Freedom?

I'm feeling rather pissed off at the moment. Yesterday I created a post for the Museum's Facebook page using Alex Ross' 2008 superhero image of Barack Obama to congratulate the President. I was excited about my candidate's win and the other good news from the election, and thought it would be fun to post this image to tie in with current events and the upcoming exhibition. 

The image received 118 likes, 39 shares, and 29 comments... unfortunately, several of those comments were extremely negative. I was actually surprised by the reaction... people saying that Rockwell would be rolling over in his grave... that the President was a socialist... that the image was propaganda... that we had a liberal bias... people threatening to never have anything to do with our organization or Rockwell again... 

After a comment was posted saying that they couldn't believe that we would play partisan politics, I felt compelled to post a reply... that the image was not meant to be an endorsement by the Museum, but a tie-in to Alex Ross' work... I apologized for any offense, and explained that just days earlier we had posted photos of both candidates and their relationship to the Museum and Rockwell. Someone wrote not long afterwards that "salt in the wound" didn't help paint a pretty picture. Well, I hadn't thought of that... I understand that there would be plenty of people upset with the outcome of the election, but not sure I considered that this "heroic" image might rub some of our fans the wrong way... especially on the day after.

That being said, this post thread illustrated some of the very ugly discourse that is taking place on social media. The fact is that most of the comments were being made by the same two or three people... frequently irrational and, at times, hinting at racism. I was sad to see the state that politics and civility has degenerated into, although I do remember how shellshocked I felt back in 2004 when George Bush was reelected President after doing what I considered to be a very reckless job during his first four years.

Today on this Obama image thread one of those offended posted links to the inflammatory Obama 2012 movie, some garbage about this President stealing the election, and so on... I deleted those comments, and felt bad for an additional one that voiced how upset they were that this image was connected in any way to Rockwell... of course, it wasn't... apart from the fact that we are a museum dedicated to illustration arts. 

The thing that kills me is that this was never intended to be an insulting image. It was not meant to stir controversy in the way the political cartoons of Mohammad had enraged so many Muslims in the Middle East. During the last election, the Museum had actually exhibited a show on political illustrator Steve Brodner, whose work was a lot more satirical and confrontational in nature... I don't remember hearing such a reaction about any of his imagery. Actually, the Obama illustration was probably created in 2008 out of love... to celebrate the idea that our country was finally in a position to elect the first black president... I didn't ask Ross how he felt about the President's accomplishments after four years... it could be possible that he didn't find Obama's last four years to be super or heroic at all, but I think there was a different, underlying issue at stake here for those who replied to my posting.

Ultimately our curator suggested that we take the image down. In a way, it felt like a defeat. I thought about Rockwell's work... paintings like The Four Freedoms... Saying Grace... The Problem We All Live With... images that depict tolerance and freedom of expression... I think the artist would be saddened to learn how divisive our country has become. 

Alex Ross, Uncle Sam, 1997, courtesy and from
the collection of the artist. Image from the exhibition
Heroes & Villians: The Comic Book Art of Alex Ross.
©DC Comics. Used with permission.