WIX Archives

Re: Authenticity vs. Political Correctness

Posted by Tim Savage on Tue Sep 17, 2002 10:25:07 PM

In reply top 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 tha
: t time, our B-24 has taken on several paint schemes... ori
: ginally painted all around as the "All American"... then g
: etting the right side redone for sponsorship as "Golden Gi
: rl". In its most recent scheme it is painted as a 5th Air
: Force veteran, the "Dragon and His Tail" of the Joseph Pag
: oni crew in the 43rd BG, 64th BS and commemorating what ma
: y have been the last scrapped USAF surplus B-24 as it stoo
: d 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 ye
: ars, recently we have started drawing criticisms from a ca
: mpaign by a few people to get the nose art changed, citing
: many opinions based around what can be considered some mo
: re right-wing moral thoughts. In this campaign, it has bee
: n called "public pornography" and "a gateway to further de
: gradation of morality leading to deviant behavior". Though
: some claims are very hard to believe, I respect their opi
: nion and am one of many in the CF that have been rethinkin
: g the future of that paint scheme.
:
: My question is where does one draw the line? Ever since ai
: rcraft have been saved from the scrappers torch, private c
: ollectors and museums have applied authentic nose art to t
: heir 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 f
: ighting for, and yes, they expressed that freedom by paint
: ing whatever they wanted on their planes. Our warbirds tod
: ay are historic museum pieces cataloging the history of WW
: II or any other conflict... should they not be painted as
: they were?

I think the Dragon and its Tail is a great paint scheme. I also do not see any harm in painting a tasteful bikini top on the woman. I have a young son and I would like to control how he is exposed to nudity and when I have to education him about sex. It is unfortunate that when I take him to airshows that I am going to have to worry about that before I may want to.

Even during the war their was a move to cover up the fully nude nose art at some point during the war. Most of it disappeared under bathing suits and lingerie.

I have less of a problem with the B-24 as with some other warbirds out there that have non authentic paint schemes with nude figures on them that have no historic background. There is one BT-13 in particular that is just hideously tacky and draws a lot of comments from people who don't like it.

I remember hearing a story a while back about a bomber that showed up at a Naval Base and the commander required the nose art to be covered up. This nose art was also pretty tacky and unathentic. Have you ever had that problem with any of the CF airplanes?
:
: When hearing recently that John Ashcroft demanded that an
: antique sculpture of a nude which could be seen in the bac
: kground during press conferences be covered or removed, I
: started to wonder how far we have come. Do we now change h
: istory in reaction to a party political moral code? Are we
: to lock down Renaissance sculpture galleries? Will Nation
: al Geographic now be considered pornographic because of an
: article on a tribe in Africa? What are we to do as warbir
: d 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?

I would love to see a documented cite on this Ashcroft thing. I have my doubts that it actually happened as a lot of inaccurate things are being floated around about him by a liberal media that is none too happy with his opinions on morality.

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