How I love ya
Yeah, I'm a real sensitive guy.
My daughter Megan had a friend over for dinner recently. I was on one of my rants − I really really hate the “Christmas Shoes” song − and for emphasis I said that, given the chance and a time machine, I would totally kill the Christmas Shoes guy before I killed Hitler. It was a variation on the “shoot the lawyer twice” joke, I thought, and not a revelation of my shallowness and insensitivity.
It was pointed out then − and has been pointed out thoroughly since − that this kind of utterance is in bad taste. Even when the dinner guests are not Jewish.
Yeah.
But what if my words were somehow made tangible? What if instead of having my tasteless joke float away into the atmosphere I was left with a statue of Hitler and I laughing while shooting the “Christmas Shoes” Bastard (CSB)?
Eventually, although I thought it was funny, someone would likely tell me that having Hitler and I laughing and shooting the CSB was not an appropriate decoration for my living room. They would say that, although I thought it was merely amusing, most people find it abhorrent. If the friend was kind they would admit there’s no accounting for taste and help my put my Hitler into storage.
Upon my death by great-great grandchildren might find boxes and boxes of various Hitler-joke statues in my attic and, given that by then they’d be antique offensive jokes instead of just offensive jokes, the great-great grandkids might endeavor to sell them.
I like to imagine that that’s precisely what’s going on at Season’s Best, a local antique mall. Antique malls are the offspring of the flea market and consignment shops where various people pay a fee − either a percentage of sales or flat rental rate − for the privilege of selling their wares in absentia.
The couple who owns the shop, therefore, aren’t responsible for what their vendors have on offer. Which is cool because one of their vendors has the most astounding pick-a-ninny collection this side of 1920s Alabama.
Americana
Marketed as, I swear, African Americana, most of the pieces are really too offensive to be seriously on offer. Huge round white eyes gaze wildly out of impossibly black faces. Very red swollen lips smile in surprise and in once case spread to allow a watermelon to pass through.
No, really.
Several things are disturbing/intriguing about the collection. First, it’s pretty extensive. Someone either spent a really long time searching for these or, like my pretend progeny, found them in the possession of someone without the good sense to admit they made an ill-informed purchase.
And that’s awful thing number two: These are not merely for sale, they’re for resale. Not only did someone buy the teapot made to look like the head of a black (again, not brown) hobo, someone conceived of the black hobo teapot and someone else gave the go-ahead to its production. Hundreds (thousands?) of people saw these in the store and purchased them either because they were attracted to them or thought they’d make a great gag gift. Then someone thought, “Hey, these are just too valuable to throw away. There must be a market for these.”
And finally, what is possibly the most terrifying thing about the whole project: I totally want to buy the collection.
Welcome to my home
Imagine being a guest in my house and at every turn coming face to face with the most offensive art you’ve ever seen. I would structure the house in such a way that, the living room say, would have the few items that could pass as African Art − figurines which look as if they were inspired by that painting in “Good Times.”
Guests would, at first, just think, “Wow, Tony has odd tastes in art.” They might ask if I’ve been to Africa recently or − and this would be the best − say nothing at all about my unusual decor. But the experience would deteriorate from off-putting to surreal. By the time they were sipping tea from the black hobo pot they’d be totally confused and maybe a little alarmed.
Of course, I could never own these things. Not because I fear others’ judgement but because these are precisely the sorts of things that ought never be displayed ironically. I knew a guy once who liked to ask if I had a lot of “spooks” visit me on Halloween. It was meant as a kind of Liberal trap, where your latent racism is supposed to show up because you object to innocuous words.
But, contrary to this person’s beliefs and my own desire to shock and possibly offend my guests, good taste is where racism and irony part ways.
While it’s ironic that white trash novelty items have become quasi-valuable art, it’s not ironic how comfortable companies and artists were mocking African Americans for profit. And it’s not ironic that it’s marketed as African Americana. It’s actually, like the spooks joke or the CSB joke, a little pathetic.
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