Freedom From Want (thing)

"Freedom From Want" is a 1943 painting by Norman Rockwell. The painting is famous and you probably would recognize it, but you might not know the name of the painting, or the story behind it.

The painting displays a Thanksgiving Dinner, with a long table with nine people of various ages seated at it, while an older man and woman stand at the head of the table, with the woman placing a large turkey down on the table. The painting shows Rockwell's usual technique, with balanced composition, realistic figures, and a slightly exaggerated sense of emotion in the smiling figures. To many art critics, it would be seen as overly sentimental, and to contemporary viewers, it would probably seem hopelessly obtuse and corny, with an all-white family celebrating a traditional holiday.

But lets get back to the name, and the year. The painting was called "Freedom From Want", because it was part of the "Four Freedoms", a series of paintings that illustrated Franklin D Roosevelt's concept of the "Four Freedoms", which he formulated during the build up to the United State's participation in World War II. In 1943, the United States was in the middle of the war and in the middle of food rationing, which made the gigantic turkey an aspirational symbol. In Europe, it would have been even more so. The painting was also used to illustrate an essay in Look Magazine by Carlos Bulosan, a Filipino immigrant and labor activist.

So this corny painting that is almost smug in its treatment of the traditional middle-class life of white America is actually...an aspirational statement of a world where the right to sustenance is taken seriously, made in the depths of the world's struggle against fascism, and used to bolster the words of a minority, socialist writer.

(NB: As with any work of art or historical event, the above interpretation is not the complete word. Rockwell might not have shared all of Bulosan's stances.)

And this painting is emblematic of one of the biggest problems in the United States right now: many parts of our culture from the past are being judged by their style, and not their substance. For most people on the left, the painting probably seems to be a smug, self-congratulatory view of a perfect white America with strict gender roles. And for most people on the right...well, actually, the same way, but they like it. The corny nature of this painting covers up its emancipatory message. Because the symbolism of traditional family life (and for that matter, realistic art styles) are today associated with cultural conservatism, the fact that the painting was used to illustrate a point that is still considered left wing (a positive right to sustenance and well-being) is lost on all audiences. Perhaps this painting is something that we should start to reclaim as our cultural heritage as a nation with an emancipatory purpose, instead of throwing out the baby with the bath water and assuming everything from the past is part of a system of repression.