{"id":3947,"date":"2016-08-21T16:20:00","date_gmt":"2016-08-21T21:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/?p=3947"},"modified":"2016-08-21T16:31:58","modified_gmt":"2016-08-21T21:31:58","slug":"what-do-these-trump-statues-convey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/2016\/08\/21\/what-do-these-trump-statues-convey\/","title":{"rendered":"What do these Trump statues convey?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If your social media feeds are\u00a0anything like mine, you cannot hope to avoid a certain\u00a0artistic conception of a corpulent, genitally-deficient, fully-nude presidential candidate.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Nude Donald Trump statue removed from NYC&#39;s Union Square. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/hRB03MsY0G\">https:\/\/t.co\/hRB03MsY0G<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/uCyZAxztm7\">pic.twitter.com\/uCyZAxztm7<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; The Associated Press (@AP) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AP\/status\/766395474010046464?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 18, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">11 nauseating photos of NYC\u2019s naked Trump statue  <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/91maNl9o0P\">https:\/\/t.co\/91maNl9o0P<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; I vote blue \ud83d\udc99 (@Brasilmagic) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Brasilmagic\/status\/766512536455819266?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 19, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/AllErectionsMatter?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#AllErectionsMatter<\/a>, no matter how small. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/pwZ9DONRPu\">https:\/\/t.co\/pwZ9DONRPu<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; \ud83d\udc99A. Denovir\ud83d\udc99 (@Adenovir) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Adenovir\/status\/766785305013809152?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 19, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s just a sampling, of course. You are free to search for more, at your own risk.<\/p>\n<p>Without reading the artist&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dnainfo.com\/new-york\/20160818\/union-square\/meet-man-behind-naked-donald-trump-statue\">backgrounder<\/a>, what do the statues convey to you?<\/p>\n<p>From\u00a0where I&#8217;m sitting\u00a0(in my living room, at a reasonably safe distance) the statues\u00a0send a number of deeply negative messages.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>It is okay to shame people for being old<\/li>\n<li>It is okay to shame people for being overweight<\/li>\n<li>It is okay to shame people for having unusually-sized\u00a0genitals<\/li>\n<li>If someone is ugly on the outside, this reflects their moral character<\/li>\n<li>Testicles are an apt metaphor\u00a0for (moral) courage<\/li>\n<li>Penis size\u00a0is a good proxy for manliness<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>None of these messages strike me as particularly conversant with humanist values. The last two are borderline misogynist and misandrist, respectively, and anti-humanist as such.<\/p>\n<p>Lest you believe that I&#8217;m simply being prudish, it must be noted that I&#8217;ve no problem whatsoever <a href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/2014\/04\/20\/freezing-peaches-at-aacon\/\">nudity as art<\/a> in general\u00a0or as political satire in particular. Here is an example of what the latter looks like, when done well:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Hillary Clinton Appears Before Rally Completely Nude In Bid For Authenticity <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/FDuKL1Fwv3\">https:\/\/t.co\/FDuKL1Fwv3<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/0XAOcQLG4A\">pic.twitter.com\/0XAOcQLG4A<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; The Onion (@TheOnion) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheOnion\/status\/711206104965849088?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 19, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The satirical message is clear enough: Clinton has trouble coming across as relatably\u00a0human, even though she tries (way too) hard to be likable. If there is a similarly on-point message radiating from these monstrous Trump statues, I am simply not seeing it. I&#8217;m open to correction, though, if you&#8217;d like to leave a comment below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If your social media feeds are\u00a0anything like mine, you cannot hope to avoid a certain\u00a0artistic conception of a corpulent, genitally-deficient,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":3698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}