Visitors at Louvre look on in shock as Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece attacked by environmental protesters
Two environmental protesters have hurled soup on to the Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris, calling for “healthy and sustainable food”. The painting, which was behind bulletproof glass, appeared to be undamaged.
Gallery visitors looked on in shock as two women threw the yellow-coloured soup before climbing under the barrier in front of the work and flanking the splattered painting, their right hands held up in a salute-like gesture.
One of the two activists removed her jacket to reveal a white T-shirt bearing the slogan of the environmental activist group Riposte Alimentaire (Food Response) in black letters.
For-profit, neoliberal media will never fairly cover any protest that may impact the profits of other neoliberals. It doesn’t matter what form the protest takes, nor what the protest is for.
It’s been that way ever since “Occupy Wall St”, when news anchors feigned carefully practised bewilderment and asked "But what are they protesting. Of course if you asked any of the actual protesters, they were happy to make it clear.
So they just didn’t ask.
Measuring any act of protest by metric of “the media covered it in a way that will bring the great unwashed on side” ensures that no protest will ever meet your standard. You may as well advocate that people don’t bother and just politely wait for the end of the world. You won’t even be alone in doing it.
Fortunately, those media companies don’t control every method of communication just yet, so we can discuss it on social media or look it up independently.
What we can’t escape is the endless protest policing, where people complain “that’s not how I would have done it” on social media.
So maybe it’s time for those people to unveil their perfect protest strategy that gets international attention, doesn’t inconvenience anybody, gets fairly covered despite the millions spent to prevent it and doesn’t require 3 wet wipes to fix.
My money is on their big reveal being “do fuck all and try and die of old age before it matters”.