The Difficult Decision to Challenge Farrah Fawcett’s Memorial

---

Last night, I filed what I expect to be my final documents with the City of Corpus Christi regarding the proposed Farrah Fawcett memorial. I have also submitted public-information requests involving both the Corpus Christi and Rockport statue projects. At this point, I have said what I needed to say, requested the records I believe are relevant, and there is very little left for me to do except wait and see what happens. Reaching this stage has made it easier for me to say something I have probably avoided admitting to myself: this has been the hardest thing I have had to do since I started my Farrah project four years ago.

That difficulty has nothing to do with doubting why I did it. I remain confident in the concerns I raised, and in the experience I brought to them. I did not wake up one morning, see a statue I disliked, and decide to start a fight. I spent considerable time examining these projects, the available information, Farrah’s visual record, and the individuals involved before concluding that I could not simply ignore what concerned me.

What has made this difficult is that I respect the people behind the effort. The Corpus Christi statue was organized through Friends of Farrah Fawcett, a group largely made up of former classmates and friends, with private money being used to fund the sculpture before it is donated to the City as permanent public art. There is something admirable about caring enough about Farrah to organize a memorial, raise the money, commission an artist, and spend years trying to create something permanent in her hometown. I understand why they are excited about it.

For this reason, it would be much easier if I believed the project came from bad intentions. I do not. Those involved genuinely want to honor Farrah, and some days that has made me feel terrible about pushing back against something created out of affection. However, respecting the intention and agreeing with the result are two different things. The representation itself never stopped troubling me, and eventually I had to accept that both feelings could exist at the same time.

My involvement also went beyond expressing an opinion about the statues. Under the Texas Public Information Act, I requested existing government records from Corpus Christi and Rockport that may show how each project developed, what materials were reviewed, who participated in the decisions, and how the projects reached their current stage. I approached both in essentially the same manner because I want to know what the record actually shows rather than fill the gaps with assumptions.

There is another distinction that I believe is easy to overlook. Knowing Farrah personally and understanding Farrah’s audience are not the same thing. A friend can have memories, knowledge, and insight into Farrah that I could never claim, and I value that enormously. Running a large online community, however, teaches you something different. It reveals what the audience notices, what people respond to, what they reject, and how quickly something involving Farrah can move far beyond a small circle of dedicated fans.

I spent four years watching that happen. Recently, I went back through some of my Facebook analytics I still have, and even I was surprised by the scale. Based on surviving weekly and 90-day data, I estimate that during its final year, my page generated somewhere between 25 and 50 million views. One video alone received more than one million views in seven days. I no longer have a complete annual Meta report, so I cannot claim an exact number. However, even the conservative end of that estimate was larger than I expected. Those numbers do not make my judgment automatically correct or diminish the personal knowledge of Farrah’s friends. They do mean that I have years of firsthand experience seeing what happens when Farrah’s image is placed before very large audiences.

I know some people may be angry with me for challenging these projects, and others may hate me for it. I can live with that. What I hope they understand is that I did not do this because I wanted to interfere with something created by Farrah’s friends. I did it because I respect Farrah and care deeply about how she is represented, particularly when that representation is intended to become permanent.

For now, I am going to give everyone involved time to respond as they choose. In a few weeks, I intend to begin publishing the documents I submitted, along with the public-information requests I filed, with personal or unnecessary private information removed where appropriate. As records come in from Corpus Christi and Rockport, I will write about what they actually show, what questions they clarify, and what remains unanswered.

I do not feel victorious, and I am not particularly angry. Mostly, I feel relieved that I raised the concerns I believed needed to be raised while there was still time to do so. I continue to respect the people who wanted to honor Farrah, and in many ways that is exactly why this has been so difficult. I understand what they are trying to accomplish. I wish I could say I felt the same way about the representation they have chosen.

If the Corpus Christi memorial goes forward as currently planned, I will be deeply saddened by how Farrah will be permanently represented in her hometown. That sadness will not come from seeing Farrah honored. I believe Corpus Christi should recognize her significance, and her connection to South Texas deserves celebration. What will trouble me is knowing that there was an opportunity to create something that reflected the complexity of the woman, artist, actress, and public figure Farrah became. Yet, the result may instead identify her with a commercial image from one brief period of her life.
​
A bronze monument is not a temporary social-media post or a photograph that disappears when people stop sharing it. Once it becomes part of a city, it can shape how someone is remembered for generations. For this reason, I could not convince myself that staying quiet was the respectful thing to do. Whether anything changes is no longer up to me, but I know why I spoke up, and I am more than comfortable living with that decision.