My wife brought something interesting to my attention
recently that I thought would be of great interest to the class. What do we do as public historians when
we find out that something that has been considered an iconic representation of
one thing actually turns out to be a representation of something quite different,
and far worse? We all know the
picture of George and Greta that was taken in Times Square on V-J Day
1945. This iconic picture
supposedly represents what my 16-year-old recalls as being called the “kissingest”
day in U.S. history.
If you do a Google search for Famous Kissing Photo you can see just how iconic the picture has
become over the last 50 plus years.
As it turns out though, the two did not know know each other at all and Greta was not even a nurse. George Mendonsa had been out on a date with another woman, when they heard the news of the Japanese surrender, so they celebrated with
drinks. Later when George was in
Times Square, intoxicated, 21 year old Greta Friedman was in the square to verify the news of the surrender that she had heard back at the dental
office she worked in. Out of the
blue, George grabbed Greta, holding her quite tight kissed her, said nothing
and walked away, providing just enough exposure for the Life photographer to
snap the picture. Technically
speaking this ultimately makes this a picture of sexual assault. So, as public historians what are we to
do here, do we chalk it up as a mistake and continue to allow this image to
represent romance and love, or do we speak up and change an American icon?
Wow, I can only imagine how people would react if you put this photograph on exhibit with a label describing it as anything other than a display of exuberance/elation/relief/spontaneity/whatever. It's such an iconic image, I think you would have a lot of people become demonstrably angry if you tried to interpret it in any other way. That would be a really interesting experiment! I know I'll never look at it quite the same way again.
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