A Canadian lawmaker is crying cyberbullying after a 17-year-old kid tweeted a screengrab of a nude scene the actress-turned-politician appeared in back in 2008. Lenore Zann, a member of the Nova Scotia legislature, filed a formal complaint with the provincial cyberbullying unit after Nic Scissons tweeted at her with an image taken from Zann’s brief prison shower scene from the Showtime series The L Word. He also included the message, “What happened to the old Lenore?”…. Zann immediately fired back at Scissons, claiming he was cyberbulling her with an image he was not allowed to post…. “Distribution of this image falls under the Criminal code,” Zann tweeted. “It has been reported.”
It’s refreshing to know that Canadians can be every bit as repressed and uptight when it comes to issues of sex, sexuality…or just plain, good old-fashioned nudity. Yes, we Americans are renowned for being ashamed of the naked human form, as if being seen sans culottes is somehow nasty and sinful. It’s a holdover from our Puritan origins, but it’s long since ceased to be anything but just plain silly. Not that most human bodies are anything most of us would (or even should) want to see au naturel, but I can’t see how a naked body is anything to be ashamed of.
Unless, of course, you’re Canadian, engaged in some full frontal nudity on film, and then later chose to pursue a career in politics. This is where Lenore Zann, who’d prefer we all just forget her short, unmemorable (and unclothed) TV career, comes in to our story. She made a brief appearance in a shower scene in the HBO series “The L Word” a few years ago. While that’s probably not the sort of thing someone planning a future in politics would be advised to do, it’s certainly nothing to be ashamed of. When the screen grab of her full frontal nudity was posted on Twitter, Zann could have just let it go and the “issue” likely would have died a quiet, well-deserved death.
Instead, Zann chose to be ashamed, go nuclear, and make a (almost literally) federal case out of it.
“I was being cyberbullied so I felt that I needed to call the police,” she told CBC News. “The police suggested that I call the CyberScan unit as well and that’s what they’re there for. That’s why we legislated them, so that they’d be there to help people who feel that they are being bullied by other people online.”
The police concluded that no criminal activity had taken place, but the five-person anti-cyberbulling unit set up thanks to Zann’s vote is said to still be on the case.
Of course they’re still on the case. They five Internet cops owe their jobs (at least in part) to Zann, so why wouldn’t they be in her corner?
There was no threat to Zann made or implied, no blackmail or promise to damage her political career if she didn’t get Nic Scissons a job playing defenseman for the Montreal Canadiens. Zann’s embarrassment and outrage aside, how she can claim “cyberbullying” would seem to defy rational explanation.
Not satisfied by the involvement of both the cops and the Justice Department task force she helped found, Zann contacted Scissons’ parents, his principal, and the local school board.
And her local chapter of Hockey Moms Anonymous and her neighborhood Tim Horton’s.
Scissons’ dad made him take down the tweet, but Scissons’ mom said Zann had gone too far.
Scissons himself says he was just joking, but remains adamant that he did nothing wrong.
“She was on that show voluntarily and she knew that image was out there and I don’t think I said anything mean about her,” he told CBC.
I know nothing of Zann, her politics, or her moral/religious philosophy. What I do know is this: she willingly appeared nude in a shower scene on an HBO series focused on lesbianism. That’s public knowledge, so it’s not as if Zann could be blackmailed and threatened with exposure. That Scissons found the screen grab and posted it is something anyone with an Internet connection and a brain could have done (It took me about 15 seconds to find screen caps of Zann). Perhaps he thought he was being funny, or perhaps Zann was truly ashamed, embarrassed, and concerned about the impact it might have on her future political prospects. Whatever the case, Scissons did nothing wrong…and he’s certainly not guilty of cyberbullying.
I suspect that Zann’s hypocrisy will do far more damage to her political future than her full frontal nudity in The L Word…which only supports the theory that politicians shouldn’t do nude scenes. Zann could have just ignored Scissons’ tweet and it’s likely no one would have taken notice. Her overreaction and attempt to quash Scissons is as silly and hypocritical as it is unwarranted. Zann has herself a cause celebe, but all she’s succeeded in doing is making herself look like an uptight prude who can’t handle her past being brought to light.
As if that’s anything to be ashamed of.
