Gerald Thomas's Frontal Nude Protest
After having been indicted for exposing my behind during the curtain call of
the production of Tristan and Isolde (4 year prison sentence pending
appeal/17 feb 2004), I decided to post this frontal nude on my Brazilian website. It
only makes sense. Think about it. If they are going to sue me because of my
ass, they might as well sue my penis. After all, the two have been together for
49 years. It would make no sense, whatsoever, to separate them now.
Zuenir Ventura, a leading Brazilian intellectual/journalist and major
columnist has taken the lead in beginning a petition/movemnt on my behalf. Together
with Oscar nominated actress Fernanda Montenegro (my ex mother in law) and
singer-composer Caetano Veloso, they have lead a movement which aimed at making
the Supreme Court of Rio de Janeiro drop the case at once on the grounds that my
behavior might have been a little childish but certainly deserved no
punishment. The petition contains more than two hundred signatures and include
celebrities from all fields such as filmaker Caca Diegues, film producer Luiz Carlos
Barreto, TV Show host Marlia Gabriela, Philip Glass, Contardo Calligaris and
others.
Here is Zuenir Ventura's text in its entirety:
Friends, admirers amd colleagues of Gerald Thomas: we want to manifest our
solidarity for this moment which might have been impuslive and unthoughful and
possibly criticizable, but never a reason for punishment. He is being
prosecuted and threatened by a Criminal Act . Apart from the absurdity - which remids us Brazilians of the hard days of our military dictatorship - the authorities are not considering the fact that if anyhthing what happened was not an act against morality. Perhaps what did happen was an act against good taste, let's say. But all that took place within a theater, which is historically a space where freedom of expression has always been practised.
If publically Gerald Thomas has already said that he was sorry for what he
has done (on the Jo Soares Show, aired by TV Globo two days after the event) ,
it seems unfair to us that insisting in transforming his "lack of a crime" into
a crime; worse even, convicting him of a crime he has not committed seems
like an awful revenge, an agenda, a vendetta.
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