Singer Serge Gainsbourg Promoted Incest and Pedophilia. Now Hes Being Honored.

A cultural institution is being dedicated to French singer Serge Gainsbourg 30 years after his death, but should we be celebrating the controversial artist?

Jean-Jacques BERNIER

Gainsbourg remains one of the countrys most popular musicians, who went on to inspire everyone from Nick Cave to Daft Punk, Massive Attack and De La Soul. But in 2022 the themes of incest, misogyny and racism in his music make him an increasingly controversial figure. For some, his transgressiveness is a quintessential part of French culture. To others, he is a symbol of toxic masculinity. On the 30th anniversary of his death last year, Les Inrockuptibles magazine asked if Gainsbourg had become problematic, and LObs wondered can we still like him today?

Best known for his 1969 hit Je taimemoi non plus, banned by the BBC due to its explicit content and denounced by the Vatican, Gainsbourg was always a controversial figure. His penchant for provocation led him to record a reggae version of the Marseillaise [the French national anthem] and burn a 500 franc note live on TV to protest against high taxes. Provocation seemed to be part of his arsenal, of the way he tried to make an impact, of the character that he constructed, says David Platten, a professor at the University of Leeds who specializes in French popular culture. And France as a country likes to appropriate some of its more radical kinds of artists.

But while Gainsbourg still enjoys the aura of a glamorous icon as the bad boy of French music, some of his albums make for a chilling listen at a time when femicide is a growing problem in France. In the 1976 album Lhomme a la tte de chou the narrator warns his lover Marilou to watch out or Ill beat you up, until he finally kills her in a fit of jealousy. The album Histoire de Melody Nelson, widely regarded as his masterpiece, has parts that are equally disturbing.

In 1966, Gainsbourg persuaded France Gall, who was 18 years old at the time, to record his song Les Sucettes (Lollipops). She later said she hadnt understood that the lyrics were about fellatio and said she was left humiliated by the experience. It was horrible. It changed my relationship with boys. It humiliated me, Gall told Le Parisien in 2015, calling Gainsbourg a fat pig.

France Gall and Serge Gainsbourg at a reception in a Parisian restaurant. The party was given on the winning of the Eurovision prize by Gall with Gainsbourg's song

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His behavior got worse in his later years, as he increased his intake of alcohol and cigarettes. In 1986, he appeared drunk on a TV program where he told Whitney Houston that he wanted to fuck her. The same year he called singer Catherine Ringer a whore because she had appeared in a porn movie. He put his bad manners down to the self-created character of Gainsbarre, a fictional alter ego that represented his dark side.

Jane Birkin, who was in a relationship with Gainsbourg for 13 years, defended her late lover and said he shouldnt be judged against the standards of todays #MeToo era. You cant judge things by other epoques, she said in an interview with The Times. You cant measure them by this extraordinary state that MeToo has made.

Jacques Haillot/Apis/Sygma/Sygma via Getty

Towards the end of his life, Gainsbourg had several relationships with much younger girls andin at least one reported casean underage schoolgirl.

Many drew the line with Gainsbourg at the song Lemon Incest, which he sang with his daughter Charlotte, then 12 years old. The music video shows Serge lying on a bed shirtless with his daughter. The love we will never make together is the most beautiful, the most violent, the purest, she sings. Even at the time, it was criticized for glamorizing incest and pedophilia, but it still managed to spend 10 weeks in the French top 10.

Charlotte Gainsbourg with her father, Serge Gainsbourg.

Jean Pimentel/Kipa/Sygma via Getty

Talking about Lemon Incest with The Guardian in 2019, Charlotte Gainsbourg admitted that it would not be acceptable today. My father would be condemned in every move he made. Everything is so politically correct. So boring. So expected. And everyone is so scared of what will happen if they go too far.

Speaking to France Inter on the 30th anniversary of her fathers death, Gainsbourg said she still liked the song. To me its very innocent. My father is playing with provocation, but he is extremely sincere and honest, she said. We had a very innocent father-daughter relationship. Its what we say in Lemon Incest: a love that is very pure and very beautiful.

I would like to sing it again and at the same time its such a shocking subject, she said.

As visitors step back in time at 5bis Rue de Verneuil, where everything has been left intact (an ashtray still contains Gitane cigarette butts)Gainsbourgs legacy will once again be up for debate.

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