Women’s theatre sells porn to bypass Spanish tax hike

A picture taken on November 18, 2014 shows actresses Karina Garantiva, Esther Acevedo, Paloma de Pablo and Maria Herrero posing with old pornographic magazines at the Nuevo Teatro Alcala in Madrid. An all-women theater group has found an ingenious way around a sales tax hike that is crippling Spanish theaters — by selling pornography. AFP

MADRID, Spain–An all-women theater group has found an ingenious way around a sales tax hike that is crippling Spanish theaters–by selling pornography.

The group registered as a distributor of pornographic magazines earlier this year after getting hold of around 300 back issues of a discontinued erotic magazine.

Primas de Riesgo, or Risk Premium, now give a free ticket to their production of “The Prodigious Magician”, a 17th-century drama by Pedro Calderon de la Barca, in Madrid, with every 16-euro ($20) porn magazine they sell.

With the sales tax on porn less than a fifth of that on plays, it allows them not only to keep ticket prices down but take a serious swipe at crisis-hit Spain’s cultural policy.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s conservative government raised sales tax on tickets to movies, plays and concerts from eight percent to 21 percent in September 2012 as part of its efforts to rein in the public deficit as unemployment rocketed. The sales tax on magazines remained at 4.0 percent.

“We want people to ask what kind of a society makes this kind of decision. That they compare pornography and Calderon, who is Spain’s Shakespeare, and reach their own conclusions,” said the group’s director, 34-year-old Karina Garantiva.

“We don’t want subsidies, we are a private initiative. The best subsidies are fiscal measures that don’t prevent me from doing my work,” added Garantiva, who moved to Spain from Colombia 12 years ago.

‘State of emergency’  

Audiences at cultural events have slumped since the sales tax hike, according to a study by the National Federation of Theater and Dance Business Associations (FAETEDA).

Figures show that in the first 12 months after it took effect audiences fell from 13.1 million to 9.3 million, a 29 percent decline, according to the association.

Takings from cultural events in Spain during the same period fell by more than a quarter and 1,800 jobs in the sector were lost.

“It’s a real state of emergency,” said Jesus Cimarro, a Madrid theater producer who heads the association.

The group wants the government to reduce the sales tax on theater tickets to 10 percent, the same rate as in Italy, which is also under pressure to reduce its public deficit.

It points out that the sales tax on cultural services in neighboring France is only 5.5 percent, while in Germany it is 7.0 percent.

“Just with this measure (of reducing the tax), a medium or large theater company could stage three or four more productions per year,” said Cimarro.

‘Immoral’  

The government argues the sales tax hike on theater tickets is needed to balance the public accounts and has shown no sign that it is willing to lower it.

The Primas De Riesgo theater group vow to keep selling porn magazines until the government lowers the tax.

“If the sales tax changes, we will suspend our campaign. If not, we will pursue this until the end,” said Garantiva.

“We are either part of the problem or part of the solution. We shouldn’t complain, we should work to change it,” she added.

The initiative has been well received by the public who bought 180 porn magazines with their free entries to the opening night performance of “The Prodigious Magician” on November 25.

“It seems like an original way to fight the economic massacre artists are facing and I totally support it,” said Diana Irazabal, as she browsed her copy of the porn magazine during the performance at Madrid’s New Alcala Theater.

The novel protest has its critics, however, including some who have questioned the morality of distributing pornography.

But Garantiva hit back, “What is immoral is not that women distribute porn magazines, but that the government offers subsidies to these publications and not to its cultural heritage.”