Richard Roeper unimpressed with Marilyn Monroe sculpture
(CBS) The 26-foot tall sculpture of Marilyn Monroe looking over Pioneer Court in Chicago has been generating a lot of news stories. One Chicago critic puts it bluntly in a piece in the Chicago Sun-Times.
"[T]his thing is just hideous," writes Richard Roeper.
Read more: Marilyn Monroe sculpture unveiled in Chicago
Roeper, a Sun-Times columnist and former co-host of "Ebert & Roeper," doesn't like lots of things about Marilyn aside from its hideousness. To wit:
"So we're going from taking pictures of our own reflection to taking pictures while looking up the skirt of a giant woman.This is not an upgrade."
The sculpture depicts the moment in the film "The Seven Year Itch," about a New York man imagining an affair after seven years of marriage, in which Monroe's skirt is blown up while she stands over a subway grate.
Roeper also takes issue with the statue's origins.
"[A] New Jersey-born artist [Seward Johnson] creates a sculpture of a quintessential New York movie from 1955 -- and it ends up in Pioneer Court on Michigan Avenue."
He suggests more Chicago-appropriate film art could have been placed in the square - a statue of Batman ("Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight" were filmed in Chicago); Jake and Elwood from "The Blues Brothers"; a scene from "The Fugitive" with Harrison Ford or Cary Grant in "North by Northwest."
Good news for the sculpture's detractors: The piece will only stand though spring 2012.
What do you think of the sculpture? Let us know in the comments.