Tearing down the past
Statues of celebrities would be better than poisonous Confederate monuments, Vinay Menon writes.
When celebrity culture tries to overthrow history, the result could be a future in which Americans camp in the “Oops!… I Did It Again” national park or picnic under a 20foot bronze bust of Dolly Parton.
Talk about twin peaks. There are times when it feels like the Civil War never ended. It just mutated into an endless cultural war in which the crystal clear is often muddied by fuzzy nostalgia. Take the Confederate flag, monuments or military bases named for erstwhile Americans who tried to destroy America.
It’s as if I, a lapsed hockey fan, showed my devotion to Leafs Nation by proudly sporting a Habs tattoo.
It makes no sense. There are no Benedict Arnold public schools. There is no Fort bin Laden. There is no Aldrich Ames commemorative stamp. But NASCAR finally bans the Confederate flag and some people freak out as their speedway monocles pop out of their eye sockets and they fan themselves like Christmas was just cancelled.
What if the swastika was flown at the Super Bowl? There’s no difference.
America will never vanquish its demons until it understands its symbols. And here, the Confederate flag is clear cut. You don’t need to be a history buff to know the traitors who first waved that flag on horseback seceded from the union because they were pro-slavery. This isn’t about Southern pride — it’s about treachery and betrayal.
You can draw a dotted line from the Confederate army to ISIS: Both groups were and are enemies of America.
And I say that as a kid who loved “The Dukes of Hazzard” and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
So good on the rascals who’ve jumped into the reignited debate, perhaps tongue-incheek, to propose creative celebrity solutions on how to rid public spaces of this 19thcentury poison by way of two new petitions: “Replace Confederate statues in New Orleans with statues of Louisiana hero Britney Spears” and “REPLACE ALL CONFEDERATE STATUES IN TENNESSEE WITH DOLLY PARTON.”
My first reaction was to laugh and sigh, because helpless chortling is all we’ve got left in the dumpster fire that is 2020. But the more I think about it, the more I think these petitioners might be on to something.
Celebrities now have the cultural power of 19th-century military leaders. If Robert E. Lee’s brigades went to war with the Beliebers, it would be a mismatch. Those mustachioed Southern rats would drop their muskets and run for the hills as an army of screaming tween girls gave chase. If Taylor Swift fans ever decided to invade Canada, our new national anthem would be “Shake It Off” by this weekend. Stan culture is fiercely asymmetrical by nature.
Yes, when celebrities band together in the spirit of making the world a better place — as some did recently with that “I Take Responsibility” PSA about racism — the results are often worthy of ridicule. I watched that video and my retinas felt like they were coated with treacle. Virtue signalling as a performative art is always a bit much.
But statues can’t talk. And celebrity statues would bring a Madame Tussauds vibe to public squares instead of, you know, a lingering cloud of intolerance and division. That many “Civil War” monuments were erected in the ’50s and ’60s as passive-aggressive shots at the civil rights movement only proves they are not worthy of salvation.
They are merely 3D objects of vestigial hate. Topple, burn and deface at will.
If someone tried to murder me — which is exactly what Confederate soldiers tried to do to America — I would not fondly tack his poster to my bedroom wall. So, yeah, replace those Confederate statues with a Britney Kisses Madonna mausoleum or an Eternal
Kanye Flame. Who cares? If anything, a sudden spike in celebrity shrines would be a good thing for civic engagement. I can tell you right now, if someone erected a granite Gordon Lightfoot at Queen’s Park, I’d take my kids on a “Sundown” pilgrimage every Sunday.
That people are now eagerly signing petitions to have Confederate statues replaced by Britney or Dolly proves how the current protests have gained a traction previously unknown. You can see this in the very real shift in public opinion. People want change. They see a problem and they want a solution. For crying out loud, there is now a movement in West Virginia to swap out Confederate monuments with Mothman tributes.
Think about that. A creepy folk legend is now preferable to Tiger John McCausland.
And if politicians had a lick of sense, they’d realize immortalizing the Rock in rock is a far better option than making excuses for why hundreds of Confederate displays still exist — displays that ultimately celebrate insurrection. Sure, it might be weird to stroll past a Miley Cyrus Twerks statue or an Avengers motif outside city hall.
But no one passing those displays would ever feel the sting of racism.
There’s a reason there is no Norwegian chain of theme restaurants named after Vidkun Quisling.
Celebrity statues may sound ridiculous — until you realize the horrors of what exists now.
That people are signing petitions to have Confederate statues replaced by Britney Spears proves how the current protests have gained traction