WIX Archives

Authenticity vs. Political Correctness

Posted by Ryan Keough on Tue Sep 17, 2002 10:00:26 PM

For over twelve years we have been touring the B-17 "Nine O Nine" and the B-24 "All American / Dragon and His Tail" across the United States to over 135 cities a year. In that time, our B-24 has taken on several paint schemes... originally painted all around as the "All American"... then getting the right side redone for sponsorship as "Golden Girl". In its most recent scheme it is painted as a 5th Air Force veteran, the "Dragon and His Tail" of the Joseph Pagoni crew in the 43rd BG, 64th BS and commemorating what may have been the last scrapped USAF surplus B-24 as it stood in Kingman AZ. The nose art is one of the most memorable of WWII as it features a full fuselage design of a dragon clutching a bare-breasted woman (in cartoon form).

Though we have had the design on the plane for over two years, recently we have started drawing criticisms from a campaign by a few people to get the nose art changed, citing many opinions based around what can be considered some more right-wing moral thoughts. In this campaign, it has been called "public pornography" and "a gateway to further degradation of morality leading to deviant behavior". Though some claims are very hard to believe, I respect their opinion and am one of many in the CF that have been rethinking the future of that paint scheme.

My question is where does one draw the line? Ever since aircraft have been saved from the scrappers torch, private collectors and museums have applied authentic nose art to their aircraft regardless of whether the model has clothes or not. The owners simply sought to recreate the aircraft as it would have been during WWII. The nose art as it was applied in WWII was a symbol of the freedom our men were fighting for, and yes, they expressed that freedom by painting whatever they wanted on their planes. Our warbirds today are historic museum pieces cataloging the history of WWII or any other conflict... should they not be painted as they were?

When hearing recently that John Ashcroft demanded that an antique sculpture of a nude which could be seen in the background during press conferences be covered or removed, I started to wonder how far we have come. Do we now change history in reaction to a party political moral code? Are we to lock down Renaissance sculpture galleries? Will National Geographic now be considered pornographic because of an article on a tribe in Africa? What are we to do as warbird owners and enthusiasts... do we pick only nose art that shows "lighter" subjects or change existing ones by adding bikinis or shirts or burlap sacks to them?

Opinions?

The Collings Foundation

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