News Stations Censor $80M Gauguin Painting


One station moved the bouncing banner usually found on the bottom of the screen up several inches to serve as a pair of hands. Another blurred out the nipples. Washington Post TV critic Lisa de Moraes has a great column this morning about the lengths local news stations went to when showing the $80 million Gauguin painting recently attacked at the National Gallery on air.

A museum visitor tried to take the painting, which depicts two women—one topless and one not—off the museum wall last week because she felt it was “evil.” Unsuccessful, she then tried to bash the painting with her fists. According to court papers, the 53-year-old woman told investigators “she was from the CIA and has a radio in her head.”

“TV stations are understandably very wary of women’s breasts ever since Janet Jackson showed us hers,” writes de Moraes, also noting that NBC incurred a hefty fine during the 2004 Summer Olympics for showing Greek statues in “various states of undress.” Many stations opted to show a cropped version of the semi-nude painting during promos for the story and the full image during their newscasts.

The local Fox station is the one that blurred nipples. Local ABC affiliate chose to use the bouncing banner as a cover-up. Check them out below:

Woman Charged in Attack on ‘Evil’ Gauguin Painting at National Gallery of Art: MyFoxDC.com

 

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