“Racist” Elephant Statues at Hollywood Highland Center to be Removed

I never really considered the giant elephant statues on the columns at the Hollywood Highland Center particularly aesthetic, but it never crossed my mind that a replica of an elephant was racist!

Now that I know, all I can say is “Gosh. Isn’t it wonderful that this horrible symbol of racism is being removed from our world!”

How is it Elephants suddenly became racist? It throws back to 2019 when the center was sold to the U.S. arm of China-based Gaw Capital Partners and DJM Capital. The new owners said they wanted to cut ties with old Hollywood’s racist past.

The entire courtyard of the Hollywood Highland Center was built to be a life sized replica of the set of the 1916 D. W. Griffith silent film “Intolerance.” We go into more detail about that in this post we did on the Hollywood Highland Center earlier on.

It’s a new one on me, but apparently either D. W. Griffith or the film or both were racist. The new owners are rennovating the center (I didn’t know it was in need of rennovations) and the elephants have got to go. Perhaps other elements of the old Intolerance set will go as well, but that would necessitate almost completely changing out the courtyard.

They own the property and can certainly do what they want with it. But honestly the usual reaction to people seeing the elephants for the first time is “What were they thinking? Who on earth would put an elephant statue in a shopping center?” I never saw anyone recoil from the message of racism.

I’ll close with this. At least it is being done BY the owner of the property instead of TO the property by “peaceful protesters” that want to see a piece of history removed.

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More photos after the break….