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SAO PAULO – A couple of modern art exhibits and a play have become leading battlegrounds in a growing culture war in Brazil, a nation whose fame for barely there bikinis masks a rising trend of conservatism.
Protesters waved a Brazilian flag and shouted “No! No! Not our children!” to denounce an exhibit at Sao Paulo’s Museum of Modern Art in which visitors, including a child, were invited to touch a nude man. A bank-backed cultural center bowed to pressure and cancelled a Queermuseu exhibit exploring sexual diversity — only to have prosecutors denounce the incident as censorship. And a play portraying Jesus as a transgender woman led protesters to leap on the stage. A judge ordered one performance halted, but was overruled by another court.
The outside world has long assumed Brazil is as wild as its famously minimal swimwear and the exuberant, anything-goes Carnival celebrations. But many within the nation have always seen those as exceptions.
“In Brazil, we have a very ugly habit of sweeping everything under the carpet,” said Renata Carvalho, the actress who performs the one-woman show “The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven.” ”This just sheds light on what people think. I think it’s excellent that the masks are falling.”
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