The Dubious Maneuverings of Thomas Gladysz: A Blight on Louise Brooks’s Legacy
• Michael Garcia Mujica, Lead Educator in Arts and Film History.
Echoing the sentiment about Charlotte Brontë's pseudonymous voice, Michael lends his expertise not only as a writer and visual artist but also as a Lead Educator in arts and film history. Based in Coral Gables, Florida, he is the principal of Vintage Brooks, Inc., where he passionately revitalizes the legacy of silent film star Louise Brooks. His acclaimed blog, Naked on My Goat, serves as a living tribute to Brooks's enduring influence in film, her profound writing, and her broad appreciation for the arts.
Just as Brontë made an indelible mark in literature despite the societal constraints of her time, Michael accentuates Brooks's trailblazing spirit within the film industry. In his role, he ensures that Brooks's iconic voice continues to resonate within the cultural lexicon of the 21st century, celebrating the intricate victories of women in the arts, both past and present.
Explore more about the abstract persona of Charlotte Brontë in Michael's piece, "The Abstract Persona: Understanding Charlotte Brontë's Pseudonymous Journey as Currer Bell."
“I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be. All novels are or should be written for both men and women to read, and I am at a loss to conceive how a man should permit himself to write anything that would be really disgraceful to a woman, or why a woman should be censured for writing anything that would be proper and becoming for a man.”
• Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
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In the ledger of 2024, the lexicon of online commerce – spanning the digital aisles of Amazon to eBay – was besmirched by a brazen pilferage of Louise Brooks‘s illustrious legacy. Here we find a narrative not of preservation, but of audacious appropriation: the iconic visages of Lulu in Hollywood and Diary of a Lost Girl were usurped, subjected to a modern-day iconoclasm. Enter the architect of this cultural larceny, Thomas Gladysz, wielding the moniker of the Louise Brooks Society with a fervor reminiscent of the notorious Dan Schneider‘s escapades in the corridors of Nickelodeon.
Gladysz, in a maneuver of Machiavellian ingenuity, commandeered the bibliographic and cinematic listings of Brooks’s seminal works, proffering editions so egregiously altered they were promptly branded as “Defaced.” This stratagem extended beyond mere cosmetic alterations, venturing into literary impersonation – a bold rewrite of authorship that saw Gladysz insinuating himself into the narrative fabric woven by Brooks and Margarete Böhme.
This subterfuge, masquerading under the veneer of a “grass-roots campaign,” revealed itself to be the solitary crusade of Gladysz – a fact that cast a pall over the purported community endeavor. Such machinations, mirroring the unsettling undertones of Schneider’s reign over young talents, thrust upon the literary and cinematic circles a pressing ethical conundrum.
The guardians of cultural patrimony, faced with this affront to Brooks’s memory, are summoned to the barricades. The imperative is clear: to safeguard intellectual properties from the predations of those who, in their quest for personal aggrandizement, would distort the legacies of our cultural luminaries.
In rallying to Brooks’s standard, we advocate not merely for the preservation of her work in its unadulterated form but for the integrity of historical narrative itself. The task before us is to repudiate the revisionists and ensure that the luminous spirit of Louise Brooks continues to inspire, untainted by the covetous designs of contemporary interlopers.
Michael Garcia Mujica
"Currer Bell is neither man nor woman, but an abstract thing, an artist." • Michael Garcia Mujica, Lead Educator in Arts and Film History. Echoing the sentiment about Charlotte Brontë's pseudonymous voice, Michael lends his expertise not only as a writer and visual artist but also as a Lead Educator in arts and film history. Based in Coral Gables, Florida, he is the principal of Vintage Brooks, Inc., where he passionately revitalizes the legacy of silent film star Louise Brooks. His acclaimed blog, Naked on My Goat, serves as a living tribute to Brooks's enduring influence in film, her profound writing, and her broad appreciation for the arts. Just as Brontë made an indelible mark in literature despite the societal constraints of her time, Michael accentuates Brooks's trailblazing spirit within the film industry. In his role, he ensures that Brooks's iconic voice continues to resonate within the cultural lexicon of the 21st century, celebrating the intricate victories of women in the arts, both past and present. Explore more about the abstract persona of Charlotte Brontë in Michael's piece, "The Abstract Persona: Understanding Charlotte Brontë's Pseudonymous Journey as Currer Bell." “I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be. All novels are or should be written for both men and women to read, and I am at a loss to conceive how a man should permit himself to write anything that would be really disgraceful to a woman, or why a woman should be censured for writing anything that would be proper and becoming for a man.” • Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
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