This Is the Actual Transcript of a CNN Segment About the New Martin Luther King, Jr. Monument in Boston
I am not making this up.
DON LEMON: A monument meant to honor the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King’s legacy is seeing some backlash. The Embrace - it’s called The Embrace, the statue - was unveiled Friday at Boston Common, where King gave a speech back in 1965. It was inspired by a photograph of the couple hugging after Dr. King won the Nobel Peace Prize back in 1964. So look at the hands in the picture, and look at that… The art piece, designed by conceptual artist Hank Willis Thomas, only features the couples’ arms during the embrace and not their heads, which has sparked a mixed reaction.
SENECA SCOTT: It’s not the missing heads that’s the atrocity, although people glam onto that. It’s a stump that looks like a penis. That’s a joke.
MEGAN KELLY, VOICEOVER: Look at this. Look, YouTubers - I’m sorry but that’s a, that looks like a giant penis right there. I’m sorry, it does.
DON LEMON: You’re happy with it.
HANK WILLIS THOMAS: Oh, over the joy, over the…
DON LEMON: No… There are no plans to modify it or change it.
HANK WILLIS THOMAS: No.
DON LEMON: Would you do that if they, if they asked?
HANK WILLIS THOMAS: I mean, by who? I mean, because this was a piece selected by the people of Boston. This is not Hank just came in and put something. This is thousands of people worked on this, thousands of people actually put it together, and no one saw this, I would say, perverse perspective. And, I mean, to bring that to the Kings’ legacy and to dic-… to dictate the making of art and the celebration of them is really strange for me.
[end of clip]
And by the way, even apart from the penis issue (I think it looks more like giant bloated armed sausages making out), this thing reminds me of the kind of glorified (and pricey) schlock sculptures one finds at ghastly commercial galleries catering to the well-heeled "artistic" tchotchke crowd, which provoke a kind of bemused contempt. Well, at least it's not gold-plated (though a scaled-down "gold" version is available: https://bit.ly/3GQCHDk ).
OK, foreign language reference: Morcilla is a Spanish word for a kind of sausage. In Spain, "polla morcillona" is slang for a partially erect or hardening penis. Do the math.
Of course you're not making this up. One can't make this stuff up. But Thomas is right in saying he was not the only person involved and that he didn't just spring this thing on the public all of a sudden without prior warning and without anyone else being aware of what he was up to. He may genuinely find this sculpture completely appropriate, acceptable and even admirable, but given that it is meant to honor specific historical figures and that it is a public work, it should certainly have had to go through--and pass--considerable vetting by multiple parties, and the chief responsibility is theirs.