Meditation on LaBrea statuary

[T]hanks to an influx of Disney movies as a child, I knew exactly what was happening here: The mother was the one drowning, and the father was one who did not give a fuck. It was Bambi, but with mammoths...

[H]ere’s the thing: I was totally right about the sexes. When I asked the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum about them, I was directed to information from Los Angeles’s La Brea Tar Pits and Hancock Park by Cathy McNassor, which says that the two adults were commissioned by Howard Ball in the 1960s. He had previously done work for the New York World’s Fair, Hollywood, and—wait for it—Disney. I was told the male was positioned in 1967 and the female “depicting a sinking scenario” in 1968. There’s no info on who decided to add the screaming baby—but presumably that person is a sadist who gathers strength from children’s tears.

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