It seems that every and any actress of stature feels a need to express her opinions–pro and con–about the new battles of sexual politics, in and out of Hollywood.
Brigitte Bardot, the world’s biggest sex symbol of the 1950s and 1960s, attacked the #MeToo movement as “hypocritical and ridiculous,” suggesting that some of the allegations are from women who court publicity.
In a Paris Match magazine interview, translated by France 24, the legendary screen icon, who became a sex symbol in Roger Vadim’s 1956 film And God Created Woman, said that “lots of actresses try to play the tease with producers to get a role. And then, so we will talk about them, they say they were harassed.”
She added that the “vast majority of these women are being hypocritical and ridiculous.”
Speaking about her own experiences, Bardot claims she “was never the victim of sexual harassment.” She also found it “charming when men told me that I was beautiful, or I had a nice little backside.”
Bardot, who is 83, spends much of her energy these days fighting for animal rights. She is no stranger to controversial comments about race and politics. A supporter of Marine Le Pen, leader of the anti-immigrant French rightist National Front party, Bardot was fined several times for inciting racial hatred over derogatory comments about Islam and Muslims.
Deneuve Apology
Bardot’s comments come soon after another French screen legend, Catherine Deneuve (who was also married to Vadim), was attacked for her criticisms of the #MeToo movement. Deneuve, who’s 74, along with other prominent French women, signed a letter published in Le Monde, which suggested that #MeToo had become “too puritanical,” a “witch hunt” against men.
After a major backlash, Deneuve apologized in the Liberation newspaper: “I fraternally salute all the victims of odious acts that may have felt aggrieved by this letter published in Le Monde. It is to them and to them alone that I apologize.”
