Chronicle “Re/Jouissances”
Article reserved for subscribers
Monologue by the reactionary lady with scissors metamorphosed into a progressive nullifier, who now attacks faulty creators more than their transgressive works.
Hello, I’m the censor and for decades I was in the rough. I had almost disappeared, as no one saw any use for me anymore. Since May 1968, France was no longer a land of conquest and I had to go into exile and team up with the most rotten theocracies to find some edge. Here I am back, empathetic and benevolent, full of good feelings and generous ideas.
At the end of the week, I will be Angoulême for the Comic Strip Festival. I will be proud of having had the skin of Bastien Vives and obtained the removal of an exhibition to his glory. Note how I was able to adapt. From now on, instead of banishing a work or passing it to the decorous plane, we are content to delegitimize an artist by hanging a fatal ball on his ankle. This time, it was enough to exhume old comments made by Vivès on a discussion forum where he was familiar with pedophilia and incest. It doesn’t matter whether they were fantasies or not. Ordinarily, only the passage to the act was worth condemnation. Today, it has become more ambiguous, so much confusion reigns between reality and representation, between IRL and avatar. And that makes me happy, especially since the notion of reputation has regained
