Brigitte Bardot Research Articles

Cinéma théâtral: stardom and performance in the Tradition of Quality

ABSTRACT Departing from the directorial focus of debates about the Tradition of Quality, this article examines stardom and performance as central to late 1940s and 1950s mainstream French cinema. Authorship is not discarded but understood as a power dynamic in which directors and performers, alongside other contributors, struggle for control over characters and narrative. The article first establishes the main elements of quality performance, building on André Bazin’s concept of cinéma théâtral. Examples, drawn from major stars (Fernandel, Pierre Blanchar, Pierre Fresnay, Jean Gabin, Edwige Feuillère and Michèle Morgan), highlight the crucial importance of elocution and language, a dimension of performance that is often neglected. The article then focuses on Brigitte Bardot in two quality films, En cas de malheur/Love is my Profession (Claude Autant-Lara, 1958) and La Vérité/The Truth (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1960). B.B.’s iconoclastic image and her departure from prevailing notions of ‘good acting’ provoke a ‘dissonant’ performance, which illuminates further, by contrast, the Tradition of Quality’s acting norms. Conversely, Autant-Lara’s and Clouzot’s variously successful efforts to blend Bardot seamlessly into quality aesthetics betray their wish to modernise their cinema at a pivotal historical moment when the Tradition of Quality was under assault from the emerging New Wave.

Outcomes of a Community Cat Program Based on Sterilization of Owned, Semi-Owned and Unowned Cats in a Small Rural Town.

Free-roaming cats in urban and peri-urban areas and in rural towns pose significant challenges due to their nuisance behaviors, threats to wildlife, and potential disease transmission. Traditional management methods often involve trapping and euthanizing many of these cats, which is not only costly but also distressing for the shelter staff involved, and have failed to reduce numbers of impounded cats or cat-related complaints. Our study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a Community Cat Program that provided free sterilization, microchipping, and preventative veterinary care for all owned, semi-owned, and unowned cats in a small rural town with high cat impoundments in Ipswich, Queensland. The program was instigated by the Australian Pet Welfare Foundation in collaboration with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Queensland and the Animal Welfare League, Queensland, and it was funded by various organizations including Fondation Brigitte Bardot. Data from 2017 to 2023 were analyzed to assess the impact of the program on cat intake and outcomes in local shelters. A total of 308 cats were sterilized, representing 94 cats per 1000 residents over 3.4 years, and in the third year, this was associated with a 60% decrease in cat intake, an 85% reduction in numbers euthanized and 39% fewer cat-related calls to the local council. These findings suggest that high-intensity, targeted sterilization programs significantly decrease shelter intake and euthanasia, and thus alleviate the psychological burden on staff. These programs are a humane and effective alternative to traditional cat management, and benefit animal welfare as well as community wellbeing. This is aligned with a One Welfare approach, which enhances the well-being of animals, humans, and their environments. Legislative changes are required to support these programs to effectively decrease the numbers of free-roaming cats in cities and towns and the issues they cause, while protecting human wellbeing.

Exploring Maternalism: Brigitte Bardot, Baby Seals, and Contemporary Hegemonies of the Female Hero

Imperial tales of heroic exploration have had long-lasting effects on the construction of colonial landscapes and of hegemonies of masculinity centered on whiteness, physical strength, and endurance. This paper examines the renewal of such heroic polar explorer narratives in recent times, and how recurring stories tend to re-create as well as produce new hegemonies around gender and race. Through a case study of the expedition of Brigitte Bardot on the Canadian ice shield in 1977 with the intent of saving baby seals, this paper looks at neocolonial implications of a contemporary polar expedition narrative as told by a female “hero”. We argue that BB’s story is “maternalist” in that it is symbolically benevolent but reaffirms colonial authority on Inuit lands and practices based on a discourse of moral virtue and emotional care. Interestingly, the framing of seal pups as “babies” has constructed the act of sealing as gendered and motherhood as an important standpoint for both anti-sealing activism and Inuit pro-sealing resistance.

The Disrobing of Aphrodite: Brigitte Bardot inLe Mépris

This article examines a number of philosophical concepts that are at stake in the visual culture of the nude. It particularly focuses on Aphrodite’s appearance, or rather, what I call her exposed concealment, in Jean-Luc Godard’s 1963 Le Mépris. A film, I argue, which is not only concerned with Aphrodite and the figure of the female nude via Brigitte Bardot, but which also explores the very idea of the sex goddess in cinema. In the first section I introduce arguments from T.J. Clark about the changing status of the nude in nineteenth-century France. In the second section, having introduced Kenneth Clark’s work on Aphrodite, I outline Michael Williams’ work on the archaeology of divine stardom and discuss my disagreement with the way Ginette Vincendeau and Colin Gardner interpret Bardot in the film. In the longest section, the third, I examine several shots in Le Mépris in conversation with Stanley Cavell and argue that the nude scenes both invoke and rework the pictorial language of nudity found in the history of painting and sculpture, as well as Bardot’s film back catalogue, and I conclude by suggesting the film provides an indirect critique of what Hegel says about female nudity.

Simone de Beauvoir, Brigitte Bardot, and Back-Translation: The Trajectory of Beauvoir's Discourse on the ‘Eternal Feminine’

This article traces the translation trajectory of Simone de Beauvoir's essay ‘Brigitte Bardot and the Lolita Syndrome’. First published in Esquire in 1959, Beauvoir's text was subsequently back-translated into French in 1979, and, most recently, an edited version of the English translation appeared in 2015. Exploring how Beauvoir's philosophical discourse is restored via back-translation, how both her English and French translators play a pivotal role in assimilating her voice for their respective target audiences, and how presumptions about Beauvoir's lost original French text influenced changes made in the edited English version, this article seeks to probe the dynamics of literary back-translations, to consider how they disrupt traditional hierarchies subjugating a translation to its original, and threaten the viability of such a model.

From the Elephant Man to Barbie Girl: Dissecting the Freak from the Margins to the Mainstream

From the Elephant Man to Barbie Girl: Dissecting the Freak from the Margins to the Mainstream

Brigitte Bardot and the Lolita Syndrome, by Simone de Beauvoir: Censored under Francoism

This article deals with the failed attempt by the publishing house Horizonte to translate Simone de Beauvoir’s Brigitte Bardot and the Lolita Syndrome into Spanish at the beginning of the 1960s. On the one hand, I contextualize Beauvoir’s book from the production of the original, which appeared in English, up to the frustrated attempt to reproduce it in Spain during the Francoist dictatorship, when the National-Catholic social policies had silenced all the feminist voices since before the Civil War. On the other hand, I offer a brief introduction to the reception of Beauvoir’s work during Francoism. I also study the bureaucratic procedure of institutional censorship which the work on Bardot suffered after the Ministry of Information and Tourismopened a file on the Madrid publishing house in 1964.

Brigitte Bardot as Object of Desire and Subject of Contempt

Brigitte Bardot as Object of Desire and Subject of Contempt

Counter accounts of profit: outrage to action through “just” calculation

Purpose Profit is often moralized by activists, but scant research has carefully examined what profit is for these activists or how they use it to create a more just world. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how social movements use counter accounts of profit as tools of resistance. Design/methodology/approach A multiple case study design, informed by framing theory, is used to trace the framing of profit from activists’ counter accounts to actions they precipitated. Specifically, the study examines counter accounts of profit from the UK abolition movement, Médecines Sans Frontières access to essential medicines campaign and Brigitte Bardot Foundation’s opposition to the Canadian seal hunt, and how their framings of profit influenced change. Findings Activists reframe profit to create visibilities and bridges to the suffering of distant others. Reframing the calculation and boundary of profit is a strategy to elicit moral outrage, hope and ultimately a more just world. Through these reframings, activists in three different social movements were able to change the possibilities of who and what can be profitable, and how. Social implications The inherently incomplete nature of accounting frames give rise to accounting’s vulnerability to non-accountants to assert their views of a moral profit. Accounting therefore is both a means of control at a distance but also “emancipation at a distance.” Originality/value Scholars have asserted that accounting can be used for resistance, few studies have examined how. By examining how activists assert what profit is – and should be – the paper documents and theorizes profit as contested and highlights accounting’s emancipatory potential.

Cowboy and alien: the Bardot Westerns

French Western films land in a blind field in accounts of both film genre and national film industries. Genre studies often place a strong focus on Hollywood, while there remains a tendency to favour auteur and art cinema in studies of French film. French Westerns are all but invisible, dismissed as clumsy parodies of what André Bazin dubbed the ‘cinéma américain par excellence’. The convergence of the Western and France’s most visible post-war star therefore strikes a dissonant note. Brigitte Bardot’s global celebrity has been hailed as an emblem of transnational exchange. However, accounts of her star image dwell on the youthful sexuality exhibited in her early films or her consecration as a nouvelle vague icon. When not overlooked entirely, her Western pictures are cast as curiosities of a film career’s undistinguished end. Bringing critical pressure to the discordance between these films and the relays that shape ideas of both ‘Western’ and ‘Bardot’ yields a more differentiated understanding of her star image, of the Western genre and, when a singularly visible emblem of French cinema is cast in a genre closely associated with America and Hollywood, of the volatile conjunction of ‘French’ and ‘Western’.

Eliminating Dog-Mediated Rabies in Sikkim, India: A 10-Year Pathway to Success for the SARAH Program.

A third of the world rabies burden is in India. The Sikkim Anti-Rabies and Animal Health (SARAH) program is the first state-wide rabies program in India and demonstrates a successful One Health model of dog-mediated rabies elimination. The SARAH program was created in 2006 as a collaboration between the Government of Sikkim and international non-government organizations—Vets Beyond Borders and Fondation Brigitte Bardot. Activities are directed to canine rabies vaccination, humane dog population control, community education, and treatment of sick and injured animals. In 2005, there were 0.74 human rabies deaths per 100,000 (4 deaths) within Sikkim, and from 2006 to 2015, there were no human rabies deaths. In 2016, two human rabies deaths were reported near the West Bengal border region. From 2005 to 2010, the incidence of animal rabies is unknown; from 2010 to 2016, eight cases of animal rabies were reported. Major challenges for the program are continued commitment to rabies control in the face of 0 to low human rabies incidence and the risk of rabies incursions. Effective intersectoral communication between Health, Veterinary, Forestry, and Police officers is essential to enable rapid response to animal bite incidents and possible rabies incursions. An integrated One Health approach needs to be maintained with enhanced active rabies surveillance. Other states must establish similar programs if India is ever to achieve a goal of eliminating dog-mediated human rabies.

Les collages d’Alfonso López Gradolí: dislocation, amoncellement et aporie des bouts de papier pour la construction d’une voi

Since the middle of the XX th century, paper or object collage is a modality of Visual poetry. In experimental poems, the heterogeneity of fragments, which defines the collage, is added to the heterogeneity of processes and arts in presence (writing, painting, photography, etc.). Alfonso Lopez Gradoli is certainly the only author who practices the collage with such a constancy. He published in 1971 Quiza Brigitte Bardot venga a tomar una copa esta noche, and in 2013, the anthology Libro de collages. First, we will observe that the heterogeneous objects stuck on the page testify of a material, of a past, and in some cases of a central figure o character. The collage is often chosen as a form for homage, in A. Lopez Gradoli's work. But the plurality of places (Marc Auge, lieu), mentioned on the page, constructs a new space which transforms and transcends the original places. The collage appears to be a non-space, a utopia or a heterotopia (M. Foucault). Its internal organization evokes the troubling defined by Freud. The collagist process is the vehicle of phantasms, which enable the emergence of a subjectivity. The page of the collage is converted into the space for a quest of the poetical voice. This is the second aspect we explore in this article. Beneath the heterogeneity of fragments, there is a unique voice, born with the interaction of objects (documents, pictures) and discourse. Some compositions of Libro de collages deals precisely with the artistic and poetic experience of the author. Moreover, the introduction of a subjective perception constitute the main question of the book Quiza Brigitte…, in spite of the fact that it is apparently dedicated to the interlocutory (the actress B. Bardot). The repetition determines the structural dynamic of the book and, consequently, the collage seems to cease the essence of the object. It forms the erotic discourse, close to fetishism, which leads to a will of appropriation and the foundation of a proper an unedited discourse, fed with its relation to the other. Moreover we will observe that the voice seems often fragile. On the collage, blank and empty spaces, aporia, constitute the paradoxical space, yet necessary to the voice. In the collage, there is contrary dynamic: chock of the multiple fragments for the construction of a unique voice, strangeness and recognition of the objects, identity and permanency of the subject. Resume : Depuis le milieu du XXeme siecle, le collage de papiers ou d'objets constitue une modalite de la poesie visuelle. A l'heterogeneite des fragments definitoire, du collage, la poesie experimentale ajoute celle des procedes et des arts en presence. Alfonso Lopez Gradoli est certainement le seul a avoir pratique le collage avec une telle constance. Il publie en 1971 le recueil Quiza Brigitte Bardot venga a tomar una copa esta noche, puis, en 2013, l'anthologie de collages Libro de collages. Premierement, nous observerons que les objets 2

And Bardot … became a blonde: hair, stardom and modernity in post-war France

A pretty brown-haired starlet from 1952 to 1956, Brigitte Bardot emerged as a global star and sex symbol with hair newly bleached in Roger Vadim’s Et Dieu … créa la femme/And God Created Woman (1956). This article focuses on the importance of blondness to Bardot’s stardom in post-war France, and how its modernity affected her cultural standing and national identity as well as the aesthetics of her films. After a close look at the significance of Bardot’s hair in Et Dieu … créa la femme, the article examines the wider context of post-war France in terms of changes in both hair fashions and stardom. It then moves on to explore the implications of her striking, voluminous hairstyles, and how these functioned as a ‘signature’ both in and out of her films. The article argues that Bardot’s blond hair was the emblem of both her modernity and her successful amalgamation of ‘Franco-American stardom’.

Shooting ‘sublime blondes in tight dresses’: the paparazzi in fiction film and television from La dolce vita to Dirt

In his 1960 film La dolce vita, Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini called his photographer ‘Paparazzo’. Although photographers who snap celebrities, with or without consent, and sell the results to the press existed before La dolce vita, Fellini’s nickname for them endured. The figure of the paparazzo has, from that moment, served as a convenient tool for a number of filmmakers to observe, get close to, and unveil their favourite subject: the blond bombshell – as illustrated by Sylvia (Anita Ekberg) in La dolce vita, Jill (Brigitte Bardot) in Vie privée/A Very Private Affair and Stormy (Stormy Daniels) in the television series Dirt. Using Visual Studies methodology, this article analyses what is at stake when representing the male photographer’s perspective as he captures the blonde woman in his viewfinder. This article argues that the film director uses the paparazzo as an agent of visibility and discovery to unveil the female character, to glorify her, but also to degrade her.

A star is torn (to pieces): Brigitte Bardot seen through readers' letters in Cinémonde

This chapter analyses the reception of Brigitte Bardot in the Cinémonde readers’ letters for the years 1957, 1958 and 1959. The aim is to access the opinions of “ordinary” filmgoers to complement our view of the star, normally derived from professional writers and journalists, and the influence of gender on these views. The analysis shows that Bardot is perceived, positively and negatively, as the epitome of a new form of stardom, that of mass-media celebrity based on the exposure of the stars’ bodies and private lives. It confirms the extraordinary notoriety of the star in late 1950s France and the obsessional, highly controversial nature of her impact on film viewers, both men and women. The breakdown and evolution of readers’ views suggests the “problem” with Bardot is not so much her overt sexuality as a fear of female power.

The influence of etiological factors in the occurence of diastema mediana.

Even from the distant past the aesthetic perception in an individual was diminished by the presence of gap between the central incisors. This condition is found under the term "dents du bonheur" or "lucky teeth" and is encountered even among world famous figures including Brigitte Bardot, Eliah Wood, Madonna, Zac Efron, Amy Winehouse and Elton John. The teeth gaps are still considered main reasons for dissatisfaction of the dental patients and reasons for the requirement of aesthetic treatment. The purpose of this study is to exhibit the influence of the etiological factors in the occurrence of diastema mediana classified according to the dominance of their occurrence expressed in percentage values. Materials of this investigation were 100 patients with diastema mediana from the following factors: inheritance, disproportion in the dental arches, inborn or acquired missing teeth, harmful oral habits, high insertion of the labial frenulum as well as mesiodens. After the diagnosis and evaluation of the etiological factor for diastema mediana was performed, a decision regarding the course of treatment was made in direction of the removal of the etiological factor at an early age and orthodontic treatment. The end of the orthodontic treatment in a group of the patients was the beginning of prosthodontic reconstruction. From our clinical investigation we came to the realization that in 49 patients (49%) the hereditary influence was a dominant factor, next followed disproportions and discrepancies in the dental arch in 14 (14%), inborn or acquired missing teeth in 11 patients (11%), harmful oral habits in 10 (10%), high frenulum insertion in 4 (4%), and pathological objects between central incisors, mesiodens, iatrogenic factors and periodontal disease, in 3 of the clinical cases (3%) each. We concluded that the occurrence of diastema mediana is multi-causal. The dominant place is occupied by the hereditary factors. With regard to the mutual relationship between the multitudes of factors in the occurrence of diastema mediana, the diagnosis should be made conciliary and the clinical treatment should be interdisciplinary including a prosthodontist, orthodontist and oral surgeon.

Quegli oggetti oscuri: proiezioni e burattini del desiderio tra letteratura e cinema

The paper deals with one of the most popular female projections or phantoms of male desire, that is the charmer who never cedes, by comparing some literary and cinematic texts. This “allumeuse” which turns men into puppets in a dynamic of impossible seduction is the protagonist of La Femme et le Pantin (1898) by Pierre Louys (1870-1925), whose unforgettable Conchita from Sevilla was inspired by the young Charpillon who maddened the expert seducer Casanova. Conchita’s fame was deepened by the numerous adaptations of the text for the screen, especially von Sternberg’s The Devil is a Woman (1935) starring Marlene Dietrich, Duvivier’s La Femme et le Pantin (1959) with Brigitte Bardot, and Bunuel’s free and outstanding reinterpretation in Cet obscur objet du desir (1977). In the end, the adaptation of the novel Singularidades de uma Rapariga Loura (1874) by Portuguese Eca de Queiros (1845-1900) which Manoel de Oliveira directed in 2009 will be evoked to argue that the unattainable female character could represent a projection of the male protagonists’ desire and romantic idealizations as well as of their fears and bourgeois conventions.

Objectification and resistance: Dance performances in Abdellatif Kechiche’s La Graine et le mulet (2007) and Vénus noire (2010)

Performance is central to the work of Abdellatif Kechiche. Where male verbal performance took centre stage in the explorations of French national identity undertaken in his first two films, a gradual shift in focus towards female bodily performance in La Graine et le mulet (2007) and Vénus noire (2010) evidences the director’s increased awareness of the complex ways in which gender and ethnicity can combine in exclusionary discourse. This article presents close analyses of key sequences from the latter two films, showing how the representation of the dancing body in Vénus noire may call into question existing readings of the controversial belly dance scene that concludes La Graine et le mulet. Making extended reference to Brigitte Bardot’s mambo dance at the end of Et Dieu … créa la femme (Vadim, 1956), the article shows how dance performances in Kechiche can involve not only the adoption of stereotypical identities that serve to highlight the continuing force of exclusionary discourse, but also assertions of agency on the part of the female ethnic other.

The Foreign Film Renaissance on American Screens, 1946-1973

“And God Created Woman is a sex film. It's called art because it's foreign” (p. 116). This quip by an American movie theater manager gets at the heart of the “film renaissance” described in Tino Balio's book about foreign films on American screens: the conflation of foreign films with art films. The ebb and flow of the popularity of foreign film in the United States is an interesting and important subject in film history. A book such as this could have considered the notion of the art film and its reception, both critical and commercial. Or it could have taken as its topic films in languages other than English and their distribution and reception in the United States. Or it could have illuminated how and why Jacques Tati's slapstick films were grouped with the likes of Bernardo Bertolucci's psychological dramas in a move not unlike the way the Brigitte Bardot sex film became an art film. Such a study could also have described the social changes (the expansion of a college-educated audience due to the G.I. Bill, increased foreign travel, the expansion of foreign language study in the 1950s and 1960s, and changes in urban and suburban life that moved theaters from Times Square to the Upper East Side) that shaped the rise of foreign film in America.

Genre in Transitional Cinema: "Arizona Bill" and the Silent French Western, 1912-1914

In his 1962 memoirs, the French actor and director Joe (Jean) Hamman claims the distinction of le premier for his film Le Cowboy, made around 1906. (1) He then muses on his role in founding the genre: il est assez curieux de constater que ce fut un francais qui donna l'impulsion dans un genre ou les Americains devaient devenir imbattables. (2) To many contemporary filmgoers, a French pretender to the first might seem curious indeed. Unlike the well-known traditions of Italian spaghetti westerns or East German Indianerfilme, not to mention prodigious Hollywood production, the French contribution to the genre in living memory would seem limited to the odd occasional film: a Fernandel farce, a Brigitte Bardot vehicle, the Lucky Luke franchise. Nonetheless, fans, critics, scholars and even politicians echo and often embroider on Hamman's claim, and today the assertion circulates widely as a truism: the most ostensibly American of film genres traces its origin to an amateur film made in the Paris suburbs. (3) Hamman's claim rests on firmer footing than mere Gallic chauvinism. He had a connection to the American West that few filmmakers, French or American, could boast in 1906: he had worked on a ranch in Montana, spent time on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation, and even visited Buffalo Bill Cody at his home in Nebraska. (4) After returning to France and making Le Cowboy, Hamman was soon displaying his riding skills and clothes for nearly all the major French film studios. Between 1908 and 1909 he directed and acted in films for the Lux studio and played Buffalo Bill in a five part series with the Safety Bioscope Company. (5) After portraying various types for Gaumont in films grouped under the rubric Scenes de l'Ouest americain, (6) he moved to Eclipse where his portrayal of the recurring character Arizona Bill series garnered him a measure of celebrity on both sides of the Atlantic. (7) In 1914 Hamman signed with Eclair to make films at a new facility in Tucson, but Arizona Bill never made it to Arizona; the war broke out and he was quickly mobilized. Le Cowboy and the outbreak of the war frame the only period when western-themed films were regularly produced on French soil: a golden of the French western, were on^ to bestow such an honor. (8) Hamman's film career follows and, as its most visible figure, shapes the fate of the silent made in France: they began together around 1906 and throve for six or seven years, never to know such success again. (9) Golden age and semi-stardom notwithstanding, Hamman's claim to the first quickly mires in the murky waters of genre formation and definition. If the western designation simply means themes, situations, or personages associated with the frontier-era American West, the genre would date from the earliest days of Edison's Kinete-scope, (Bucking Broncho, Ghost Dance, both 1894). Lumiere actualites included westem-themed views, the Selig Company filmed panoramas oil locations in 1902, and Edwin S. Porter's popular The Great Train Robbery served up a fictive West in 1903. Numerous American films released between 1903 and 1906 depict cowboys, Indians, and other types in comedies, action sequences, and frontier battles. (10) In France, too, Pathe's 1904 Indiens et Cowboys already showed a stagecoach attack that develops into a rescue story. By 1906, representations of the American West would have been familiar fare on both sides of the Atlantic. When the western designation demands more sophisticated structures of plot and character than these earlier films reliably deliver, Hamman's claim invites more serious reconsideration. The dates of the silent French western's heyday (1906-1914) are significant in historiography, and coincide with a volatile period of turbulent change in film production, distribution, and exhibition. In the previous decade, cinema's first publics had thrilled at what Tom Gunning calls the uncanny agitating power of the new medium's aesthetics of astonishment: a cinema of attractions that addressed the spectators directly, bidding them look at a visual display rather than follow developments of character or plot. …