-By Warner Todd Huston
Back in August of 2011 I finally made it downtown to take a gander at the tacky Marilyn Monroe statue that was placed at Pioneer Court near the Tribune building on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. It was a horrible. But finally, we are told that the statue is going to be removed from its current perch. Now I call THAT a beautification project!
When I saw it in August I said, “It is nothing short of a gigantic pile of tackiness in the middle of the Windy City. But the sponsors call it ‘art,’ nonetheless.” My final word on it was, “Anyway, it is an ugly, kitschy, oversized, spectacle. I give it thumbs down.”
I wasn’t the only one that panned the thing. Virtualtourist.com slammed the statue as the number one worst tourist trap in the nation.
“Forever Marilyn” Seward Johnson; Chicago, Illinois
Detractors have found so many things to criticize about this work that it’s hard to know where to start: its 26-foot (7.9 meter) scale, its impropriety given that the movie to which it pays tribute is set in New York, and its perceived crudeness given that viewers are able to look directly up the screen siren’s dress. Luckily, she’ll only be there until 2012.
But, all that is in the past… almost. Soon the statue will be removed and the Mag Mile will have all the more class for it, too.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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