Analysis / Statue of Liberty

Ways the Statue of Liberty is perceived and used in media:

As one of the most iconic sculptures since the US rose in power, Lady Liberty appears in tons of fictional works. Either as part of an Establishing Shot to indicate that yes, the characters are in America or, more specifically, in New York. Or as a key symbol tied to the work's Central Theme. As it's bound to happen, some patterns have appeared:

• After the End: The Statue of Liberty is often seen in these kinds of works to show how Man's hubris is ultimately pointless or to give hope that humanity will rise again. Common depictions are the Statue having sunk in the ocean (usually, a product of catastrophic climate change) or halfway buried (a sign that centuries if not millennia have come to pass). Also used in the most famous Earth All Along ending.
• Eiffel Tower Effect: Lady Liberty often serves as an instant metonym for America and New York. And since Gustave Eiffel did the engineering for it, the Statue is technically an Eiffel Tower.
• Hope Bringer: When people look upon her, whether as a "tempest-tossed" immigrant, hate-plagued infused New Yorker, or others in a bad situation, she stands tall as a reminder of hope and goodness in the world.
  Jon Stewart after 9/11: [The World Trade Center, a] symbol of American ingenuity and strength and labor and imagination and commerce, and it is gone. But you know what the view is now? The Statue of Liberty. The view from the south of Manhattan is now the Statue of Liberty. You can't beat that.
• An Immigrant's Tale:
  • It's an important part of the iconography of the American immigrant due to being one of the first parts of America a Westerner sailing into Ellis Island would see. Its importance to immigrants would be lionized in Charlie Chaplin's The Immigrant and The Godfather Part II.
  • Emma Lazarus's poem specifically made the statue part of the immigrant story. She was an American Jewish poet who had initially refused the offer, but after working with refugees from European pogroms, came to understand what America meant to people who were outcasts of society:
    Paul Auster: Bartholdi's gigantic effigy was originally intended as a monument to the principles of international republicanism, but The New Colossus reinvented the statue's purpose, turning Liberty into a welcoming mother, a symbol of hope to the outcasts and downtrodden of the world.
• Living Statue: Sometimes in fiction the Statue of Liberty got a life of its own, depending on the story. It could be a giant Weeping Angel or maybe a human-size ClayFighter, for example.
• Monumental Damage: It's a common target in fiction for rampaging monsters and natural disasters.
• National Stereotypes: At this point, she is a synonym of the United States or New York. Most fictional Americans will love her because of the ideals she represents and she is a common figure in Establishing Shots.
• Red Baron: Many a New Yorker, as well as Americans across the country, meanwhile, have affectionately nicknamed her Lady Liberty over the years, treating her as America's only true 'noblewoman'. The nickname has stuck surprisingly well, as though the statue itself has taken it on personally as a mark of affection. The nickname even sees use on this very website!
• Small Reference Pools: Her presence has become so ingrained in people's idea of the United States that it's extremely rare for a fictional work that is specifically about America, and especially New York, to not somehow include Lady Liberty too.

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