Editing Bayeux Tapestry (section)

== In popular culture ==
[[Image:Street art in Bayeux about tapestry.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|Street art in [[Bayeux]], [[Normandy]], imagining the tapestry being spray-painted by a Norman soldier]]
Because it resembles a modern [[comic strip]] or movie [[storyboard]], is widely recognised, and is so distinctive in its artistic style, the Bayeux Tapestry has frequently been used or reimagined in a variety of different popular culture contexts. George Wingfield Digby wrote in 1957:
{{blockquote|It was designed to tell a story to a largely illiterate public; it is like a strip cartoon, racy, emphatic, colourful, with a good deal of blood and thunder and some ribaldry.<ref>Wingfield Digby, "Technique and Production", p. 37.</ref>}}

It has been cited by [[Scott McCloud]] in ''[[Understanding Comics]]'' as an example of early [[Sequential art|sequential-narrative art]];<ref>McCloud 1993. ''[[Understanding Comics]]'' pp. 11–14</ref> and [[Bryan Talbot]], a [[British comics|British comic book]] artist, has called it "the first known British comic strip".<ref>The History of the British Comic, [[Bryan Talbot]], ''[[The Guardian]] Guide'', 8 September 2007, p. 5.</ref>

It has inspired many modern [[Editorial cartoon|political]] and other cartoons, including:
* [[John Hassall (illustrator)|John Hassall]]'s satirical pastiche ''Ye Berlyn Tapestrie'', published in 1915, which tells the story of the German invasion of Belgium in August 1914<ref>{{cite book |first=John |last=Hassall |author-link=John Hassall (illustrator) |title=Ye Berlyn Tapestrie |orig-date=1915 |year=2014 |place=Oxford |publisher=Bodleian Library |isbn=978-1-85124-416-4 }}</ref>
* [[Rea Irvin]]'s cover for the ''[[The New Yorker|New Yorker]]'' magazine of 15 July 1944 marking [[Normandy landings|D-Day]]<ref name="newyorker">{{cite web | url=http://archives.newyorker.com/?i=1944-07-15#folio=CV1 |title=The New Yorker |publisher=Condé Nast |date=15 July 1944 | access-date=30 October 2014}}</ref>
* [[George Gale (cartoonist)|George Gale]]'s pastiche chronicling the saga leading up to Britain's entry into the [[European Economic Community]], published across six pages in ''[[The Times]]''{{'s}} "Europa" supplement on 1 January 1973<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/george_gale_1_665795 |first=Alasdair |last=Steven |title=George Gale: Obituary |newspaper=The Scotsman |date=24 September 2003 |access-date=3 November 2014 |archive-date=3 November 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141103163802/http://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/george_gale_1_665795 }}</ref>

The tapestry has inspired modern embroideries, most notably and directly:
* The [[Overlord Embroidery]] (1974), commemorating [[Operation Overlord]] and the [[Normandy landings]] of 1944, now at [[Portsmouth]]
* The [[Prestonpans Tapestry]] (2010), which chronicles the events surrounding the [[Battle of Prestonpans]] in 1745
* The Black Gold Tapestry (2017), by [[Sandra Sawatzky]], depicting 5000 years of the history of oil<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ghosh |first=Amitav |author-link=Amitav Ghosh |title=Part One - Amitav Ghosh on Sandra Sawatzky's Black Gold Tapestry |url=https://blantonmuseum.org/climate-if-the-sky-were-orange-art-in-the-time-of-climate-change/a-global-history-of-oil/ |access-date=2025-01-22 |website=Blanton Museum of Art |language=en-US}}</ref>

Other embroideries more loosely inspired by it include the [[Hastings Embroidery]] (1966), the [[New World Tapestry]] (1980–2000), the [[Quaker Tapestry]] (1981–89), the [[Great Tapestry of Scotland]] (2013), the [[Scottish Diaspora Tapestry]] (2014–15), ''[[Magna Carta (An Embroidery)]]'' (2014–15), and (in this case a woven tapestry with embroidered details) the ''[[Game of Thrones Tapestry]]'' (2017–19).

A number of films have used sections of the tapestry in their opening credits or closing titles, including Disney's ''[[Bedknobs and Broomsticks]]'', Anthony Mann's ''[[El Cid (film)|El Cid]]'', Franco Zeffirelli's ''[[Hamlet (1990 film)|Hamlet]]'', Frank Cassenti's ''[[The Song of Roland (film)|La Chanson de Roland]]'', Kevin Reynolds' ''[[Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves]]'', and Richard Fleischer's ''[[The Vikings (film)|The Vikings]]''.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Burt |first1=Richard |title=Re-embroidering the Bayeux Tapestry in Film and Media: The Flip Side of History in Opening and End Title Sequences |journal=Exemplaria |date=July 2007 |volume=19 |issue=2 |pages=327–350 |doi=10.1179/175330707X212895 |s2cid=161901758 }}</ref>

The tapestry is referred to in [[Tony Kushner]]'s play ''[[Angels in America]]''. The apocryphal account of Queen Matilda's creation of the tapestry is used, perhaps in order to demonstrate that Louis, one of the main characters, holds himself to mythological standards.<ref name="sparknote_angels">{{cite web | url=http://www.sparknotes.com/drama/angels/section3.rhtml | title=SparkNote on Angels in America | publisher=SparkNotes LLC | work=SparkNotes | access-date=30 October 2014 | quote=Louis's problem is exacerbated by his tendency towards abstraction and his unreasonably high standards for himself. In Scene Three, he tells Emily about La Reine Mathilde, who supposedly created the Bayeux Tapestry. Louis describes La Reine's unceasing devotion to William the Conqueror and laments his own comparative lack of devotion. But as critic Allen J. Frantzen has pointed out, this popular story about Mathilde and the tapestry is wrong—it was actually created in England decades after the conquest. Louis, then, is holding himself to a mythological standard of loyalty, and he curses himself based on a positively unreal example. This is part of a larger pattern of excessive guilt and harshness toward himself, which, paradoxically, prevents him from judging his own weaknesses accurately and trying to correct them. Because no one could possibly live up to Mathilde's example, Louis initially justifies his moral failure. Later, in Perestroika, he will arrive at a more genuine remorse and an honest understanding of what he has done.}}</ref>

In 2022 the French documentary ''Mysteries of the Bayeux Tapestry'' was broadcast by [[BBC Four]].<ref name="Four">{{Cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0015nnc |title=BBC Four - Mysteries of the Bayeux Tapestry |website=BBC |url-access=registration}}</ref> It was written by Jonas Rosales, directed by Alexis de Favitski and produced by Antoine Bamas.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/bbc/bbc4-to-reversion-bayeux-tapestry-doc/5166806.article |title=BBC4 to reversion Bayeux Tapestry doc |first=John |last=Elmes |website=[[Broadcast (magazine)|Broadcast]] |url-access=registration}}</ref> The documentary covered investigations carried out on the tapestry by the Laboratoire d'Archéologie Moléculaire et Structurale (LAMS) at the [[French National Centre for Scientific Research]], which used a [[hyperspectral camera]],  measuring 215 different colours, to analyse the pigments which produced the original colours for the dyes, extracted from [[Rubia|madder]], [[Reseda luteola|weld]] and [[Indigofera tinctoria|indigo]].<ref name="Four"/>