An article in today’s Charleston Daily Mail explains the controversy surrounding the statue, which was intended to grace the grounds of the state capitol complex in Charleston. The state reportedly already owes $50,000 for the statue, and bronzing it and placing it at the Capitol will cost an additional $300,000. For that kind of money, they’d better be getting a pretty good statue, so Larry Lynch, director of the state’s Division of Veterans’ Affairs and no relation to Jessica, is exhibiting the statue to veterans’ groups to solicit their opinions; it’s unclear from the article just what weight will be given to those opinions, but “[c]onsensus against the statue could knock it from its proposed location at the Capitol.” Lynch appears open to the possibility of commissioning another model.
The artist, Joe Mullins, maintains that having veterans decide on the statue is inappropriate: “I spent two years in the military,” he said, “and they didn’t spend two years in art school.” He reportedly chose the statue’s look in order to best represent female veterans of “all eras, service branches and jobs.”
What’s more, some of the negative comments seem to be rooted more in bias than in reality; the Daily Mail reports that critics are saying the statue is “too muscular” and “should have a skirt” instead of the pants and T-shirt currently depicted. So it may be that preconceptions of how female soldiers are “supposed” to look will derail the completion of the statue; it may be news to some, but they don’t all look like the girl on JAG.
Slightly milder criticism comes from the Veterans of Foreign Wars, whose adjutant quartermaster simply said, “They don’t think it’s appropriate for a lady that was in the service.” Similar comments are reported to have come from women who’ve seen the statue, with one claiming the depicted soldier looked “cheap.”
So does the statue really look like a man? Is it an inappropriate representation of female soldiers and veterans? Take a look and decide for yourself.