Last week, media including Guardian Australia reported that Australias richest woman had demanded the National Gallery of Australia remove a portrait of her. The painting by the artist Vincent Namatjira is one of numerous portraits on display at the Canberra gallery in Namatjiras first major survey exhibition.
But the NGA rebuffed her demands and news of her request has meant the portrait has been seen by many more eyes than it would have otherwise.
Rinehart appears to have fallen victim to the Streisand effect, a term coined after Barbra Streisand launched a lawsuit in 2003 to try to remove an aerial photo of her California beach house from an online collection. Streisands attempt to suppress the image led to almost half a million people visiting the Pictopia site to view the photo within a month.
A similar thing seems to have happened with Rinehart. The NGA told Guardian Australia in a statement that there had been a noticeable increase in visitors to the national gallery as well as its digital channels over the past week.
Google trends has also given us a sweeping indicator of the worldwide gain in traction of the search term Gina Rinehart.
Before 15 May the day the first stories about Rineharts portrait demand was published interest in Rinehart on Google was at roughly 0, meaning there was not enough search data on the term.
But after the news broke, search interest picked up, with Gina Rinehart hitting peak popularity two days later.
Rinehart and her portrait even got a mention on US talkshow The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
A billionaire has called for the removal of an unflattering portrait of her, Colbert said in a segment on The Late Show. I mean, come on. How unflattering could this portrait possibly be, he starts, before taking a look at the painting.
OK, Ive got to say, um, Im no art expert, but in this portrait, I believe the artist really captured her expression at the moment she saw this portrait.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/6/6d7fe7b0.jpg
How do people not intuitively understand the Streisand effect? Have you not met anyone ever?
How do people not intuitively understand the Streisand effect? Have you not met anyone ever?
I don't even know who Barbara Streisand is, just her name.Giant robot dinosaur
I don't even know who Barbara Streisand is, just her name.
Giant robot dinosaur
She's a Canadian singer who struggles to think of what to call her albums.
The Barbra Streisand Album (1963)
The Second Barbra Streisand Album (1963)
The Third Album (1964)
People (1964)
My Name Is Barbra (1965)
My Name Is Barbra, Two... (1965)
Color Me Barbra (1966)
Je m'appelle Barbra (1966)
Simply Streisand (1967)
A Christmas Album (1967)
Barbra Joan Streisand (1971)
Barbra Streisand...and Other Musical Instruments (1973)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/5/5a336b37.jpg
....I Googled this dudes other works...https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/2/293ee70c.jpg
I feel like whoever painted that really, really hates her and wanted to show people her true face.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/6/6ea3ddea.jpg
Man, I wish an ugly painting of myself going public was my biggest worry as a billionaireMost billionaires have nothing other than petty worries towellworry about.
I know nothing about this woman but someone had to make it as fucked up as they could get away with on purpose. Looks nothing like her. Imagine being immortalized in a museum and 1000 years from now someone finds your hideous portrait and laughs about it all over again.
Well Rinehart isn't exactly a popular person in Australia and she's frequently seen as the Trump of Australia. She inherited her fortune from her father, a mining prospector who once infamously said Aborigines should be sterilized and doesn't deserve rights. In recent years she used her fortune to purchase media outlets to promote climate change denial and other right wing causes. She's also a generous sponsor of Australian athletes, and used the swimmers she sponsored to pressure for the particular portrait's removal. She previously withdrew from sponsoring netballers after he father's racist comments, for which she never owned up to, were called out by Aboriginal players.How would professional swimmers get that portrait removed?
How would professional swimmers get that portrait removed?
It's mostly out of loyalty they contacted the gallery to petition it to be removed, and obviously it isn't successful. Rinehart is pretty much the main sponsor of Australian swimmers and spent tens of millions on their Olympics campaigns, paying the top swimmers a generous salary.Do people in Australia actually care what these swimmers think? This makes Rinehart and those swimmers look like major dumbasses.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/may/22/gina-rinehart-portrait-removal-saga-australian-swimmers-olympics
-kyle-chalmers-support-national-gallery-of-australia-ntwnfb
Do people in Australia actually care what these swimmers think? This makes Rinehart and those swimmers look like a major dumbasses.