Undermining the Wall

         

           At Rhodes College there is a long wooden wall surrounding a construction site. Rhodes clubs and organizations have painted segments of the wall. Some are painted well, some are painted poorly. I’m not here to be an art critic, but there is something that has been bothering me all semester. The Black Lives Matter movement at Rhodes painted a very powerful message. A red, black, and white American flag with bleeding bullet holes instead of stars and the phrase “black lives matter” repeating across the stripes. The first time I saw it I was taken aback, it is clearly the most powerful of all the murals and I think it was very well done. It brings attention to the police shootings and the gun problem in general which is resulting in the death of hundreds of African Americans every year. It commands attention and conveys a clear message without having to spell it out in words. I’m not sure which club exactly painted this but they deserve praise for their artistic and symbolic excellence. 

          Then there is film club. Their painted segment is right next to the black lives matter segment and has the same dripping blood theme. Unlike the BLM segment, film club is not bringing attention to an important life or death issue. Rather, it is bringing attention to film club. Personally, I think this undermines the message the Black Lives Matter mural is presenting. I don’t know who painted their segment first but the fact that these are the only two murals to use this dripping blood imagery and they are right next to each other is troubling. If film club showed exclusively bloody 80s horror films then maybe this would be acceptable but they had literally all of cinema to draw inspiration from. They could have painted a scene from any famous movie, actor, an old film reel, and it would have drawn just as much attention to film club without weakening the effectiveness of the Black Lives Matter sign. 
         I don’t think this was done intentionally but that doesn’t mean it’s ok. I would like to see the film clubs segment painted over. I’m sure some talent from the Rhodes art department would be willing to help paint them a far better and more creative advertisement that wasn’t undermining the BLM movement. The construction is nearly done and whatever damage this mistake has caused its already in place but that doesn’t mean it is too late to correct it. Film club probably had the best of intentions, but it would be very mature of them to remedy this awkward mistake.