Court Opinion

ID: 9633317
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:42:45.499597+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:32.996015
License: Public Domain

BIUNNO, District Judge
(concurring).
At the premiere of Aida in Cairo, in 1871, Radames and Aida were immured in a prison cell beneath the Temple of Isis, where they expired in each other’s arms. And they have died again at the end of each of the countless performances of the opera since then.
In every performance of Carmen, since its premiere in Paris in 1875, Jose has stabbed the gypsy girl through the heart just as shouts from the bull-ring signalled Escamillo’s victory.
Cascio has stabbed Nedda and Silvio before countless audiences of Pagliacci for more than 80 years.
Jochanaan has been decapitated and his head brought to Salome on a silver platter ever since 1905 in Dresden.
And so in countless theatrical performances, motion pictures, comic strips and books, all manner of violence, crime and depravity have been portrayed.
What distinguishes these killings, poisonings, rapes, seductions and like events from the present case is that they are not real; they are simulated. All the “dead” performers are always found at the footlights to take their curtain calls.
In this case, the performance was real; the acts and conduct recorded on film were actually committed, and the film is photographic evidence of them. *1333The claim that the First Amendment shields the participants from prosecution for what they did, is grotesque.
I concur fully in the opinion of the Court.