat eunuch with a micropenis. He also appears to be losing, which makes it ironic that he's always calling other people losers. In reality, though, he's an insecure, opportunistic bully who has tapped a vein of racial and economic unrest in a segment of white America that feels so left behind in the Obama era that even Trump's lies sound like salvation. He SAYS he's powerful, and that he's a builder, and that he's assertive, and even that he has a big dick. Some of the story's elements correspond to Trump's character: He's vain, and he's deluded about the degree to which his attempts to appear strong ultimately reveal his weakness. ![]()
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