Gelson’s Cover-up Sparks Media Storm

By JOHN HARLOW | Editor-in-Chief

Maybe it’s because it’s in the middle of the media “silly season” when nothing much (outside Washington) is happening.

Or maybe it’s because Pacific Palisades has an international reputation as a bastion of calm, civilized and largely liberal values.

But the decision by Gelson’s market management to cover up a glossy magazine cover showing a naked and pregnant Serena Williams has gone viral.

When Village shopper Bert Kearns noticed that Gelson’s on Sunset had hidden the Vanity Fair image of the naked and pregnant Williams behind a Gelson’s sheet of paper, he posted it to Instagram—from where it spread across the world.

The August edition of Vanity Fair was then moved from the checkout area to the liquor aisle.

Gelson’s head office said that the store had received “several” complaints, but did not repeat what actually upset the shoppers.

When Rich Schmitt, Palisadian-Post staff photographer, attempted to photograph the cover at the new location, he was asked politely to desist. He complied.

At that time a Gelson’s manager noticed that the “modesty” sheet had vanished—possibly removed by a member of the public.

The magazines were then removed from the shopping area. A staff member suggested that a female complainant said that the image of the heavily-pregnant tennis star “offended family values” and it might “hurt the children.”

The image itself is no longer novel: It was taken by Annie Leibovitz, who originated the pose with a naked and pregnant Demi Moore in 1991—a cover seen by 100 million people. At first the image was both condemned and lampooned, but in 2005 was judged by the American Society of Magazine Editors as the second-best magazine cover of the last 40 years (The winner was a naked John and Yoko Lennon, also by Annie Leibovitz).

It has been much imitated, but to declining effect: Natalie Portman repeated the pregnant pose in Vanity Fair last January, but that did not prompt complaints.

Glossy magazines can significantly boost casual sales with a calculatedly shocking cover, but this does not seem to have caused either outrage or significantly higher sales elsewhere.

The last such widely offending image was reported in Florida last December when shoppers were upset by a magazine cover featuring then-President-Elect Donald Trump.