Nude sculpture of Hillary Clinton causes outrage in New York, debate about double standards among bystanders
In August, nude statues of Donald Trump emerged in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle and Cleveland, thanks to a group that called themselves Indecline. Mirroring that act, an individual settled a nude statue of Hillary Clinton on Wall Street, before it was torn down by an angry bystander.
The display itself, which can be seen here, depicts the Democratic presidential candidate with hooves as feet that stand over a pile of erased emails and a map of Libya. Its blouse is wide open as well, which puts her breasts and white underwear on full display. Furthermore, there is a man -- likely a Wall Street banker -- coming out from behind Hillary, with his lips pouted near her breast and his hands over her stomach.
The statue was reportedly on display at 6am on Tuesday, but was quickly pushed over three hours later. The woman who tore down the display, an employee of the National Museum of the American Indian named Nancy, apparently screamed out in frustration as she destroyed the display. “This is obscene!” she shouted.
A video report by the New York Daily (via The Star) showed Nancy stomping on the statue and even sitting on it at one point. That was when its creator, 27-year-old Anthony Scioli, tried to place his statue upright again.
“To put something up like this in front of my workplace ... I shouldn’t have to see this,” Nancy later said.
Other bystanders thought it was unfair how the nude statues of Trump did not receive the same amount of outrage. Instead, the public took photos with it and made jokes.
“The history of how the female body appears has clearly been so negatively coded and inscribed,” said Carin Kuoni, a professor at the New School. “It makes for a completely different intervention when you see the sculpture of a naked woman than when you see a naked man.”
