Posted on 11/21/2017 11:13:51 AM PST by Kid Shelleen
The iconic black-and-white photograph of a young woman being ogled by men on an Italian street has been removed from the Center City restaurant Gran Caffe LAquila after its owner said he recently received about two dozen complaints from customers that it depicts sexual harassment.
The poster-size image had hung along the main staircase to the second floor of the Italian restaurant, visible to a portion of its second-floor dining room through a picture window, since its opening in December 2014.
Co-owner Riccardo Longo said complaints began last month, shortly after Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein began facing public accusations of harassment, unleashing a torrent of allegations against powerful men and opening new dialogue on the subject.
Longo said customers approached him directly to express their discomfort with the Ruth Orkin print from 1951, titled An American Girl in Italy.
(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...
That should be the title of the picture.
One poster suggested showing the woman in a burka. Instead, just replace the men with women and the woman with a man.
Before a bunch of people suggest that such a picture wouldn't make sense, I will provide an anecdote.
Some years ago my wife was at the supermarket and had the passenger door on her car open, blocking access to the driver's side of the car next to hers.
A tall man approached and when she noticed him she said, "I'm sorry to be in your way." The man responded, "That's okay."
She closed the door and made her way to the store where she found a handful of women watching the man through the store windows. One of the women said, "Do you know who you were talking to? That was Tom Selleck."
My wife is a big Selleck fan and didn't even notice who the tall man was, but everybody else did.
Vive la différence !!
I don’t know. Ann Bancroft was more sophisticated and exotic looking.
Even in old age, she was compelling - I remember seeing her in ‘Homecoming’ in the ‘90s, and she seemed even more beautiful as an old lady.
This particular piece of art creeped me out when I was a child. A neighbor of mine, an elderly woman, had an old fashioned parlor with really dusty old furniture and a grand piano in the corner. Over that piano was a large portrait of the below piece of art. It's supposedly an innocent portrait of a young woman at her vanity table looking at herself in the mirror but if you looked at it a certain way, it resembled a human skull. I always saw the skull!
Had to magnify it, but I eventually saw the vanity!
is it my imagination or were men at one time respectful and courteous?
Yes, men at THAT TIME were respectful and courteous IN AMERICA and the BRITISH EMPIRE, but this was Italy. Cultural norms were different then even as today. Had the painting been done in France or Spain it would have been even worse...................
I agree about AB having a compelling presence. That deep voice had a lot to do with her appeal. One overlooked performance of hers is as Winston Churchill's Mother Jennie Jerome in the film Young Winston.
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