It only took a few hours for the places available to visit Serge Gainsbourg’s house to be full until December. Located in a beautiful area of Paris, the latter had been closed since the singer’s death in 1991.
Wednesday 20 September, the residence has reopened its doors, this time as a museum, accessible for around ten euros. However, it is difficult to see it simply as a cultural place like the others. On the contrary, this dazzling public success is symptomatic of the deafening silence that reigns around Serge Gainsbourgincluding several women (starting with Jane Birkin) describe what appear to be acts of sexist and sexual predation and violence.
In a particularly enlightening and necessary comic, the author and illustrator Cécile Cée explains it which poses a problem with Serge Gainsbourg and, more generally, points to the incorrect treatment of incest in France.
What’s the deal with Serge Gainsbourg?
Drawing on Jane Birkin’s diaries, interviews with Serge Gainsbourg and numerous other archives, Cécile Cée meticulously analyzes the mechanisms of a patriarchal figure protected and celebrated. In a post on Instagram dated September 18, on the eve of the opening of the museum, the author introduces her comic with these words, which deserve the attention of as many people as possible:
I would have liked to talk about everything extraordinary we find in Jane Birkin’s diaries: how Gainsbourg repeatedly asked him to let others sexually assault him in front of him.As spends his time sorry for his violencehas not seeing or understanding anything of what his daughters are going through…
I would have liked to talk about these three teenage girls who became adults (Constance Meyer, Aude Turpault, Marie-Marie) who wrote books to tell stories how Gainsbourg used them at the end of his life sexually and emotionallywho say the same thing predation modelbut that they do so in the most specific denial of the influence that @manon_fargetton describes in Everything Manon Says is True.
“Totem of impunity for all sexual attackers”
At the crossroads of toxic male figures From “The misunderstood artist”From “big-hearted misogynist abused by women” and even “father madly in love” for her daughter to the point of wanting her, Cécile Cée explains why it would be legitimate to consider Serge Gainsbourg as a “totem of impunity for all sexual attackers”.
Everything is public, nothing is seen or said. It’s time to name it. For today’s children. To pull the ground from under predators’ feet, to break the spell of rape culture and incest.
Cécile Cée
Incest, rape, control, predation, incestuous and pornographic drawings, public humiliation of young women (like France Gall, 18 years old at the time of the events, when Gainsbourg was close to 40)… Everything is contained in these testimonies, especially edifying which the author explains are constantly silenced, denied or ridiculed by the media and institutions.
In this context it is necessary to question the meritsa laudatory media campaign that passes in silence legitimate questions about Serge Gainsbourg. While waiting for a real public debate to emerge, Cécile Cée’s comic must be read urgently, to continue fighting in a society in which rape and incest culture they seem to have bright days ahead of them.
Source: Madmoizelle
Mary Crossley is an author at “The Fashion Vibes”. She is a seasoned journalist who is dedicated to delivering the latest news to her readers. With a keen sense of what’s important, Mary covers a wide range of topics, from politics to lifestyle and everything in between.
