According to BBC country profiles, Brazil is one of the world's fastest growing countries in terms of media growth and its everyday consumption. Recently however, the country has been on a mission to silence LGBTQ story tellers and censor certain content from the public. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has been instrumental in this new movement of censoring LGBTQ content in his country with him canceling state funding for television content that featured LGBT themes or characters. This decision suspended over 70 million dollars from the government grant with its effect putting a hold or completely canceling tv series and movies in development.
However this is not where the discrimination in the country stops, the latest controversy came when the mayor of the capital of Brazil, Marcelo Crivella ordered a complete ban of an Avenger's comic book from a Rio book festival according to CNN because it had featured a homosexual relationship between two heroes and had them sharing a kiss in one scene. The Marvel comic book 'Avengers: The Children's Crusade' tells the story of a group of young heroes trying to find their place in a world (that ironically), is scared of them. The comic book features a relationship between two heroes Wiccan and Hulkling. The two characters had been on an in comic couple since their creation in 2005 by comic book writer Allan Heinberg but the kiss was symbolic within the pages of the comic book because it had been their first on screen kiss in over a decade. The kiss is so remarkable because even though the two fictional characters must embrace each other daily in their world, it was the first time it was ever shown to the reader in 14 years since their first publication. However, this is not the first time Marvel Comic has shown a page kiss between two men and is far from the last time it ever will, so it's interesting that this specific panel of new heroes Wiccan and Hulkling kissing got the comic book banned in Rio.
The Book Billenial in Rio De Janeiro happens every year since 1988 and is billed as the largest literary event in the country. After the ban of the comic book during the 31st annual book fair, the mayor had all of the copies of the issue seized by officers at the event. Mayor Crivella who has been quoted in the past calling homosexuality "a terrible evil" had this to say when asked to comment on the issue. "Guys, we need to protect our children, As a result, we have determined that the Biennial organizers collect books with content that is unsuitable for minors." quoted in an article in The Washington Post. This issue sparked fire when the biggest newspaper in the country Folha De S.Paulo printed out an article detailing what happened along with the image of the two comic book characters kissing on the front page.
Credit to telsur hd.
In response, a handful of artists took measures into their own hands. Reuters reports that the author of the Avenger's Comic Book Nana Quieroz took to the streets away from the fair to sell copies of her comic book there where she would not be silenced or censored. The Rio Times reported that Brazilian YouTuber Felipe Neto bought over 10,000 LGBT themed books at the fair and distributed them there. In the end, Brazil’s highest court ruled that banning books over LGBT+ content was illegal, claiming that it was a violation of rights and Queiroz was able to sell her book without it being confiscated by officials from the mayor’s office in Rio de Janeiro.