TV presenter apologizes for topless ad (Reuters/chinadaily.com.cn) Updated: 2006-06-13 12:58 A Chinese TV presenter issued a public apology
after posing topless with two other women in hospital advertisements for women's
health, the Beijing News said on Tuesday.
The advertisement featuring nude TV
hostesses provoked fierce debate online and in media over the
morality of using nudity to promote public interest causes.
[sina] | | Chen Dan, a
presenter on Changsha TV's "Women's channel" in the central province of Hunan,
drew fire from Internet chat-rooms and station bosses after her "Clever Girls
Love Themselves More" advertisement appeared at bus stops and on billboards in
Hunan's capital, Changsha.
Chen, who was suspended from presenting duties said it was a "public interest
advertisement", the Beijing News said.
Changsha TV, in a statement, said
Chen has been suspended from her job and would be handled according to its
rules.
Chen
Dan | The statement said the advertisement, with
its leading presenter as a model, was not endorsed by the TV station, therefore
damaging its image and legal rights. The statement said the TV station reserves
the right of legal action against the activity organizer.
"My intentions were good," the paper quoted her as saying. "I hoped to draw
people's attention to women's health, but because the format was inappropriate
it caused a huge backlash. In future I will choose more suitable ways of
publicising women's health."
Chen admitted that her modeling in the
advertisement was not approved by her employer and she made a wrong decision and
would never do such a thing again.
The advertisement provoked fierce debate online and in local media over the
morality of using nudity to promote public interest causes, and whether the
article was a commercial stunt for the women or Changsha's Shangmei Gynaecology
Hospital.
"What a shame breasts have become the leading actor," the
Xinhua news agency said in a commentary.
"This is a serious attack on
women," fumed an online commentator. "It goes completely beyond the moral and
aesthetic baseline."
The "Clever Girls" advertisement furore followed a
controversy over several actresses who posed nude in support of breast cancer
prevention in a lifestyle magazine in October 2005.
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