If you remember the trailer for Free The Nipple, you’ll remember that it seems to combine one part legitimate cause (equality for women being allowed to go topless in public) with two or three parts dopey, overblown rhetoric (Grr, “smashing societal taboos!”). Mostly about what you’d expect from a director who says she came up with the idea while working with Miley Cyrus on LOL.
Today, actress Victoria Bolton (above, second from right), also a computer aide at Woodlands High School in the Greenburgh Central School District (about 20 miles north of Manhattan), says she’s facing disciplinary measures for appearing in the film. Well, sort of.
On Thursday, Bolton, a computer aide and resident of White Plains, was reassigned from Woodlands High School to the district’s administration building after she was grilled about the film in a “questioning” that was part of Greenburgh’s disciplinary protocol.
Meanwhile, as Bolton notes, she hadn’t done anything illegal.
“I thought about it, and found out it was legal,” said Bolton, 37, noting that a 1992 court ruling in New York allows women to bare their breasts in public, just as men do. “Besides, I support equal rights for women. I’m not ashamed of it.”
Well sure. Good for her.
On Friday, she received a “letter of counsel” from Mary O’Neill, Greenburgh’s assistant superintendent for business, who had seen photographs from the film’s Dec. 11 premiere at the International Film Center in Manhattan, at which Bolton was photographed topless.
O’Neill instructed Bolton to change the privacy settings on her Facebook page, so students could not learn about her movie exploits. O’Neill also warned that similar roles in the future could imperil her school job.
“Change my privacy settings on my Facebook account?” Whoa, like, do you even hear yourself, Stalin?
The letter came as a shock to Bolton. […]”
“They were trying to shame me,” said Bolton. “And what was going on with me was making the point of the movie.” […]
Bolton said she agreed to restrict access to her acting career to her Facebook friends. She did what the district asked her to do in the letter. But, on Monday, she was still in district headquarters, barred from returning to Woodlands High.
“This past week was a learning lesson,” she said. “I learned to stand my ground. I didn’t panic. I didn’t shed a tear. The film was made to start a conversation. We started one here.” [USAToday]
Damn straight. My grandfather didn’t almost get wounded at Pearl Harbor for this lady not to be able to post topless pictures of herself on her Facebook page without altering the privacy settings without getting transferred to a different office. I thought this was America.