I saw this in a recent issue of the Daily Express:

Gallery Bans Fiddling Ape

"Art gallery bosses have banned a 19th century painting of a monkey in case it offends animal lovers. The work shows a monkey wearing a fez and playing a violin.

It is one of a series by the renowned French artist Alexandre Gabriel Decamps. Seventeen of his other pieces are in the Louvre museum in Paris.

But the artist's work is regarded as too politically incorrect in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, where the canvas has been removed from the town's Cooper Gallery."


This story would be funny if it wasn't so absurd. But it's simply the latest in a long list of similar cases of (to employ a tired cliché) political correctness gone mad.

Other crazy examples I've encountered recently:

In Canada, Christmas Trees are being renamed "Holy Trees" in case they offend non-Christians

Some UK schools no longer perform nativity plays where Christian pupils now constitute a minority

In Australia, moves are afoot to ban the Easter Bunny and replace it with the Easter Bilby (a rat-like marsupial) because rabbits are classed as vermin down-under

I'm sure we could all come up with similar examples

Moved here because Barnsley, despite its post code, is not in Sheffield.

I'd laugh if it wasn't so depressing... :loopy:

What's so wrong in an ape playing the fiddle whilst its head is adorned with a fez?

How can animal lovers possibly be offended by this? Can someone please explain to me?

Is it the fact that it makes ordinary apes look musically challenged? If so, how do the animal lovers know that the ape in question is actually playing the right notes?

I know Barnsley is keen to join the 20th century but that is going too far.

Moon

Typical Express "reportage". The curator's words were that he felt it was demeaning to animals, nothing to do with political correctness or pressure from animal lovers.

With respect, the idea that a 100+ year-old painting could possibly be "demeaning to animals" is exactly what I said it was: political correctness gone slightly barmy (if not entirely mad). By that token I suppose that the Rupert Bear books and no end of other children's books/cartoons are also "demeaning to animals".

I read today that the trustees of the Cooper Art Gallery in Barnsley have backed down on this issue and the paintings are back on display.

We can all sleep easy in our beds now

Thank goodness, I was getting concerned!

Who says we don't discuss the big issues here! :)

Do you think they should ban Tarzan films on account of them being demeaning to humankind?

Political correctness gone mad, I tell thee!

Now, where's me photo album of bears dancing on hot coals...

Fiddling ape?

What's J. Prescott been up to now?