Daisy. Lady.
Only two words: and such nice words, really.
But the topic they came to represent generated an unexpected amount of heat.
When The Columbian looked back Sunday at 125 years of publishing, one item was about a 1974 front-page color photograph. It featured a young woman sitting in a field of flowers, covered (as far as anyone could tell) only by daisies.
She became known as the Daisy Lady.
We ran 92 letters from people who liked the photo and 91 from people who hated it. About 100 letters arrived after we ended the discussion. For the first day or so, they ran in the standard “Letters from our readers” section. Some examples:
• “As art, it was poor; as entertainment, it was worse; as front-page news, it was unbelievable. The only consolation is that we can now get at home for only 25 cents what Playboy offers at the newsstand for a dollar.”
• “I suppose the front page should be reserved for such highly moralistic news as murder, terrorist activities, robbery, extortion, hijacking, kidnapping, child abuse, drug addiction … and other ‘nice’ events that are just fine for our innocent children to read about.”
• “… a photo of a horse with its colt running through the field of daisies could have represented the subject of spring equally as well …”
• “Watergate” – “Prime rate up” — “Rain tomorrow” –“Expletives deleted” were shunted aside for a brief moment and we had that marvelous feeling that spring had at last arrived.”
Before long, the mail warranted its own category on the editorial page.
About that picture in the Sunday paper …
• “Each time you hit a new low I think, ‘That’s it. That’s as far as you will go.’ But sure enough, you’ve done it again.”
About the picture in last Sunday’s paper …
• “Please consider your female readership and think about a Robert Redford daisy patch.”
Comment continues on that picture …
• “Beauty is where you want to see it, as is vulgarity and pornography … I now know where a lot of your readers’ minds are. I’ll try not to run over them when I am parking my car.”
More comment about that picture …
• “I do not consider the picture to be descriptive of spring. How many people you know go romping through the daisies topless? What has happened to the white bonnet on a pretty face?”
Still more comments on that picture …
• “What one was able to see in the picture is no more than can be seen on any given day in downtown Vancouver, with today’s fashions being what they are.”
• “OK, granted, it was a beautiful, clever picture. … But (in) a newspaper? Surely, by any standard, it was poor taste, poor judgment. It’s hard for me to imagine the conference that decided such a photograph was appropriate.”
And eventually:
Final comments on that picture …
• “I do not always agree with your publishing and editing practices, but I really must thank you for your not too subtle attempt at dragging some our medieval denizens of Clark County kicking and screaming into the 20th century. Sophistication and tolerance come hard for some people.”
• “Both my husband and I were shocked to see such a picture on your front page of Sunday’s paper. I had to tear it off so as not to puzzle my 4- and 5-year-olds. They surely would have wondered, ‘Mommy, why is that lady naked outside in the flowers?’ “
Off Beat lets members of The Columbian news team step back from our newspaper beats to write the story behind the story, fill in the story or just tell a story.
