Statue of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty, in full Liberty Enlightening the World, is a statue, given to the U.S. by France in the late 19th century, that stands at the mouth of the Hudson River in New York Harbor as a welcome to all returning Americans, visitors, and immigrants alike. The sculptor was Frederic Auguste Bartholdi; Gustave Eiffel (of Eiffel Tower fame) created the armature.

The Statue of Liberty in popular culture

During the 1940s and 1950s, the iconography of science fiction in the United States was filled with images of ancient, decayed Statues of Liberty, set in the distant future. The covers of famous pulp magazines such as Amazing Stories and Astounding Science Fiction all featured Lady Liberty at one time, surrounded by ruins or by the sediments of the ages, as curious aliens or representatives of advanced or degenerate humans of the future gazed upon her remains. The February 1941 cover of Astounding showed a primitive man and woman approaching on a raft a Statue of Liberty surrounded by wild growth.

Related Topics:
Science fiction - Pulp magazine - Amazing Stories - Astounding Science Fiction

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The Statue of Liberty has also been used as a symbol of protest, as shown in the album cover for the Dead Kennedys 1986 album Bedtime for Democracy.

Related Topics:
Dead Kennedys - 1986 - Bedtime for Democracy

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Perhaps the most famous appearance of the statue in cinema was in the ending of the 1968 film Planet of the Apes, where the statue appears decayed and half-buried in sand, serving as painful, undeniable proof to the film's protagonist, Taylor, that he has been on Earth the whole time. (This scene is parodied in the animated comedy Madagascar and the animated television show The Simpsons.) It also appears in the beginning of the first sequel, Beneath the Planet of the Apes.

Related Topics:
Planet of the Apes - ''Madagascar'' - ''The Simpsons'' - Beneath the Planet of the Apes

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Liberty is shown against a dark nighttime backdrop of a futuristic, desolate Manhattan in Escape From New York.

Related Topics:
Manhattan - Escape From New York

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In 1978, at University of Wisconsin-Madison, Jim Mallon and Leon Varjian of the "Pail and Shovel Party" won election by promising to give campus issues "the seriousness they deserve." In 1979 (and again in 1980), they created their own version of the Planet of the Apes scene by erecting replicas of the torch and the top of the head on the frozen surface of Lake Mendota, creating a fanciful suggestion that the entire statue was standing on the bottom of the lake.

Related Topics:
University of Wisconsin-Madison - 1979 - 1980 - Lake Mendota

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New York and New Jersey have featured the statue on license plates. The statue was on the regular New York plate from 1986 until withdrawn in 2003. A New Jersey specialty plate, celebrating Liberty State Park has been available for many years and, unlike the New York plate, is still available as of 2005.

Related Topics:
1986 - 2003 - Liberty State Park - As of 2005

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The Statue of Liberty was animated and walked through New York City in the film Ghostbusters II (1989). In the film Independence Day (1996) it was destroyed. In the 1998 movie Deep Impact, the statue is destroyed by a tsunami caused by a comet impact. This statue is also the stage for the climax in the films Saboteur (1942) and X-Men (2000). Much of the advertising for the film The Day After Tomorrow (2004) used an image of the Statue of Liberty nearly buried in snow and ice, after a tsunami and catastrophic climate change. The statue and its renovation scaffolding were also featured in ' (1985) as the setting for a fight scene.

Related Topics:
Ghostbusters II - 1989 - Independence Day - 1996 - 1998 - ''Deep Impact'' - Tsunami - Saboteur - 1942 - X-Men - 2000 - The Day After Tomorrow - 2004 - 1985

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The first level of the video game Deus Ex takes place on Liberty Island and inside the pedestal; in the game's backstory, the statue's head and right arm have been destroyed by terrorists in 2051. The torch is kept in the visitors' center, and a portion of the head is on the observation deck. The island is also the location of UNATCO headquarters. In the sequel ', the last level is again at the statue, which has been re-erected as a light sculpture.

Related Topics:
Deus Ex - 2051 - UNATCO

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In the computer game ', the destruction of the Statue of Liberty is seen twice, once during the first allied mission and once during the introduction, though both scenes depict the same event from different perspectives.

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On April 8, 1983, CBS broadcast a program, the fifth of a series featuring illusionist David Copperfield, in which he made the statue apparently vanish. The effect took place at night. The program showed the statue from the point of view of an audience seated on a ground-level platform, viewing the statue through a proscenium arch. According to William Poundstone, the illusion involved closing curtains fitted in the arch; turning off the statue's floodlights; and slowly rotating the platform on which the audience was sitting. In a literal example of misdirection, the now dim, but not quite invisible, statue was no longer aligned with the arch. Thus, when the curtains were opened, the arch now framed darkness. Televised views from a helicopter showing the statue's "disappearance" were, according to Poundstone, views of a duplicate ring of lights, surrounding empty ground, that had been installed on Liberty Island for the illusion.

Related Topics:
April 8 - 1983 - David Copperfield

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The Japanese animation series Read or Die featured an action-packed air chase scene culminating in a showdown at the Statue of Liberty. The sequence included a character plummeting down the interior of the hollow statue.

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The Statue of Liberty has appeared on a fake $1,000,000 (million) dollar bill. (see http://www.atlantaadvertising.com/page2.php and http://www.overstock.com/cgi-bin/d2.cgi?cid=48424&PAGE=PRODUCT&PROD_ID=848772&fp=F#.)

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The Statue is also often the first image used during the opening credits of the popular sketch-comedy show Saturday Night Live which proudly broadcasts its performance each week live from New York City. In fact, during the 1984-85 and 1985-86 seasons, an image of the statue surrounded in scaffolding was used during the credits to commemorate the renovations being done to the statue during that time.

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The New York Liberty, New York's professional women's basketball team, has the Statue of Liberty as their mascot and it appears prominently on their logo and team jersey.

Related Topics:
New York Liberty - New York

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In ', it is destroyed near the end of Rodan's rampage on New York City leaving it and the entire cityscape ablaze.

Related Topics:
Rodan - New York City

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The band Supertramp has offered an amusing take on the statue on the cover of their album Breakfast in America. The artwork features a downtown New York skyline made from egg cartons, coffee mugs, and other dining utensils. In the foreground, a homely, middle aged waitress - whose name tag reads "Libby" - grins at the viewer, holding a glass of orange juice on a saucer in her outstretched right hand, and a menu in her left, as she mimics the statue's pose.

Related Topics:
Supertramp - Breakfast in America

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