even more provocative than Pamela Anderson's fetching pose

Sooner or later every summer, pretty much around these mid-July doldrums, some local controversy flares up that confirms the silly season is upon us. Sure enough, it came this week with the headline-making row over city hall's silly attempt to ban Pamela Anderson. Well, not Pamela Anderson herself, but a provocative poster of the pulchritudinous Pamela in pin-up pose in a string bikini. So far nothing to shock a Montreal sensibility. What was jolting about this display, and even more provocative than Anderson's fetching pose, was that her body parts, from shoulder to breast, to ribs, rump, thigh, calf, and foot were marked in dotted black lines, like cuts of meat.

what your responses about all this? or maybe you have another idea?

The unveiling of the poster was intended as a publicity stunt by the animal-rights guerrilla outfit, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Its printed message was: "All animals are made of the same pieces -have a heart, go vegetarian." Anderson is an ardent supporter of the organization.

For most people the message was clear and hardly offensive even to dedicated carnivores, few of whom are likely to be put off boeuf bourguignon or baby-back ribs by the sight. As for the display of Anderson skin, it's no more indecent than what Montrealers see in public spaces every day, on the marquees of the city's abundantly flourishing strip clubs or apparel ads in metro stations, which provoke no censure by civic authorities. Yet Montreal's Film and TV Commission refused PETA and Anderson a permit to stage the unveiling on Jacques Cartier Square or anywhere else on city property.

The somewhat tortured reason for the ban, as advanced by the bureaucrats, was that the poster somehow goes against principles of male-female equality that city hall holds dear. A somewhat more cogent reason, albeit flimsy as well, was put by commission head Daniel Bissonnette, that some passersby might be offended by the image and complain to city hall. Oh dear, can't have complaints to city hall, not in this town. A better reason, perhaps, was advanced by women's-rights advocates who set the hotlines ablaze to maintain that the depiction of Anderson as an assemblage of meat was exploitative and could be an incitement to violence against women.

Even that, however, takes a stretch of the imagination. And even if that were so, the city-hall ban had the reverse effect intended by those who were shocked by the poster in that it turned it into an even bigger media event than it would otherwise have been. A final irony was that the Anderson and the PETA troupe repaired to a trendy, and meat-serving, downtown restaurant for the unveiling. Silly how these things go, but at least now for sure it's summertime