Adèle Haenel, the French actress who starred alongside Noémie Merlant in Portrait of a Lady on Fire, is a proud lesbian who isn’t afraid of speaking up. Portrait of a Lady on Fire, the 2019 historical romantic drama film, stunned audiences — Sapphic and otherwise. Adèle Haenel has worked alongside director Céline Sciamma to address the paedophilia and misogyny in French culture by exposing how it manifests in France’s film industry.
Adèle came out as a lesbian at the 2014 César Awards, where she also announced her relationship with Céline Sciamma. The pair met on the set of Water Lilies (2007), which was Céline’s debut as a screenwriter and director. They have since broken up but remain close friends. Whether it be Céline founding 50/50×2020, a feminist movement advocating for more women in international film-making, or standing up, speaking out, and storming out, the lesbian pair’s deep friendship is often politically-oriented.
Distinguishing paedophiles?
Adèle has been the face of France’s #MeToo movement. There’s no question why Céline and Adèle walked out of the 2020 César Awards – the French Oscars – when paedophile and rapist Roman Polanski won Best Director over Céline Sciamma. Adèle can be heard shouting “bravo paedophile” and “shame” as they left the building.
So why did Roman Polanski, who has a long history of child rape charges dating back to 1977, win best director the same year Céline Sciamma could have been acknowledged for Portrait of a Lady on Fire’s world-wide acclaim? “Distinguishing Polanski is spitting in the face of all victims. It means raping women isn’t that bad,” Adèle Haenel said.
France has a history of pushing boundaries and intellectualism, which is a double-edged sword. On one hand, this culture meant that Modernist lesbians had a freedom-seeking community to run away to. On the other hand, predatory behavior has not only been overlooked, it’s actively been encouraged by distinguished “thinkers.” Even great French feminist Simone De Beauvoir advocated alongside other “intellectuals,” including Roland Barthes, that children could and should consent to sex with adults. They petitioned in 1977, the same year Roman Polanski was first revealed to be a paedophile and rapist.
The age of consent law
In fact, France only codified a legal age of consent for the first time in 2021. This year. Justice Minister Éric Dupond-Moretti said that setting the legal age of consent to 15 years old sent a clear message: “Children are off limits.” But why were children ever within the legal limits, especially up until 2021? I’d love to ask Simone De Beauvoir what kind of “feminist” could pretend like sex with a minor is ever consensual, is ever not rape, especially when sexual abuse is so clearly a tool used to subordinate females all around the globe?
It should go without saying that children are easily manipulated and overpowered, both physically and intellectually. I am reminded of the saying that many “thinkers” resist: “don’t be so open minded that your brain falls out.” The disingenuous mental gymnastics and arrogant intellectual “superiority” these “geniuses” strive for to get their rocks off, justifying what’s objectively unjustifiable and “thinking” themselves out of reality to do so, is absolutely terrifying. Kids should objectively be off limits. It’s undebatable.
Passionate #MeToo advocates like Adèle Haenel are given credit for the newly adopted age of consent law. Walking out of the awards ceremony when Polanski received yet another accolade made world news. French women fought back. Adèle Haenel inspired the pack.
So one reason why convicted child rapist Roman Polanski’s film won instead of the lesbian feminist masterpiece was because paedophile-rapists have, only up until recently, been completely protected by French law. The film (and arguably its director) wouldn’t even exist to be in the running for anything if Polanski were properly punished for what he has done. Even if we wanted to entertain the argument that Roman Polanski’s film was simply “better” (had a hard time typing that), then tell that to the 40 film festivals Portrait of a Lady on Fire was featured in and the world-wide acclaim it received.
Filming in France
Céline Sciamma claims France just didn’t love the film, or get the film, as much as the rest of the world did. Beyond the legal tolerance to paedophilia, the French just didn’t see much merit in the historical love story between two women. “[They believe] it lacks flesh, it’s not erotic. It seems like there are some things that they can’t receive,” Céline said.
Céline outlines that France is actually a very traditional country. She gives us a healthy reminder that paedophilia is a conservative, history-long stain on humanity, despite many heralded progressives historically entertaining it as an interesting debate. A part of France’s traditionalism is evident in how bourgeois the art scene is, which is seen in many self-ordained “radical” art circles all over the globe. Rebranding age-old abusive behaviours as “radical” and “boundary-pushing” is not a new tactic.
The most sexually “liberated” countries are still very misogynistic. The sexual revolution was a male-led reaction to radical feminism, intending to rebrand sexual subordination as sexy and “feminist” to women. Céline talks about this contradiction in France: “There’s resistance to radicalism, and also less youth in charge. ‘A film can be feminist?’ They don’t know this concept. They don’t read the book. They don’t even know about the fact that ‘male gaze’ exists. You can tell it’s a country where there’s lots of sexism, and a strong culture of patriarchy.”
