RIP Brigitte Bardot (1934 – 2025)

[callmejaeden]

facebook.com/vogueparisEN
Brigitte Bardot has died at age 91.

 

[MModa]

RIP 🕊🙏❤️

 

[Avonlea]

We lost Claudia and Brigitte in one year. RIP. I always admired how she wasn't afraid to voice her opinions even if they weren't politically correct. One of the last true icons.

 

[MModa]

We lost Claudia and Brigitte in one year. RIP. I always admired how she wasn't afraid to voice her opinions even if they weren't politically correct. One of the last true icons.

Love this. She was very beautiful and special.

 

[Squizree]

She was a little more than simply politically incorrect.

 

[MulletProof]

RIP. 🖤

Her contribution to popular culture in terms of unapologetic sexuality, bold demeanor, femininity, ways of dressing that were exuberant and scandalous and somehow tasteful enough to survive every test of time and become a huge contribution and inspiration in fashion is undeniable. She had a fantastic career… until she didn’t. It’s sad that perhaps due to the value of looks/imagery easily becoming someone’s prison when on ‘phenomenon’ levels and when you don’t have the curiosity, sensibility, thirst for education and self-deprecating tendencies that someone like Jane Birkin had, aging and isolation really takes a toll, it made Brigitte look at a changing world in horror and bitterness because that’s probably how she felt about herself. Having spent enough time with elderly people, good and consistent actions (in her case, her work with animals up until her last days) often have a complex clash with archaic thoughts that are harder to revise the older the person is and that often come out in plain meanness due to the same lack of regulation teenagers have.

I hope she’s in a peaceful place.

(also can’t stand the Pisano guy! why do we keep citing him as if he was a journalist and not a well-known bottom-feeder.. he’s not breaking any news, we all knew that!)

 

[Kanzai]

Haven't seen any film featuring her though. But RIP.

 

[Lola701]

She was a little more than simply politically incorrect.

It was certainly telling to see one of her friend/supporter say on the news on the 2nd National French tv that « she was convicted for some things she said but that, we don’t care ».
Indeed…

 

[nunova]

Rest in peace Brigitte. She lived a long life and despite all of sensationalism from types like Pisano, she'll stay an icon. Many people knew what he's supposedly breaking anyway, most in reality won't care.

(also can’t stand the Pisano guy! why do we keep citing him as if he was a journalist and not a well-known bottom-feeder.. he’s not breaking any news, we all knew that!)

I roll my eyes on any Louis's posts being shared here, too. Idc if he works in the industry. He's same as insufferable as rest of current bottom feeder "commentator" plague from social media that doesn't work in fashion or aren't even buyers, don't do anything meaningful related to fashion at all, like proper fashion archival work.

 

[Squizree]

also can’t stand the Pisano guy! why do we keep citing him as if he was a journalist and not a well-known bottom-feeder.. he’s not breaking any news, we all knew that!

Neither. But in this case it's irrelevant who reports it. Her behavior wasn't just relative Left-Right compliance or adherence to subjective partisan identity politics. Some of her comments were objectively wrong and cruel, regardless of the whims of shifting human politics. If some people are happy to excuse that because it ruins the fantasy, that's fine. Nobody is obligated to behave in any way they don't want to. But if we're happy with phrases like "degenerate savages" from Bardot then we should be able to use it on tFS too.

 

[Squizree]

It was certainly telling to see one of her friend/supporter say on the news on the 2nd National French tv that « she was convicted for some things she said but that, we don’t care ».
Indeed…

At least they're honest.

 

[Lola701]

At least they're honest.

She is an icon. A icon for Cinema, for fashion, for a certain romantistic idea of France from the 60’s/70’s and her commitment to animals rights…
But for anyone living in France it’s impossible to not mention that because she has been linked since the 80s to the far right movement. Beyond the statement she was convicted for…A lot of statement, things she said even back around the latest elections. She was always used as a popular figure to push far rights ideas so yes, it has been part of her public persona for many decades now. Her last movie was in the 70s so obviously I’ve only known the racist animal loving woman who was an icon.


So of course, when we look at a VP editorial inspired by her aesthetic in the 60s, we love them. I think « Et Dieu Créa La Femme », « Le Mépris » and her two songs with Gainsbourg are fantastic but she made her personal and political opinions part of what became her public persona.

People don’t care and some do care.
Pisano is not the right messenger but yeah, calling black people in La Reunion « autochtones sauvages » (indigenous savages) was a reflection of who she was.

Ps: But as she was also an icon of beauty, cinema and culture, I can understand that people wants to remember that more than who she was as a person.

 

[Squizree]

She is an icon. A icon for Cinema, for fashion, for a certain romantistic idea of France from the 60’s/70’s and her commitment to animals rights…
But for anyone living in France it’s impossible to not mention that because she has been linked since the 80s to the far right movement. Beyond the statement she was convicted for…A lot of statement, things she said even back around the latest elections. She was always used as a popular figure to push far rights ideas so yes, it has been part of her public persona for many decades now. Her last movie was in the 70s so obviously I’ve only known the racist animal loving woman who was an icon.


So of course, when we look at a VP editorial inspired by her aesthetic in the 60s, we love them. I think « Et Dieu Créa La Femme », « Le Mépris » and her two songs with Gainsbourg are fantastic but she made her personal and political opinions part of what became her public persona.

People don’t care and some do care.
Pisano is not the right messenger but yeah, calling black people in La Reunion « autochtones sauvages » (indigenous savages) was a reflection of who she was.

Thanks for this background.

Racial supreriority and oppression are FAR from being exclusive to Right-Winged ideologies or governments. Historically, race and ethnicity have been weaponized across the political spectrum. So her political affiliation is probably the LEAST of her problems. She was a very flawed person, as are we all - not because some dumb politicians "said so", but because some ideas and behaviors are just objectively morally wrong.

I understand this comes off as VERY preachy, but I say as it someone who is just as guilty of some of these flaws. I'm not saying this because I want to assert some kind of moral dominance, but because I hate the disingenuity of hand-waving Bardot's poor behavior off because it inconveniently disrupts people's sanitized image of her. They want to retain their carefully-curated idealized memory of their favorite celebrity/model/designer/etc. We saw the EXACT same thing when Karl Lagerfeld passed. Any criticism of his objectively disgusting ideas and behavior was always dismissed as political correctness because his work had become too 'sacred'.

 

[MulletProof]

If some people are happy to excuse that because it ruins the fantasy, that's fine. Nobody is obligated to behave in any way they don't want to. But if we're happy with phrases like "degenerate savages" from Bardot then we should be able to use it on tFS too.

Both exaggerations. Nobody is 'happy' about what she said, it WAS cruel, nasty, unnecessary and widely reported at the time and she doubled down instead of laying low for a while, she even had time to throw victims of sexual abuse under the bus less than 2 years later.

I know separating the art from the artist is not always possible, definitely not in cases when they're actively seeking to profit from their craft while simultaneously inciting hate, but it becomes easier when a long inactive person (her career was short, she spent the majority of her life [her last 51 years] as a private citizen) abuses her access to a wider platform to do the same. To me, it is possible to compartmentalize. The legendary actress and the hateful person can perfectly coexist in my head because timelines and fields do not overlap.

Brigitte, and Galliano for that matter, caused outrage due to the impact of having an audience, not because what they said is unheard of, and they were fined by the system, which is all we want. Lazy, insensitive and stereotyping statements are far more common (regardless of race/gender/age) than a solid argument that addresses the successes and failures of government initiatives towards integration and education. If people were articulate on that, they would be able to communicate demands that are 100% valid (in Brigitte's case, she was demanding control over the beheading of goats as a ritual and the slaughtering animals on the streets of France as a religious celebration) without shooting themselves in the foot and losing credibility by making outlandish and inaccurate claims about others just because they look different (she made the goat issue a 'savage'/cannibalism/demonic issue and the street slaughtering a muslim issue- not unlike what MAGA does with anyone is not white). The fact that a good chunk of the population tends to do that is a problem that reflects directly on the government, and the fact that neither Bardot nor Galliano received mandatory community work to educate themselves says a lot about how much they care about creating understanding among their society. Now, if she had possessed any self-awareness, she would've stopped at barbaric or linked that to the practice of public HUMAN beheading that was still happening in her own country when she was a kid, or bullfighting in neighboring Spain, which doesn't happen once a year, it happens all year round, and not even as a ritual, and don't get me started on animal hunting as a display of 'high class'.

 

[Lola701]

Thanks for this background.

Racial supreriority and oppression are FAR from being exclusive to Right-Winged ideologies or governments. Historically, race and ethnicity have been weaponized across the political spectrum. So her political affiliation is probably the LEAST of her problems. She was a very flawed person, as are we all - not because some dumb politicians "said so", but because some ideas and behaviors are just objectively morally wrong.

I understand this comes off as VERY preachy, but I say as it someone who is just as guilty of some of these flaws. I'm not saying this because I want to assert some kind of moral dominance, but because I hate the disingenuity of hand-waving Bardot's poor behavior off because it inconveniently disrupts people's sanitized image of her. They want to retain their carefully-curated idealized memory of their favorite celebrity/model/designer/etc. We saw the EXACT same thing when Karl Lagerfeld passed. Any criticism of his objectively disgusting ideas and behavior was always dismissed as political correctness because his work had become too 'sacred'.

In this case not really because her being close to Lepen and championing their politics and ideas in the privacy of her life has no impact.
But the moment where she makes statements in her book, decide to write articles on newspapers, decide to participate in the political debate, also contribute to the general unwelcoming atmosphere towards people of Colors in the Côte d’Azur and sneak it behind her fight for animals rights, it’s an issue.

She weaponized her iconic status.

Alain Delon much like her was also supporting the far right and close to Le Pen. But he never participated in any political conversation or had any influence in the public debate.

Im also against that idea of political correctness but I guess each person has their limits around those questions. I can tolerate ignorant comments, we all make those. But then I look around somebody’s circle and if those comments are reflected in their lives or impact people’s lives.

 

[philophile]

Wow! The mental gymnastics that takes to defend a blatant, hateful racist like Brigitte Bardot is mindbending, but yeah, it's 'possible to compartmentalize' LOL whilst othering people and talking about 'failures of the government to integrate'. It's basically a manual on how to look progressive whilst having lowkey xenophobic tendencies. We all know being tolerant and non-racist is only valid in white 'liberal' terms, as long as it doesn't hurt their sensibilities and gets on their way of their fantasies. "It is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist." like the wise Angela Davis once said.
I wonder if Bardot was such a devoted animal rights defender who also fairly criticized the yearly horrific slaughter of whales and dolphins in Denmark and Scandinavia. Oh wait, I nearly forgot she was a nationalist far-right bigot! Sorry it's getting on the way of your idealization and fantasies of her. So inconvenient! Political correctness, my @ss.

 

[Salvatore]

She reportedly punched her stomach to try to terminate her pregnancy .... her "cancerous tumour" as she literally called it. When the child was born, she abandoned him. But yeah ... save the animals. Awful on top of the racist and homophobic things she said.

 

[MulletProof]

She reportedly punched her stomach to try to terminate her pregnancy .... her "cancerous tumour" as she literally called it. When the child was born, she abandoned him. But yeah ... save the animals. Awful on top of the racist and homophobic things she said.

I remember reading about it years ago and probably blocked it out cause the idea of attempting to cause yourself a miscarriage makes me want to faint. Apparently her son sued her for sharing that, plus for comparing him with a dog?, and won. Unwanted/stressful pregnancies cause trauma in some women (reason why Diana threw herself down the stairs..), but 91 years is a long time, a truly privileged amount of opportunities to assimilate events, get professional help, turn relationships around and find peace and sounds like she instead channeled her pain towards hatred.. gays, lesbians, women, immigrants, not even the unemployed were safe! it's very telling of her self-hatred that only straight men, the one type that actually enforced physical violence on her, seems to have been spared...

 

[Salvatore]

I remember reading about it years ago and probably blocked it out cause the idea of attempting to cause yourself a miscarriage makes me want to faint. Apparently her son sued her for sharing that, plus for comparing him with a dog?, and won. Unwanted/stressful pregnancies cause trauma in some women (reason why Diana threw herself down the stairs..), but 91 years is a long time, a truly privileged amount of opportunities to assimilate events, get professional help, turn relationships around and find peace and sounds like she instead channeled her pain towards hatred.. gays, lesbians, women, immigrants, not even the unemployed were safe! it's very telling of her self-hatred that only straight men, the one type that actually enforced physical violence on her, seems to have been spared...

Yep ! I read that and I felt so bad for him after reading it. She totally directed that hatred to everyone else except where it needed to be directed. Unfortunate.

So was she iconic ? Yes. Insufferable ? Resounding YES !