She is the Shirley Temple of samba, a seven-year-old named to a coveted Carnival role normally reserved for barely clad models who have undergone more plastic surgeries than Julia Lira has seen birthdays.
Naming the girl drum corps queen for the Viradouro samba group is raising eyebrows — even in a city that has seen everything during the annual mega-party that begins next week.
A judge is considering blocking Julia’s participation. A state agency that defends children’s rights says she’s too young to take on a traditionally sexy role. But the girl’s father, who is president of the Viradouro group, says Julia is a natural who can easily samba through the 80-minute parade route in Rio’s sweltering summer heat.
“Any man who looks at a seven-year-old child and feels any sort of excitement should go see a doctor,” Marco Lira said before rehearsal this week. “She has the aptitude to be a drum corps queen — you’ll see it tonight. She has a seriousness inside of her when she is on the stage.”
At the delicate core of Julia’s case is the queen’s traditional role in Rio’s Carnival: that of sexy muse. Unlike other participants, she is usually not bare-chested and wears more than just glitter. But queen costumes would be considered revealing by any estimation.
Brazil has long had a problem with sexual exploitation of children, especially in the lawless Amazon region. Allowing Julia to be a drum corps queen “would increase the treatment of children as sexual objects in Brazilian society,” said Carlos Nicodemos, director of the Rio de Janeiro state Council for the Defense of Children and Adolescents.
“We’re not against kids participating in Carnival,” Nicodemos said. “What we can’t allow is putting a seven-year-old girl in a role that traditionally for Carnival has a very sexual focus.”
The competition among the 12 top-tier samba groups is fierce, and the winners are hailed by fans across Brazil. Viradouro, which won the title in 1997, is no stranger to controversy. In 2008, a judge blocked the group’s use of a dancer dressed as Hitler on a float loaded with naked people representing Holocaust victims after the display caused an international outcry.
Julia’s fate is now in the hands of a family court in Rio. The judge examining the case has declined to say when she will make a decision.
Marco Lira said the judge requested information about the girl’s role, when the group was scheduled to makes its presentation and what Julia would be wearing.
Some Carnival fans don’t see how Julia could be considered for the role.
Jaquelene Oliveira, a 19-year-old college student, said: “The role of the drum corps queen is to inspire the drummers to play hard for 80 minutes. It is an innately sexual role and to put a child in that position is wrong.”
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
RSS