Yorktown Improved

August 20, 2008 11:25 AM

Artist Joseph Griffith, whose work draws from fantasy and mythology, has also turned his attention to one of America's most significant historical moments: "I painted this for the 225th anniversary of the Battle of Yorktown when George Washington and the Continentals traunched the British. The county would not dignify it with a response, however, George Washington's Mount Vernon estate kindly wrote me an e-mail saying they would 'pass it along to the staff'."
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing (51 comments total)

I love that painting. George Washington's Mount Vernon estate is an idiot.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 11:37 AM on August 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

You just made my day. Thanks!
posted by marxchivist at 11:41 AM on August 20, 2008

I am intrigued by its completely perfect horribleness. It is really hard to make such art.
posted by R. Mutt at 11:43 AM on August 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

Word of warning: Waldo will betray us.
posted by DU at 11:44 AM on August 20, 2008

Pretty much a direct knockoff of Brandon Bird's style but still funny enough to be awesome anyway.
posted by Damn That Television at 11:49 AM on August 20, 2008 [2 favorites]

To me this guy's stuff is the same kind of lazy one-joke comedy that Family Guy continually churns out. Putting familiar pop culture characters in unlikely situations can be funny (see House of Cosbys) but doing it over and over again without any real originality gets old fast.
posted by burnmp3s at 11:50 AM on August 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

It's like unto Will Elder's stuff for MAD, with all sorts of crap crammed into the panel. Chicken Fat Art, he and Kurtzman called it.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 11:53 AM on August 20, 2008

I like the happy flight. It gives you a warm feeling inside. JC could actually be doing that right now as we speak...
posted by Mastercheddaar at 11:54 AM on August 20, 2008

I can't see anyone would not mount this in there living room. truely a work of great art.
posted by erifneerg at 11:57 AM on August 20, 2008

Hehe Kool-Aid is there.
posted by Mister_A at 11:58 AM on August 20, 2008

Photography wasn't invented back then. How do we know that this isn't EXACTLY how it happened?
posted by ColdChef at 12:02 PM on August 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

To me this guy's stuff is the same kind of lazy one-joke comedy that Family Guy continually churns out.

Truly, no matter how awesome a thing is, there will always be a person to call it crap.
posted by JHarris at 12:04 PM on August 20, 2008

It made me smile a little, but it's a one-note joke. If I had to live with it, it wouldn't be long before I was avoiding the room it was hanging in.
posted by ardgedee at 12:13 PM on August 20, 2008

Wait, is that the gay guy from Mannequin and one of the baddies from The Dark Crystal? This guys is the Dennis Miller of art.
posted by GuyZero at 12:14 PM on August 20, 2008

How many notes of a joke can a single painting be?
posted by DU at 12:14 PM on August 20, 2008

A more traditional take, for comparison.
posted by mwhybark at 12:15 PM on August 20, 2008

Who's the guy on the left, standing between Rodney Dangerfield and Mr. T?
posted by BeerFilter at 12:16 PM on August 20, 2008

I'm all for a good joke, and I'm certainly no stickler for tradition, but I fail to see the awesomeness in this. It's just not terribly original. I see things like this shilled over on BoingBoing all the time. And they get big boners over it, too, for no apparent reason other than it crams a metric-buttload of tired pop-culture references into the frame. Coat it with an extremely thin political/cultural narrative, and I guess you've got what passes for awesome.

It's certainly well-drawn, though.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:19 PM on August 20, 2008

My favorite recent Washington compilation has to be the following.
posted by thanotopsis at 12:21 PM on August 20, 2008 [2 favorites]

Is this what they call "derivative art"?
posted by gyusan at 12:23 PM on August 20, 2008

MetaFilter: I fail to see the awesomeness in this

MetaFilter: It's just not terribly original.

MetaFilter: I see things like this shilled over on BoingBoing all the time.

MetaFilter: they get big boners over it

MetaFilter: it crams a metric-buttload of tired pop-culture references into the frame

MetaFilter: Coat it with an extremely thin political/cultural narrative, and I guess you've got what passes for awesome.
posted by DU at 12:23 PM on August 20, 2008

Well, it's a more balanced view of history than The Patriot, I suppose.
posted by Artw at 12:26 PM on August 20, 2008 [2 favorites]

Why is the character displayed most prominently under the American flag an Australian Crocodile Hunter?
posted by adamms222 at 12:37 PM on August 20, 2008

Looks like one of those pictures where you have to find 25 song names.
posted by daniel_charms at 12:37 PM on August 20, 2008

Weak.
posted by R. Mutt at 12:37 PM on August 20, 2008

BeerFilter: It's Meshach Taylor (see GuyZero's comment above yours)
posted by adamms222 at 12:40 PM on August 20, 2008

Who's the guy on the left, standing between Rodney Dangerfield and Mr. T?

The gay guy from Mannequin! Meshach Taylor as "Hollywood Montrose".
posted by GuyZero at 12:44 PM on August 20, 2008

Why is the character displayed most prominently under the American flag an Australian Crocodile Hunter?

They're all colonials from where I'm sitting
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 12:46 PM on August 20, 2008 [3 favorites]

Truly, no matter how awesome a thing is, there will always be a person to call it crap.

I blame SA/Fark/4chan for ruining this joke for me over the years by doing it over and over and over again. I probably would still think it was funny if I hadn't seen Kool-Aid Man photoshopped into WWII photographs a dozen times.
posted by burnmp3s at 12:48 PM on August 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

It should be noted that the Triceretops was a gift from France. If not for the aid of the French Dinosaur Legion, America would be part of the British Commonwealth today.
posted by homunculus at 12:52 PM on August 20, 2008 [4 favorites]

Truly, no matter how awesome a thing is, there will always be a person to call it crap

Truly, no matter how crappy a thing is, there will always be a person to call it awesome. Just different strokes when it comes to art.

I see why some folks like it, but I also see why the Mount Vernon folks said, "Yeah, right."
posted by magstheaxe at 12:55 PM on August 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

I just like that he worked the Death Star in there.
posted by mr_roboto at 12:58 PM on August 20, 2008

and Cobra Commander.
posted by ShawnString at 1:16 PM on August 20, 2008

Waldo sure looks pissed off!
posted by ericb at 1:18 PM on August 20, 2008

Why is the character displayed most prominently under the American flag an Australian Crocodile Hunter?

Because the U.S.A. rules and everybody wants to be like us. Err, what?
posted by ericb at 1:19 PM on August 20, 2008

You can totally see the horse love in the more traditional take mwhybark linked to above.
posted by Sailormom at 1:21 PM on August 20, 2008

Loves it.

The surrender of the evil-doers here reminds me of an Elaine Scarry essay I read just today about terrorism and white flags. Actually, the picture makes a point similar to Scarry's, drawing up a hypothetical surrender scene between the forces of America, and America's imagined enemies that's absurd for a range of reasons that are worth considering.

The sad part is that only Cool-aid Man seems to understand what's really going on.
posted by washburn at 1:24 PM on August 20, 2008

This is so ridiculous as to be absurd. Washington on a triceratops? Where the hell to even begin? Ok first, the triceratops is basically the dinosaur equivalent of a cow, and we all know that someone as bad ass as Washington ain't gonna come riding to victory on the back of Bessie, he road a Utah-Raptor.

Secondly, there is a cherub on the good guys side, and everybody knows those little fuckers are evil, so unless he's suggesting that it's some kind of turncoat spy, it's presence is insulting.

And finally, where the hell is the ED-209? I've read the literature and studied the history, and while it ended in a stunning defeat, the big walker robot almost turned the tide of that battle against the side of good. Is the artist afraid to show how close it might have actually been?

Fucking revisionist history is what this is.
posted by quin at 1:31 PM on August 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

And finally, where the hell is the ED-209?

You can't see it in that rendering, but you have to climb some stairs to get to that part of Yorktown. Note also, no Daleks among the evildoers.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:43 PM on August 20, 2008

It made me smile a little, but it's a one-note joke.

I respectfully disagree. The Crocodile Hunter and the Kool-Aid Guy at the very front of the Colonial army, wearing near-identical masks of shock? That's at least two notes before we even get to the fact that there's an infant angel going stingray-like for the Croc Hunter's ankle.
posted by gompa at 1:43 PM on August 20, 2008

That was wonderful.
posted by cowbellemoo at 1:46 PM on August 20, 2008

It's no less ludicrous than the shenanigans being pulled by the current Administration. It's as accurate and real as their fantasy of victory in the Global War on Terror^tm.

That may be the point of the piece, although of course that's subject to interpretation.
posted by Xoebe at 1:50 PM on August 20, 2008

And they get big boners over it, too, for no apparent reason other than it crams a metric-buttload of tired pop-culture references into the frame

The same way that porn has rendered womens' bodies no longer sexually arousing, BoingBoing has rendered absurdity no longer amusing. Thanks, internet.
posted by GuyZero at 3:15 PM on August 20, 2008

They should do a steampunk George Washington.
posted by Artw at 3:19 PM on August 20, 2008

The "Surrender" appears to be nothing more than pop culture fluff. I could see someone in the history field possibly putting this up in the break room for the jokey aspect, but that's about it.

Otherwise, it's, "Hi. I Make Political Statement with Cobra Commander!"

Don't get me wrong, it's fun to look at it, but he should try selling it to the freshman moving into their dorms right now, versus contacting places like the county or Mt. Vernon.
posted by Atreides at 3:30 PM on August 20, 2008

I'm not so sure I'd call those first two links "fantasy" and "mythology" so much as pop culture references to '80s kids movies crossed with Jesus Christ.
posted by MythMaker at 5:02 PM on August 20, 2008

It made me smile a little, but it's a one-note joke.

Well, smiling a little is a good thing, though, right? But I wanna hear more about this one-note joke. Lemme guess... it's a B flat, right? I mean, that's the funniest of all notes, right?

Meanwhile, here's One Note Samba.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:33 PM on August 20, 2008

And here's One Note Samba with jokes.
posted by ardgedee at 6:21 PM on August 20, 2008

I love Kool-Aid Man. He appears in my own sketchbooks all the time. But why? Why is Kool-Aid Man so Iconic? Is it because us 30-somethings grew up watching him bust through walls to bring good cheer and cold drinks? Is it because he's easy to draw and graphically pleasing? Or is there something deeper going on?

Remember when they introduced the flavor 'Sharkleberry Fin?" What the hell was that? That was bullshit.
posted by Fuzzy Monster at 9:38 PM on August 20, 2008

Or is there something deeper going on?

Well, there was the Reverend Jim Jones, who gave his 900-plus followers a nice cyanide-laced cocktail with grape Flavor Aid, but it was always Kool Aid in the popular imagination.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:45 AM on August 21, 2008

If only there was a mass astronaut suicide involving Tang...
posted by Artw at 8:31 AM on August 21, 2008