Friday, April 22, 2011
Page 11
AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)
Lady Liberty Gets the Boot
By J’AMY PACHECO
Give me your tired, your poor
Your huddled masses yearning to recoup their losses
The wretched refuse of the morning after.
Send these, the hung-over hordes of hotel guests to me
I lift my lamp over the neon Strip.
I can’t imagine what Frederic Auguste Bartholdi would think if he knew what has been done to his famous statue. (Or what Emma Lazarus would think of what I just did to her poem. But that’s another story.)
By now, you’ve likely heard that the U.S. Post Office issued a new postage stamp honoring the Statue of Liberty. Ordinarily, that would be a good thing. I can’t think of too many images that would rival Lady Liberty in terms of representing freedom, friendship, liberty, hope, and our rich history as a melting pot.
On a list of iconic American images, she’s got to be at the top.
So what’s the big deal? An observant stamp collector noticed that the face on the stamp isn’t actually the Statue of Liberty that greeted so many immigrants as they passed Liberty Island, but is instead a smaller, newish reproduction that fronts the New York New York Casino in Las Vegas.
Seriously.
It’s not every day a stamp collecting magazine gets a big national scoop. But even I have to admit this was a good one.
So what did the Post Office do when faced with the realization they’d picked a picture of an imposter? They decided to keep the stamps, and change the promotional material to identify her as not the real thing.
I’m disappointed. I just saw the Statue of Liberty in December. She has aged far more gracefully than I could ever hope to, and remains lovely and awe-inspiring.
I saw the one in Las Vegas last summer. She’s sharper, clearer, and lacking the age-earned character Lady Liberty has. She’s smaller, and younger, too.
I feel like we’re cheating on Lady Liberty—like we’ve replaced her with a trophy wife.
(It’s embarrassing that the mistake was made by a governmental agency. But it sort of explains why I get my next-door neighbor’s mail on a regular basis.)
So the face honoring Lady Liberty on millions of stamps will be that of a younger, smaller Liberty wanna-be who has spent her whole career not shining as a beacon to immigrants, but instead welcoming tourists to Las Vegas.
What kind of precedent does that set? Frankly, I find Uncle Sam to be kind of a scary looking guy. I’d think that even if he wasn’t always pointing out from his pictures.
If we’re going to be so quick to accept the replacement of historical images with modern glitz, maybe we should think about replacing his old, bearded image with one of, say, actor Ryan Reynolds.
To be honest, I didn’t even know who Ryan Reynolds was until I did a Google search to find a current young sex symbol, and discovered People Magazine named him the Sexiest Man Alive in 2010. I’d actually rather put, say, Harrison Ford’s face on Uncle Sam. But that would make my point…well…pointless.
When old Uncle Sam says, “I want you,” it’s kind of creepy. If Ryan Reynolds were to say it instead, it would be pretty cool. Even though I’d know deep down he was really pointing at someone younger.
I suppose this kind of thing—replacing an old person with someone younger—has been going on for a long time. Heck, every New Year’s Eve, an old guy gets kicked out and replaced by Baby New Year.
But it still doesn’t sit well with me.
I find it ironic that the stamp depicting the statue’s face is designated as a “forever” stamp, but that the enduring image it honors has been replaced with something new and fake.
I remember catching a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty through a window inside the former processing center at Ellis Island. Although the building is now a museum, it still echoes with the footsteps of the millions of hopeful immigrants who passed through in Liberty’s shadow. I can’t help wondering what the tired and poor huddled masses yearning to breathe free would think about the stamp.
Or Ryan Reynolds, for that matter.
Copyright 2011, Metropolitan News Company