Rethinking the G8

I was all ready to post about this image (from this story) because it looked so hilarious. But then I found out that, in fact, the world leaders pictures are just cardboard cut-outs and not, in fact, the actual leaders themselves.

That’s a disappointment. Because, seriously, if you have cardboard cut outs of eight of the most powerful people in the world, you should probably do more with them than just put them behind a barbed wire fence. I get that it’s symbolism and all, but why not have a little more fun with it? Stick them in a beaver dam, dressed like beavers. Or give them all barbarian weapons and arrange them so that they are fighting. Hell, even doing something ridiculous like dressing them all up like they’re members of the Partridge Family and sticking them in front of a day-glo bus would be better than just putting them behind a fence.

But had they been the actual world leaders? Then it’s funny. Because they’re so happy! They’re like “Hi! Check us out! Behind this fence!” And that’s just delightful. Because generally people see fences — particularly barbed wire fences — as some kind of terrible, distance-causing, poverty-inducing thing. Fences divide us; separate us; categorize us; separate us. They drive us from unity, and unity is good.

But maybe it’s time that some people stand up and say, in a calming and yet authoritative voice, “Dudes, calm down. It’s just a fence. I can still see you through it. And, yes, there is a gate over there.”

Not that it matters. None of it is real anyway.