Amber Tamblyn sheds light on the unfortunate problem with those naked Trump statues

Impact

Last week, naked statues of Republican presidential candidate and unrepentant racist Donald Trump popped up in cities across the United States, including San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles and Seattle. The body-shaming tone of the pieces struck some as decidedly unfunny — including actress Amber Tamblyn, who took her thoughts to Facebook on Sunday. 

Created by anarchist art collective Indecline — incidentally, also the people responsible for the offensive and exploitative "Bumfights" series — the statues, titled "The Emperor Has No Balls," attracted attention for depicting a nude Donald Trump as paunchy and splotchy, with a tiny penis and no testicles.

Tamblyn shared an altered photo of one of the statues, with an added sign saying "Shame me for my behavior, NOT my body," and wrote on Facebook: 

Body shaming is never okay, even when it comes to Trump. These statues aren't art: They are a lazy, unoriginal concept, stolen mind you, from Illma Gore's painting, which already made this exact same point earlier this year. This is wholly unoriginal and uncreative.

Tamblyn was referring to the NSFW painting by artist Illma Gore, depicting Donald Trump with a tiny penis — but Gore included a message about genitals along with her art, writing on her website, "One should not feel emasculated by their penis size or vagina, as it does not define who you are ... Your genitals do not define your gender, your power, or your status."

Donald Trump's views may be repugnant to many, but using his body to shame him only serves to reinforce the body shaming and genital shaming directed at everyday people.

Plenty of people agreed with Tamblyn that criticizing Trump is fine — but we should leave his penis out of it.

Instead of shaming Trump for his body, you can check out this list of ridiculous things he's actually said.