Replacement Statues

We live literally in an iconoclastic time, with the called-for or actual removal of Confederate monuments in various parts of the South and elsewhere. Flushed with success (like the legendary Dr. Crapper), some of the anti-statuary crowd is now calling for the removal of ones of Christopher Columbus in NYC and elsewhere. My, from Columbus Circle yet!

They'll just have to find another Columbus other than Chris to still be able to call that prominent New York locale by the same name so that New Yorkers will not have to assign new names to familiar landmarks. Oh, well, as problems go, I'm sure Mayor de Blasio is up for the job!

Actually, New York has a few more statuary candidates for replacement: Benjamin Franklin, Fiorello LaGuardia, Henry Ward Beecher, and others.

But doing this still leaves the affected locales with a problem: what to do with the now-empty pedestals. Do they rent them out so that people with extra cash and overly inflated egos can erect statues of themselves? Or maybe honor people who have achieved in the arts?  A while back, I wrote on the less well-known statues of New Orleans. It seems that the Crescent City has erected statues of musicians, Bourbon Street entertainers, civic benefactors, South American liberators, Women Marines, and even Winston Churchill!

Naturally, we should anticipate that any replacement statues might be in turn replaced someday when they people so honored fall out of fame. Or, they should just go with allegorical themes instead!

Seriously, some fans in New Orleans proposed a statue of Britney Spears to replace one of the Confederate statues.* Spears Circle, anyone? Not a bad idea; but I'd prefer Fats Domino. Years ago, someone actually created a pregnant, nude statue of Britney Spears giving birth. Not a nice pose, indeed.

Well, here's an idea for one suitable for Nashville: Taylor Swift as a Valkyrie. (Wagner, anyone?) Kanye West should seriously beware:

Of course, statues of demigods like football coaches are sometimes erected**:

And sometimes taken down, like the one of Joe Paterno.

Lviv, Ukraine has an interesting one of Leopold Ritter Sacher-Masoch which allows for some hands-on experience by reaching in a pocket:

. . . . and is likely to embarrass the easily embarrassed! 

At least no U.S. city has this type of honoree!

Actually, other regions of the U.S. might experience some monumental embarrassment that could also be physically expunged by further iconoclasm: Ulysses S. Grant, for his expulsion of Jews in his military district, Philip Sheridan, for his advocacy and practice of population control among Native Americans, and James K. Polk, for his monumental land-grabbing in the West. Or, for the underachievers, there's always Warren Harding.

And for communities that really need an excuse for a statue, they can always honor man's best friend:

* As a Britney Spears fan from my pre-teen days, I like this idea!

**The University of Alabama, in a classic case of overkill, erected five statues of coaches. Definitely, this signals where their priorities lie. In all fairness, no statues of Governors were erected.