Succès de scandale
Succès de scandale is French for "success from scandal", i.e. when (part of) a success derives from a scandal.
It might seem contradictory that any kind of success might follow from scandal, but scandal attracts attention, and this attention (whether gossip or bad press or any other kind) is sometimes the beginning of notoriety and/or other successes. Today, the often-used cynical phrase, "no such thing as bad publicity" is indicative of the extent to which "success by scandal" is a part of modern mass media culture.
Belle Époque
Belle Époque Paris appears to have had exactly the right climate for succès de scandale (which is probably also the reason why this is where the term originated): in all examples below, regarding famous artists kicking off their career with some sort of scandal, there are at least some connections with turn of the 20th century Paris. In other cities, provoking a scandal appeared more risky, as Oscar Wilde found out shortly after his relatively "successful" Parisian scandal (Salomé — 1894, portraying the main character as a necrophile):
- Le déjeuner sur l'herbe (The Luncheon on the Grass) by Édouard Manet,[1] presented at the Salon des refusés, 1863: Even the Emperor was scandalised — but Manet had a nice start to his career.
- Alfred Jarry shocked Paris in 1896 with the first of his absurdistic Ubu plays: Ubu Roi. The performance of this play was forbidden after the first night. No problem for Jarry: he moved the production to a puppet theatre.
- A new group of artists, labelled disrespectfully "Les Fauves" ("The Wild Beasts") by an art critic, had their successful debut in 1905 Paris (and kept the name).
- Richard Strauss had had little success with his first two operas, which today are no longer performed. Consequently, he tried something different: he set music to Wilde's Salomé in 1905, and racketed quite some scandal with this opera, including in the New York Met, where the production had to be closed after one night. But Strauss wanted more: his next opera (Elektra, 1909) was so "noisy" that cartoons appeared with Strauss directing an orchestra of animals. Then Hugo von Hofmannsthal, the textwriter of this second "successful" production, seems to have taken the right decision, in restraining Strauss from getting even bolder: Strauss's success was guaranteed without any further scandal, so Hofmannsthal wrote a bittersweet scenario with a theme of resigning to the fact of getting older, for Strauss's next (and after all most successful) opera. Only two world wars later, Strauss became involved in scandal again, for his way of realising what was then considered as the highest ambition: directing the Bayreuther Festspiele). Here, however, scandal came after the success.
- L'après-midi d'un faune (1912): see Afternoon of a Faun (Nijinsky).
- The Rite of Spring (1913)[2]
- Parade production of 1917: see Parade (ballet).
- George Antheil's 1923 performance of futurist piano music at the Champs-Élysées theater.[3]
- Paul Chabas had won a most prestigious prize with his September Morn in Paris in 1912. Nudity as portrayed in this painting was however far from being able to shock a Parisian public, half a century after the Déjeuner. So, notwithstanding the "official" prize, market value of the painting remained low. Then, Chabas put it on show in a New York shop window in 1913. There, for the first time in history, it appears a succès de scandale scheme was set up by a publicity agent (Harry Reichenbach), who "accidentally" coached a morality crusader along the picture. The scandal that evolved brought financial success and secured Chabas's place in art history books. Although later deemed kitsch, the painting ended up in one of the most prestigious museums of New York.
Other examples of "No such thing as bad publicity"
This was not the last time that Comstockery fanned the success it wanted to fence: "I expect it will be the making of me" said Mae West to the press in 1927, under arrest after the Society for the Suppression of Vice had maneuvered to get her play titled "Sex" re-censored by the Police Department Play Jury — a few years later, over forty, her sex-symbol status paid off: her 1935 film contract made her the highest paid woman till that day.
Films qualified as succès de scandale include Louis Malle's 1958 The Lovers,[4] and Bertolucci's 1972 Last Tango in Paris.[5] Scandal also boosted the success of writings with modest literary qualities.[6] Even famous writers like Flaubert and Joyce have been described as deploying succès de scandale recipes to their advantage.[7]
See also
References
- ↑ Clare Brook."Why BLUE needs a Succès de Scandale" at www
.bluemarinefoundation .com - ↑ Richard Taruskin. Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions: A Biography of the Works Through Mavra, p. 1008 University of California Press, 1996. ISBN 0520070992 ISBN 9780520070998
- ↑ Whitesitt, Linda. "Antheil, George". Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Retrieved 3 December 2011.
- ↑ Ginette Vincendeau. "The Lovers: Succès de scandale" at www
.criterion .com - ↑ Patrick Duynslaegher. "Last Tango in Paris: Succès de scandale" in Knack, 31 January 2011.
- ↑ Isabelle de Courtivron. "The French Still Love a Succes de Scandale" in The New York Times. June 22, 1997
- ↑ Valérie Bénéjam. "The Elliptical Adultery of Ulysses: A Flaubertian Recipe for Succès de Scandale", pp. 76–93 in James Joyce and the Nineteenth-Century French Novel edited by Finn Fordham and Rita Sakr. Rodopi, 2011. ISBN 9042032901 ISBN 9789042032903