Fearless Girl
Photoessay: The Fearless Girl statue continues to attract crowds in Manhattan’s Financial District. Photos taken on May 6th and June 10th, 2017.
Since making her sudden appearance directly across from Wall Street’s famous Charging Bull sculpture on March 7th, Fearless Girl has continued to attract crowds of tourists and New Yorkers alike to the small triangle of land dubbed “Bowling Green” in Lower Manhattan.
During two recent visits, I thought about how the visitors react to the two sculptures and one significant distinction struck me: The bronze bull demands you be impressed with him. The girl invites you to identify with her.
Just witness how people — women and men alike — joining the girl interact with her. How they reflect her pose. Or her attitude.
They not only identify with her but they also potentially project their personal and political beliefs upon her. Perhaps accurately. Perhaps not. Considering Fearless Girl was commissioned by State Street Global Advisors, an investment firm to promote an index fund, which, yes, does focus on gender-diverse companies, featuring a higher percentage of women in leadership.
Standing behind the girl, you get a feel for the star treatment she’s still receiving these many weeks later. People line up between the bull and girl with a battery of mobile phones and pocket cameras to take her photo, many taking turns to circulate into the space before her. Usually, they wait patiently to … meet her.
Parents nudge their children forward to pose with the girl, too. Which makes sense. They want to signal to their children (to themselves, to whoever else will see their photographs) that the Fearless Girl is a worthy role model. Or at least that the courage in the face of power the young girl demonstrates is a desirable trait for their children.
Those moments you do catch the girl alone are fleeting — at least when visiting during daytime hours — but then she’s even more striking, standing alone yet confident, defiant within the hurly burly swirl of New York.
Regardless of how she got there or what the motivation was for placing her there or how long she stays, Fearless Girl proves impossible to resist.
