Wednesday 1 July 2020

be cool, honey bunny

Writing for Mel Magazine, correspondent Miles Klee expertly and unflinchingly deconstructs the iconography of the new American Gothic and all it says about the country’s caste and class system—despite attempts to paper-over it with fables of exceptionalism and reluctance to couch itself in terms reserved for places held, by the beholder, in graver contempt like apartheid, gun culture, entitlement and fragility.
Grant Wood’s original—like all enduring images, though I hope that this armed couple defending their McMansion, deciding to take matters into their own hands before dialling their personal racism valets, from a peaceful rally, does not become more than a meme as this is not their story, reveals more about the viewer than it does about itself and drew out widely varied interpretations—as does this spectacle. The contrast of architectural backdrop also speaks volumes to the fact that patriotism is weaponised like the arsenals stockpiled and triggered to unleash for the sake protecting what’s staid, complacent and hideous.