On David and the fig leaf
Examining a contrived controversy and the predictable power of symbolic tropes
The recent controversy surrounding the statue of David at a private school in Tallahassee, Florida has sparked an uproar online, with many accusing the school of censorship. However, the situation is more nuanced than it first appears, with the principal's dismissal stemming more from a procedural breach than any hysteria over the content of the statue itself. It seems something trivial has snowballed into a global controversy, with hundreds of news stories about the incident, and the Italian mayor of Florence even weighing in. As the media continues to sensationalize the story, very few appear to grasp that David is not offending folks so much as living up to its long-held status as a symbol of censorship in the collective unconscious, a phenomenon famously captured by The Simpsons in 1991, and evidenced by the statue’s long history of association with the fig leaf it was once notoriously retrofitted with.
What really happened
The latest controversy began when a private school in Talla…
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