Poland’s new regime threatens stage censorship
mainA Wroclaw production of Elfriede Jellinek’s Death and the Maiden received a warning from the conservative Minister of Culture, Piotr Glinski that state funds would be withdrawn from shows with nudity. Threatres are being urged to celebrate ‘national heritage’.
The Polish clock is running backwards. Watch Arte report here.
This is a manipulation. The minister simply questioned rationale behind public funding of shows that advertise themselves as “involving porn actors”. It has nothing to do with the play itself.
I think I read that first sentence correctly…
Refusing to squander taxpayer funds is hardly censorship.
First of all it’s Poland’s new government, not a regime (which by default is a pejorative term), although German media (owning ca. 90% of media in Poland) and those in Poland who have lost government seats after 8 years will be crying about the end of democracy – well, fruitful time for them ends. Second of all, it is a Theater fully subsided by government=taxpayer money, it means also responsibilities. Until know subsided institutions were treated as private kingdoms by its directors. Then somehow independent companies are not interested in this kind of productions and in their case no one would stop them.
Meanwhile the Polish Government has seized control of all national media (TV, press) in a move that looks more like Pyongyang than Poland.
And of course, Poland’s neoliberal pals in Berlin, Brussels and Paris obediently look the other way as usual.