L.A. Unified pauses plan to paint over the Ava Gardner mural targeted by Korean activists

[Floyd R. Turbo]

Los Angeles school district officials on Monday backed off immediate plans to paint over a mural at a campus in Koreatown as they faced a growing chorus of objections.

The mural at the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools is dominated by an image of actress Ava Gardner. But it has run afoul of the Wilshire Community Coalition, a Korean-led group that objects to the sun rays in the background, which its members associate with the Japanese imperial battle flag.

Earlier this month, L.A. Unified announced its decision to paint over the mural after the Korean group pronounced the background as offensive as a swastika and threatened legal action.

The mural’s artist, Beau Stanton, has denied any connection between his artwork and the battle flag. The rays on the flag differ in number, thickness and color.

https://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-edu-mural-destruction-on-hold-20181217-story.html

[Jake Stern]

1. Jeezus

Guess folks gotta be offended by something.

[soryang]

2. It's a public building?

If so it needs to be taken down.

"Unquestionably, in China and Korea, the use of those flags remains very controversial, as they are associated with Japanese imperialism and specifically with the invasion of China and colonial rule in Korea," Dan Sneider, associate director at Stanford University's Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, explains in an e-mail. "Japanese were warned not to use the flag during the Olympics in Beijing, for example. I recall being told that one of the obstacles (though not the only one) to Japanese naval vessels making port calls in Korea is the flying of the Rising Sun flag."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/06/27/japan-has-a-flag-problem-too/?utm_term=.f5ee59a919e8

The symbolism is extremely offensive. Maybe if the background were composed of pscyhedelic swastikas, people would get it.

[Merlot]

3. Paint over it, it's ugly

Can see how the "sun rays" look like the flag rays, that is obvious. But why does Ava Gardner have palm trees and monkeys (?) climbing on her face? Ava deservs better than this.