I owe Norman Rockwell an apology

I owe Rockwell an apology

Working at a newspaper requires thick skin. I’m a columnist and lifestyle writer, so I don’t get nearly as much pushback or rebuttals as the reporters. Nonetheless, I’ll occasionally get a hateful or condescending message from someone who doesn’t agree with an opinion I stated in a column.

In December I wrote a piece called “Your One and Only Christmas 2022.” The sentiment of the column focused on going against the grain and not letting societal pressure dictate how one spends and remembers their holiday season. Those of us who have lost a loved one or experienced a significant shift in family dynamic such as a divorce sometimes have a challenging time during the holidays.

To accentuate this point, I wrote these lines in that column, “I’m not sure where these images come from. Perhaps stereotypes from American sitcoms and movies, or Norman Rockwell paintings where a white middle class family with a dog sit around a perfectly adorned table full of food. Nonetheless, these visuals greatly impact our experiences and our mental health.”

When writing that section, I was thinking about that classic Rockwell painting where the woman is holding the Thanksgiving turkey. The painting is called “Freedom from Want,” and there are actually more than four family members in this painting, but you get my point.

About a week after publishing the column, I received an email from a reader who reprimanded me for portraying Rockwell in a negative light and for calling out the word “white” in my reference.

What I found most interesting is that my inclusion of Rockwell wasn’t about race or American culture of that time, it was about the pressure to create and sustain a perfect family unit, which is simply not a reality for millions of people. Granted, using the word “white” in my descriptor of his painting was probably unnecessary for the context of the column, but I was trying to conjure a specific painting in the minds of readers. All that being said, her email got me wondering about Rockwell as a person, so I did some research. What I found was captivating and completely shifted my perception of this talented artist whom I have always respected. While studying him, I had several questions in mind. What were his personal views on race and culture during his lifetime? Why are many of his paintings slanted toward the prototypical American Dream?

Come to find out, the reason many of Rockwell’s paintings highlight White American people doing everyday things is because that’s what The Saturday Evening Post expected of him. The editorial constraints and prejudices he worked under honed Rockwell’s allegiance to social commentary, even if that wasn’t always his desire. Because he’s most well-known for his work with The Post, it’s widely assumed he didn’t work to portray themes of racial inequality or discrimination in his work; however, this is untrue.

After leaving The Post in 1963, Rockwell created one of his most famous and important paintings, “The Problem We All Live With” (pictured). This symbolized a moment in the life of Ruby Bridges at six-years old being escorted by U.S. Marshalls to help end segregation in a school in the South, which is arguably the single most powerful painting of the Civil Rights movement. He went on to create many other paintings that highlighted the divide within our nation.

On the surface, Rockwell presented as a happy-go-lucky, genial, pipe-smoking artist but in private, he was deeply depressed and stoic, struggled with obsessive compulsive disorder, and distanced himself emotionally from his three wives, sons, brother, friends, editors and associates. He routinely went to therapy before it was considered commonplace.

When it comes to Rockwell, there is much more I could discover. In fact, I’ve become quite enamored by the man from researching him for this column. I feel like I owe him an apology if in any way, my column from several weeks ago portrayed him as a close-minded dispassionate individual when it appears he was anything but. This experience was a gentle reminder to never take things at face value. It’s always worth looking a little deeper. (Susanna Shetley is writer, editor and digital medial specialist. susanna.b@smokymountainnews.com.)

Susanna Shetley Columnist

Don’t be fooled; climate change is real

To the Editor:

A recent letter in the Waynesville Mountaineer claimed that climate change is a myth. Perhaps the writer carefully studied the issue and conducted on-site evaluations of 10,000-year-old ice cores in Antarctica. Perhaps he has debated the 97% of climate scientists who strongly support the idea that global climate change is happening, threatening disaster for our planet unless we modify our ways.

Or, perhaps our letter writer has repeated some of the distortions spread throughout U.S. media by the American Petroleum Institute. These servants of the petrochemical industry and Saudi princes make excuses for the 40 billion tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide spewed into the atmosphere yearly. They are highly paid for their service.

In the same manner, throughout the 1960s and 70s the American Tobacco Institute spent hundreds of millions of dollars to convince the American public that tobacco was completely safe for human consumption. Big Tobacco companies knew that their product was killing millions with lung cancer and heart disease, but money talks.

Likewise, the petroleum industry has known for many years that the burning of fossil fuels is responsible for increasing climate instability. Some of Exxon’s own scientists have testified that they feel remorse that they were part of this massive fraud. (www.theguardian.com/environment/201 5/jul/08/exxon-climate-change-1981-climatedenier-funding)

I suggest folks review material that refutes the absurd idea that climate change is not an immediate danger which human society must deal with decisively. (https://www.drawdown.org/climate-solutions-101)

For example, the recent frigid weather throughout much of the U.S. was a direct result of the hyper warming of the Arctic (which is heating up 4 times as fast as the rest of the world), creating the well-understood polar vortex. This warming northern air mass pushes the jet stream into an unstable orbit around the Earth, forcing Arctic air south, creating historic freezing as far as Texas.

Don’t believe the deliberate misinformation spread by Big Oil. Climate change is the challenge of our era. Build resilient communities before the next catastrophic weather challenges occur.

LETTERS

A sure sign of our moral decay

To the Editor:

The headlines read — “Texas governor & others bus immigrants to VP house, and drop them in freezing weather.”

Probably the cruelest action I can imagine is busing and dropping immigrants into a violent winter storm with sub-freezing temperatures. On second thought, perhaps nailing them to die on a cross is more cruel. But we’re getting there.

Perhaps Christmas Eve was chosen so the senders could enjoy their sumptuous Christmas dinner while watching less fortunate (therefore, I suppose, less worthy) folks freeze to death.

Much has been written about the moral decline of our nation. And I agree. However, issues like transgender and LGBTQ are often brought up as a red herring to distract people from other major issues like gross inequality and racial discrimination. These are major indications of our moral decline. The recent busing, political stunt being but one example. Paul Strop Waynesville