En a handful of years, the leap is dizzying. There are not many people anymore who say that we must dissociate the man from the artist. More people can invoke the presumption of innocence. The artist accused of sexual violence is no longer an artist. He is silenced, erased. Too slow, powerless in the face of vanished evidence, the trial box is also crossed out. Suspicion equals guilt. The rare discordant voices are inaudible. Wajdi Mouawad, director of the Théâtre de la Colline, in Paris, who, in 2021, said he refused to take the place of justice to justify the discreet presence of singer Bertrand Cantat in a show, is treated as horrible sexist.
Times are changing and the French are following. According to an OpinionWay survey, published in The Tribune of February 18, one in two people believe that a filmmaker or actor accused of sexual assault should be “prohibited from working before being tried and convicted”. And 67% consider it rather “progress” that a “public figure” does not return to his profession after serving his sentence. The youngest are the most intransigent.
This survey reveals an alliance of circumstance between a progressive youth, carried by the #metoo wave, who fight against conservatism in art, and a very right-wing opinion, hungry to see figures of the left-wing cultural elite fall. Moreover, in the same survey, Marine Le Pen is considered the politician who best defends women.
Judicial slowness
The Césars, whose ceremony takes place on Friday February 23 at the Olympia, also skip the justice box by imposing this year the “non-highlighting” of cinema figures awaiting judgment. And then what is the point of justice if a complaint dismissed (theater director Jean-Pierre Baro) or a sentence served (Bertrand Cantat) does not bring people out of purgatory? Only stretched time or death favors a return. And even. It will be perilous to mount an exhibition of the works of Gauguin, undesirable for having had sexual relations with very young Tahitian women.
To compensate for the judicial slowness, some have thought of an artists’ order modeled on that of doctors – it is no longer on the agenda. The sanction then arises from the action of a multitude of agents of influence with diverse interests: victims, media, activists, social networks, intermediary bodies (producers, owners of cultural places), cultural figures, ministry of culture, audience…
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