An “offensive” cartoon on the wall of a bar in Brussels has been covered with a large canvas sheet by the pub’s new owners who regard it as “sexist” and disrespectful towards women.
The mural in the heritage pub Het Goudblommeke in Papier, its Dutch name, also called La Fleur en Papier Doré, in French, or The Paper Marigold, its English name, shows imagery including an older man leering at the shapely rear of a younger lady.
According to the owners, who wish to attract a younger clientele, such decoration is unacceptably disrespectful toward women, and especially unappealing to the younger revellers they want to bring in.
“The new patrons are aiming at a young audience and they [clientele] don’t find themselves reflected in the drawing. They find old men peeping under the skirts of young women too sexist,” Peter Lombaert, a member of the association involved with Het Goudblommeke, told Vrt Radio 2.
“Painting over the drawing was not an option, the owners also want to respect the heritage,” he said.
“They also know that everything in the café is protected and that they have to be very careful. That is why they chose this interim solution.”
It is not the first time the illustration has caused consternation. The feminist activist organisation Noms Peut-Être (Names, Maybe) called for its removal along with 12 other well-known cartoons across Brussels, which the group deemed “racist or sexist”.
The cartoon in the Het Goudblommeke will be hidden from view behind a huge canvas, although those who want to see it can request to do so. However, if younger visitors object to that, it will remain under wraps, the owners said.
Brussels is famous for its rich comic-book culture and such cartoon walls. The Het Goudblommeke in Papier itself is renowned for having been a regular haunt of artistic luminaries such as the cartoonist Hergé, the painter René Magritte and the novelist Louis Paul Boon. It was a meeting place for artists of the late-1940s avant-garde CoBrA movement, while in 1955 the writer Hugo Claus held his wedding reception there.
The venue was registered as a ‘protected monument’ in 1997 and the comic strip fresco, created by the noted cartoonists De Marck and De Wulf, has been there since May 2011.
However, on social media, reactions to the mural have proved negative, with some commentators slamming it as the “death of humour” and others regarding it as a form of “puritanism”.
