Jewish World Review June 30, 2003 / 30 Sivan, 5763

Ian Shoales

Ian Shoales
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Consumer Reports

The Amazing Red Faced J-Lo


http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | This spring, Mme Toussaud's museum added Julia Roberts, Penelope Cruz, Brad Pitt, and Jennifer Lopez to its collection of waxy replicants. But the museum also decided to enter the 21st Century in a big way, by adding interactive components. Cushions have been discreetly installed in Mr. Pitt's rear, and visitors so inclined are allowed to pinch it. Well, whatever floats your boat, I guess. It smacks vaguely of necrophilia to me, but then when it comes to wax museums I'm not usually looking for a hands-on experience.

More mysteriously, the figure of Jennifer Lopez has been designed so that she blushes when you whisper in her ear. If the purpose of a wax figure is to resemble as closely as possible the person it represents, this seems to defeat the intention, in my opinion. Face it, Jennifer Lopez is not the blushing type.

If you whispered something untoward in Jennifer Lopez's ear, she strikes me as the kind of woman who would smack you, not blush at you. More likely, she'd have somebody from her posse smack you.

Still, this is the kind of strange detail that makes wax museums so bizarre and entertaining. I remember attending a wax museum here in San Francisco, where one exhibit contained the likenesses of Adolf Hitler, Gandhi, and Michael Jackson. I stood in front of it for a good twenty minutes, trying to fathom what the organizing principle behind this display could possibly be. The best I could come up with was: They're all famous.

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The blushing J.- Lo may be random and somewhat bizarre, but it could open the door to all sorts of new wrinkles for old wax. Blushing J.- Lo could be joined by Winking Harry Truman, Toe-tapping Churchill, and Weeping Schwarzenegger.

Once the audioanimatronics have been worked out, the wax museum could add the Nervous Leg Lincoln, Nose Picking Bonaparte, Sneezing Bogart, and Vlad the Impaler the Juggler. How about the Inappropriate Facial Tics Gallery, with the likenesses of Gary Cooper, Buster Keaton, and Calvin Coolidge smirking, sneering, and yawning at timed intervals?

And when the time comes, as I pray it will, that I am immortalized in wax, I only hope that I am allowed to utter the following words whenever visitors enter my gallery: "What are YOU looking at?" If not, as long as they refrain from hissing sweet nothings in my ear, and keep their hands off my paraffin tush, I will be one contented figurine.

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JWR contributor Ian Shoales is the author of, among others, Not Wet Yet: An Anthology of Commentary. Comment by clicking here.

Up

06/25/03: TCB, KFC
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© 2003, Ian Shoales