Pourquoi? Because the breasts on the offending sculpture are too big. So given the fact that Marianne's breasts are traditionally regarded as representing the bountiful largesse that la r̩publique offers all of its citizens Р(hey, I'm just quoting from the relevant literature here) Рis this a harbinger of a new mood of understatement and restraint in the famously full-on French psyche? An adieu to Gallic excess, perhaps?
Um, perhaps not, because the mayor's new statue will be based on the kinda prominent French model Laetitia Casta, below, who was chosen to represent Marianne by the votes of French mayors in 1999.
"The mayor wants to appear
to be offering to the people
beaucoup de largesse, but
not – ’ow you say it? – too
much of the good things."
4 COMMENT/S:
I came here, read some posts, want to comment because I enjoyed them. But there are too many unformulated things floating around in my old brain.
A couple of random thoughts: my grandson must be a gentleman because he can play the sax, and, to my knowledge, hasn't for some years. But then, I always knew he was.
And there is the spelling of Labor. When I went to school in New Zealand I was marked down for spelling it that way. When I came back to the US I was marked down for putting in a u.
And while we notice that despicable twit of a preacher in Florida, lets not forget the significant nastiness of those in the Muslim world who kill the nearest "Christians" because they saw him on television.
The world would be a better place without religion.
I have gone on much too long. Sorry.
Hi, Anne, and thanks for stopping by.
Indeed, one has to wonder who's the crazier: someone who thinks that the burning of a religious text will make any kind of difference, or someone who thinks that it warrants the death of whomever's handy.
As for going on much too long, while I don't know your age (and as a no-longer-trombone-playing old guy I'm too much of a gentleman to ever dream of asking a lady), your comments are more than welcome. Hope to see you again.
This is not France's first attempt at coming up with a real-life replacement for Marianne. Perhaps it was on postage stamps or on bank-notes before the euro took over, but Catherine Deneuve stood in for the breast-exposed symbol. The French thinking on this was pretty clear and amounted almost to realpolitik, the message being "Eat your heart out, the rest of you."
This latest development seems to have no real cultural implications. CD had at least appeared in a whole slew of interesting films (though one presumes they weren't emphasising her role in Belle du jour) and was a good deal more than her physical dimensions. Mind you the present story is taking place among the deserted slag-heaps of northern France where culture may be at a premium.
Sorry, BB, I'm incapable of rational response whenever Catherine Deneuve enters my mind, so I offer instead this whimsy, edited from the original post because I just couldn't make it seem relevant, but now appropriate after your reference to places where culture is at a premium:
It might have been interesting if the French had insisted on the Statue of Liberty having exposed breasts – in a country which required whole chunks of the British TV program 'The Avengers' to be re-shot for local showing because scenes in which Diana Rigg's navel was visible were considered unacceptable.
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