After Conducting a Deep Dive on The World's Biggest Statues, I Am Embarrassed to Be an American
My dad recently got back from a work conference in India. Not an especially touristy part of India either (if there really are any). I don't even remember the name of the city he was staying in. It's was somewhere way out east near Bangladesh. Getting there was a nightmare. Being there sounded like a nightmare. With the exception of being able to stay in the nicest hotel in the region for something like $125 a night, and a private driver for 24 hours for about 20 bucks, the whole trip seemed exhausting. I would love to go someday just to experience the culture shock, but nothing about the place sounded appealing. I would have ventured to say there's not a single thing or characteristic the country of India has to offer, except maybe the rugs, that I would want America to trade for. But then I went down a statues rabbit hole. With all due respect to the United States, when reviewing the great statues of the world, I'm embarrassed to live here. America is the most "fuck you" country in the world. How can we let ourselves be dominated so hard by lesser countries when it comes it massive fuck you sized monuments?
The Statue of Liberty is the best we've got, and it was a gift from France. Our country's premier statue is fucking French. People don't talk enough about how bizarre that gift really was. "Congratulations on all of you success, United States. We're guessing we'll need a favor from you down the road at some point, so we've made you this giant lady. Eventually it's going to turn green. You owe us one."
I guess the Statue of Liberty is kinda big. But not really. America's official government websites will lead you to believe she stands 305-feet tall. But over half of that 305-feet is pedestal. Which isn't how height works at all. I'm not 1,256-foot & 1-inch tall when I'm on the observation deck of the Empire State Building. Lady Liberty is a petite 151-feet. If there were an NBA for statues, she would be an undersized guard. The Statue of Liberty is located right outside of New York City, and you have to be so damn close to the city to even get a glimpse of it.
A statue worth it's salt should loom ominously over it's people from a great distance. A good statue should frighten the townsfolk who it looks down upon. It should be so freakishly huge that people are always a little bit worried it's going to come to life and destroy their entire city in 8 to 12 stomps. Take India's Statue of Unity for example. This is a statue for all of India to be proud of.
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A good statue should shake you to your core when you come upon it driving down the highway. To the point that if you didn't know it was coming, you might think you were about to die. It should cause frequent accidents on the main roads. Like I'm sure the Sendai Daikannon in Sendai, Japan does in spades.
A thriving country's top statue should be so big that it cannot be ignored. It should command the horizon. It should be so preposterously huge that it's impossible for the statue to not dominate every conversation that's taking place within a five mile radius. Much like a giant bloody crucifix in an Irish bar.
The United States has nothing close to that. We have nothing remotely close to the various Buddha statues of the world.
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Actually, the more I look at these statue rankings, I'm starting to wonder if America's lack of statues is more of a Christianity problem than an America problem. Of the 53 tallest statues in the world (according to Wikipedia), I count 16 Buddha's, 8 Kannon's, 7 Guayin's, and not a single Jesus Christ. Where as other countries have an abundance of terrifying Buddha's who look judgingly over them, the United States has nobody keeping watch. No wonder countries like China, Japan, and Thailand run such a tight ship, while America has been thrown into such disarray. Removing God from the Pledge of Allegiance, drive-thru abortion clinics, little boys chopping their genitalia off at recess so they can make the varsity track team, besmirching our President for bombing other countries. Nobody fears of our lord and savior anymore. Maybe a few strategically placed 1,000-foot Jesus's along the Pacific Coast Highway would make people fall in line.
Some might argue that America is too good to waste it's time with hysterically large statues. We spend our time and money constructing functional buildings. Buildings that house apartments and businesses that earn profit and provide jobs to the American people. But America has plenty of buildings. A 100-story skyscraper no longer makes the statement it once did. There's nothing bold or courageous anymore about dumping millions of dollars in taxpayer money into something that will stimulate the economy. It's makes us look weak and needy. Can we not afford to splurge on a monument that the American people can be proud of? America is in desperate need of a statue that shows the world how powerful of a nation (or how great of Christians) we are. If our government wants to convince people they're confident in the direction our country headed, if we weren't so insecure as a nation, we wouldn't think twice about building a 1,000-foot tall statue of Jesus on Alcatraz island that overlooks the San Francisco Bay.
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Although I will say, even though it's not technically a statue, Mount Rushmore is about as powerful of a "fuck you" monument as there is in the world. George Washington's entire head may be merely the size of Buddha's belly button, but there was no greater display of patriotism than when we carved the faces of four American Presidents into the side of mountain we won from the Native "Americans". The American spirit of 1941 was unmatched. But since then, it's been all quiet on the statue front.
Thankfully, if there was ever a president who would bless our nation with a statue of immense size, it's Donald Trump. Realistically, I think the only way that's going to happen is if he builds a statue of himself. Maybe we could talk him into a big Jesus. Or maybe we could compromise with some sort of split-face or front-back Trump/Jesus situation. Idk I'm just spitballing here. But it would admittedly be a power move for the ages to have a 350-foot tall Vishwas Swaroopam sized Trump statue somewhere on American soil.
If I had it my way, I think what we really need is a colossus. Much like the now destroyed ancient wonder of the world, The Colossus of Rhodes. Historians will tell you the Colossus of Rhodes of Ancient Greece stood straddled around 100-feet tall, but when I look at the artist renderings, I prefer to imagine it was at minimum 500.
I don't think there's a single river straddling colossus anywhere in the world anymore. But we could build a colossus wherever. There are millions of miles worth of rivers in the United States, yet not a single diaper wearing colossus for boats to drive beneath. Any person will do, as long as it's of jaw dropping height.
The bottom line is that it's inexcusable for the United States to not have a single statue in the top 50 tallest statues in the world. Our statue game is just pathetic in general. The only time any sort of stature or sculpture makes the news is what an athlete retires, and the organization they played for absolutely butchers their face.
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I guess the great statue makers never made it across the pond. They're all stuck over in the Eastern Hemisphere for some reason. It's high time we find a good one, and give them more money than God to move to the United States and travel from major city to major city constructing behemoth after behemoth until we have at least 10 that make it onto the 'List of tallest statues' Wikipedia page. Now more than ever, with as divided as our country is, we could use some impossibly big statues to remind everybody how great we have it.