Film based on Gabriel Garcia Marquez book prompts protest in Mexico
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If you look at the culture pages in Mexico’s newspapers these days, there is little question about what’s the talk of the town in literary circles — old men having sex with young girls, writes Andres Oppenheimer.
He’s referring to a debate currently raging here in Mexico about whether a planned movie based on Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez’s book ‘Memories of My Melancholy Whores’ would glorify the sexual exploitation of children.
As the Huffington Post reports, the Regional Coalition Against Trafficking in Women and Girls in Latin America and the Caribbean filed a criminal complaint with Mexico’s attorney general’s office on Oct. 5.
The complaint does not specifically name Garcia Marquez, but instead ‘whoever is responsible for acts that could be constituted as the crime of condoning child prostitution.’ Coalition Director Teresa Ulloa told the Associated Press that a movie adaptation of the Colombian author’s novel would promote pedophilia and be accessible to a wider audience.
Read the full column from Oppenheimer here and go here for more from the Huffington Post.
[Updated at 11:57 a.m.: An earlier version of this post said the Regional Coalition Against Trafficking in Women and Girls in Latin America and the Caribbean had filed a criminal complaint with Mexico’s attorney general’s office today. It was filed Oct. 5.]
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City