LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 20:11 November 2020
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

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Revisiting Simone de Beauvoir’s Defense of Female Sexuality in
Brigitte Bardot and the Lolita Syndrome

David Lagachu, M.A., UGC NET

Abstract

Simone de Beauvoir was a French author and an existentialist. In 1949 a book titled The Second Sex was published in which the author, Beauvoir, discussed in length about women’s precarious position in society throughout history and in her times. She took the discussion on women’s liberty and sexuality forward in her treatise Brigitte Bardot and the Lolita Syndrome which she wrote for an American men’s magazine, Esquire, in 1959. Traces of The Second Sex were conspicuous in the essay whose subject was the rising starlet of French cinema Brigitte Bardot and the sexual, carefree image she projected on the silver screen. Bardot’s turn as an object of desire for men in And God Created Woman (1956) coupled with a devil-may-care attitude, made Beauvoir curious to say the least. The term Lolita in the catchphrase ‘Lolita Syndrome’ comes from Vladimir Nabokov’s genre making novel Lolita (1955), which deals with the risqué topic of an adult man in love with a 12 year old girl. The essay in focus here is a unique combination of feminist outlook, cinematic discourse, and literary credentials. The following paper is an attempt to revisit the essay from the point of view of contemporary times.

Keywords: Simone de Beauvoir, Brigitte Bardot, Female Sexuality, Lolita Syndrome, The Second Sex.

Introduction

Brigitte Bardot and the Lolita Syndrome – the name of the essay itself is a perfect synergy of real life, reel life and literature. Simone de Beauvoir was already an established writer when the task of writing a piece on Brigitte Bardot befell upon her, on the request of the American editor of Esquire magazine. It was the perfect opportunity for Beauvoir to express her thoughts on a person who has already captured her imagination on the account of being a fellow Frenchwoman. Beauvoir was not the only creative person to be inspired by Bardot. Marguerite Duras, the French author, compared her persona to that of a queen, Pablo Picasso, the Spanish painter, used her beauty as an inspiration for his paintings and Andy Warhol once infamously called her the first modern women. Bardot’s persona might seem commonplace today but back in the 1950s, she was unconsciously ushering in an era of sexual liberation for women for whom their own sexual gratification was always secondary to that of men’s.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

David Lagachu, M.A., UGC NET.
Independent Researcher
lagachu.david63@gmail.com
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