(no subject)

I posted about this on Tumblr yesterday but catkolinked me on Dreamwidth and I realised you guys really deserved to witness my rage as well :D

So this happened:

Giant Marilyn Thrown Out

A giant statue of actress Marilyn Monroe was dumped at a garbage collecting company in Guigang, China. The almost 30-foot tall stainless steel statue, which weighs about eight tons, was made by several Chinese artists over two years, based on the famous scene from her movie “The Seven Year Itch.”

The statue was transported to the garbage collecting company early this week for unknown reasons after being on display outside a business center in the city for only 6 months, local media reported.

OH MY GOD YOU GUYS I AM HAUNTED FOREVER BY GIANT MARILYN.

For those of you who weren't here or don't remember, I had a longstanding grudge against Forever Marilyn, a sculpture in Chicago of an iconic NEW YORK cinema scene (as one editorial of the era said, “Did we lose some kind of bet?”).

I hated everything about her, from the creepy rapey way she was installed to the fact that someone thought this was actually “art” to the frat boys who were there EVERY DAY photographing each other pretending to lick her panties to the fact that because it drew tourists it drew pickpockets to the fact that the filming of this scene inspired her husband to beat her so badly the neighbors called the police. I hated this statue with a passion.

And apparently they made one in China, too! I don’t know whether the Chinese artists were copying Seward Johnson (who also did a shitty, derivative “sculpture” of American Gothic, because he has no original ideas) or whether he ripped them off (likely) or whether the idea just came into being in two separate places at once.

On the one hand, I’m thrilled that it’s been thrown out (though the Seward Johnson version that defaced Chicago for a year still stands in Long Beach as far as I know). I would see every statue of Marilyn Monroe’s Upskirt destroyed. On the other hand, it’s hard to celebrate her being dumped in the trash, because it’s a continuing commentary on the commodification of womens’ bodies, and the disposal thereof when they are no longer deemed attractive or useful. So it’s hard to see the sculpture, but hard also to celebrate the above image.