All she ever does is stand around, with her back turned. Even on her birthday. She keeps a lid on her emotions, too. No smiles, no tears – even when betrayed. Not so much as a raised eyebrow. Ever. That can't be healthy. She must be ready to burst inside. But no, she's impossible to read, at her face.
Hers should be the first name on every Top Ten Babe List. All we ever seem to do, however, is fantasize about her death. After all she's been through. What kind of sick, demented relationship is that?
Whenever Hollywood has needed to show how bad a catastrophe, an alien invasion, or anything monumentally disastrous really is, they draw upon her image to provide that one shot that says-it-all. No movie about global destruction in any form is complete without a scene depicting her as the ultimate damsel in distress.
The most righteous thunder of indignation came from Charlton Heston, who was the very first to 'find the body' in "Planet of the Apes."
"God damn you all to hell!" That's probably what I would have said, too.
Her specialty is dramatic death scenes. I can't help but wonder if that tablet tucked in the Statue of Liberty's left arm isn't really a big driveway-size SAG card.
Her most recent cameo was in the monster flick "Cloverfield." Why, she's even on the movie poster, post-decapitation. In the film, her indifferent noggin bounces off skyscrapers like in some gigantic pinball game, to finally skid to a street-demolishing halt right in-frame of the kid 'documenting' everything with his handy-cam. The auto-focus zeroes in on her balefully staring eye, which looks eerily like its about to form a tear.
She is continually referred back to at intervals in "Day After Tomorrow" to show us the terrifying progression of a planetary pole shift. First she is drowned by an incoming high tide of Biblical proportions, then later shown shoulder deep in an ocean of ice. She made the poster for that film as well.
By that time, she was already quite the veteran of the New Yorker's view of the Apocalypse. In "Deep Impact" a comet plunges the city under water nearly up to the eyebrows of the Twin Towers – which were still standing when that movie was released – and the only things still standing of the Big Apple when the fictional flood recedes. A mighty suspension of disbelief, that, in our post-9/11 world.
Once again, our Lady's lopped-off head, floating to the bottom of this new inland sea serves to lick the envelope closed on the magnitude of the devastation just witnessed. I may not recall correctly, but did she reprise the scene for the Bruce Willis sci-fi actioner "Armageddon?"
She peeked up from the depths of a post-modern ice age in "A.I."
She parodied herself in the yock-fest, "Strange Brew," where she not only served her standard role as New York's only post-doomsday landmark, but became the Barbie Doll size yardstick by which we measured how huge the atomically radiated McKenzie brothers had mutated.
How many other films have set her up either as victim of worldwide calamity, or at least vigilant in the face of one? A Google search provided a partial list of additional titles:
"Saboteur" (1942)
"Beneath the Planet of the Apes" (1968) Recreating her scene from the original film.
"Escape From New York" (1981)
"Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins" (1985) ... and never goes much further.
"Independence Day" (1996)
"X-Men" (2000)
"Godzilla: Final Wars" (2004) – She is destroyed by Rodan. Sheesh.
I'm sure that's not even half of them.
There must be some rational explanation for this pattern. Psychoanalysts have documented countless cases of harm fantasized about, or actually inflicted, on loved ones, out of some deeply rooted issue that expresses itself as violence. Some serial murderers reportedly have seen their own acts as an ultimate form of possession and control – that they imagined lacking in their above-ground lives.
Well, nobody else can have her, that's for sure. Is it that we'd rather see her toppled by some act of nature, or monster attack, than willingly give her up?
Another well-documented issue is male inadequacy. That lingering dread that we have landed a relationship with someone out of our league, and it's just a matter of time until our beloved realizes what phonies we are. Could our continual replay of Lady Liberty's demise be a grand-scale case of erectile failure, brought on by subconscious sexual intimidation? Our last desperate reflex of self-loathing being to put her in her place with an impulsive bitch-slap?
Lastly, the most obvious inner conflict is simply that loving her is a burden. She stands for so much on our behalf. Symbolizes emotions that cut so deep. And she has never complained, or sagged even slightly, in the face of our shortcomings. Her love is unconditional, and that is the heaviest love of all – that tests our faith in our own ability to love in return, and love fully, equally. She makes us doubt what we can do for her. Can we? Have we? The question hurts just to ask.
She's the ultimate woman. Living with her is hard. But living without her is hell. If only something would lift the load, without leaving any guilt... like a galactic armada, or a huge atomic beast from the sea, or an immense cataclysm of nature... or a...
Unthinkable, yet ours to dream. It seems too typical a post-modern relationship; no matter how all-consuming, it is embroidered with dysfunction.
But of course, we aren't serious. Just funning with ya, sweet thang. Give us a kiss. Mmm-sugar.
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