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Entirely Real Photos: Wax George Clooney As Indifferent To You As Real George Clooney

Madame Tussauds placed the new George Clooney waxwork out in the street Wednesday to be admired.
Tim Whitby
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Getty Images
Madame Tussauds placed the new George Clooney waxwork out in the street Wednesday to be admired.

It might not be surprising that a recent poll revealed that George Clooney was the winner in a U.K. poll asking people who would make the best Valentine's Day date.

It's an exercise in futility when women attempt to enjoy Valentine's Day with Wax George Clooney.
Tim Whitby / Getty Images
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Getty Images
It's an exercise in futility when women attempt to enjoy Valentine's Day with Wax George Clooney.
Like Dorothy Michaels in <em>Tootsie</em>, Wax George Clooney looks better if you don't get too close. How <em>do</em> you feel about Cleveland?
Tim Whitby / Getty Images
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Getty Images
Like Dorothy Michaels in Tootsie, Wax George Clooney looks better if you don't get too close. How do you feel about Cleveland?

But things take a turn when you learn that the organization asking the question was Madame Tussauds. Yep — the "choose your dream date" question came straight from the wax museum people. The winner was George Clooney, so they stuck him out in the street, sitting on a sofa, so people could snuggle up to him.

And snuggle up they did. They caressed. They cajoled. They grinned and sighed. They allowed people with cameras to take their pictures.

Happy Valentine's Day, ladies! Enjoy your moment with Wax George Clooney as he stares unnervingly at nothing, ignoring your efforts to kiss and charm him. Wax George Clooney will certainly look good in your later photos, but he probably won't put the moves on you, so you need to be prepared to be assertive.

The upside of all this is that he's really no more indifferent than Real George Clooney who, if you're anything like me, still hasn't called. Granted, Wax George Clooney is less likely to playfully engage in practical joke wars with Matt Damon and Brad Pitt, and it's possible that some of the charm of any charismatic man is lost when he never blinks and instead appears to be an undead creature awaiting Dr. Frankenstein's powers of reanimation, but you must admit, he looks pretty good.

Staff member Kim Lee of Madame Tussauds wax museum poses with Wax George Clooney in 2004.
Nicolas Asfouri / AFP/Getty Images
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AFP/Getty Images
Staff member Kim Lee of Madame Tussauds wax museum poses with Wax George Clooney in 2004.

As it turns out, the world contains a few Wax George Clooneys, and they spend a fair amount of their time getting hit on. This 2004 photo of what seems to be London's previous WGC and his lady friend has a caption that reads, "Visitors will be sitting in front of Clooney's waxwork and pretend to have a romantic dinner." Please note: She's holding its hand. Its cold, waxy, Psycho-meets-Misery hand. And really, what's more romantic than that?

Models pose with Wax George Clooney in Berlin in 2008.
Michael Gottschalk / AFP/Getty Images
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AFP/Getty Images
Models pose with Wax George Clooney in Berlin in 2008.

Or how about this one? In this one, Berlin's Wax George Clooney is dressed like the drunkest Santa ever fired after an angry tirade in a food court. He looks both pale and freakishly tanned, both gray and orange, like he spent a month in a tanning booth and then three days smoking and eating spoiled clams. And he hates all these women who, I believe, are not wax.

Wax Rihanna, Wax George Clooney, Wax Barack Obama, and Wax Morgan Freeman enjoy Thanksgiving dinner together in November 2012.
/ AFP/Getty Images
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AFP/Getty Images
Wax Rihanna, Wax George Clooney, Wax Barack Obama, and Wax Morgan Freeman enjoy Thanksgiving dinner together in November 2012.

But no WGC is as wonderful as the WGC whose picture was taken in London last November (London seems to have several Wax George Clooneys on call). For whatever reason, Madame Tussauds decided that the best way to mark four Thanksgivings in office for President Barack Obama was to place Obama in a Thanksgiving dinner scene with Wax George Clooney, Wax Morgan Freeman, and Wax Rihanna. (Wax Morgan Freeman: "Take the picture. This wax turkey isn't going to eat itself.")

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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Linda Holmes is a pop culture correspondent for NPR and the host of Pop Culture Happy Hour. She began her professional life as an attorney. In time, however, her affection for writing, popular culture, and the online universe eclipsed her legal ambitions. She shoved her law degree in the back of the closet, gave its living room space to DVD sets of The Wire, and never looked back.