This is Venus by Cranach the Elder, a 16th century German artist and big mate of old grump Martin Luther. Offended? Me neither. The Royal Academy of Arts are having a Cranach exhibition in March to June this year and this Venus was to be on the main poster advertising the exhibition. Not any more! Guess why? London Underground has banned it and will not accept the poster for display on the underground! Guess why they have banned it? Yup - someone might be offended. Poor Venus has fallen foul of a guideline that advertising shall not 'depict...women...in a sexual manner'.
Give me a break!!! The sheer ridiculousness of this defies coherent comment. What kind of a demented world do these people inhabit? I'll confine myself to one observation. There is far too much being offended these days. How about a moratorium on being offended? Or at least maybe accept that from time to time everyone is going to be offended but that's how life is and not run around demanding that whatever it is that offends you is banned. Or avoid doing a London Underground and banning things on the off chance that someone else might be offended. Not being offended is not a human right. At least it wasn't last time I checked...
8 comments:
Perhaps if she had been painted wearing a burkha.........
Hell, why should we stop there? lets go the whole hog and go burn all the old books which may offend somebody, somewhere!
For goodness sake; political correctness runs riot once again; a beautiful work painting of the Goddess of Love is deemed to be offensive; this is a thought that obviously sprang from the pea bhrain of some dense individual who woke up one sunny morning to the sound of his/her Tony Blair alarm clock and thought, " hang about, classical paintings (giggle) are a bit dirty". I really do despair......
In the United States, you can show a woman crushing a man's testicles on any TV channel, any time day or night, and they won't even issue a warning of graphic sexual violence before the program. But let there be a bare boobie and all hell breaks loose. Apparently bare breasts are dangerous to women, but a vicious sexual assault of a male is of no consequence at all.
What a mad world we live in. Everyone is crazy.
The Cranach Venus figures in the opening titles to 'Desperate Housewives' I discover..
Fact.
Oh yeah! Now you mention it, I do recall seeing her at the beginning of DH.
Where is all this going to lead? With people afraid of doing ANYTHING lest someone should be offended. It's ridiculous.
We were discussing at work yesterday the fact that in some local clubs patrons are not allowed to take photos of their friends in case someone else happens to get 'caught' in the picture and is offended.
I suppose one day soon we won't be able to take photos of ANY tourist attractions anywhere in the world because of the fear of offending other tourists who don't want to be a part of others' happy snaps.
I really don't think that many people get so easily offended. It's all just bureaucratic nonsense. I say all Londoners should revolt by printing up dozens of copies and plastering them around town themselves!
The British do not revolt about anything. The government make up new restrictive laws every day and the obliging populace simply tug their forelocks and say "Yessirs, anything you says, sirs"
The people of the UK are being stripped of every single right on a daily basis at an ever increasing rate. Hello Stalinism!
How do they know it's going to be offending?! Have they done a national poll?
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