Bare breasts: «Rock'n'roll attitude» video censored

The video clip of the song Rock'n'roll attitude, by Johnny Hallyday, has now been flagged on YouTube as «likely to shock certain audiences». The reason for this is the three or four tits that can be seen. This says a lot about the puritanism that is currently rampant, along with all-powerful pornography. It's really two sides of the same hypocritical coin. And a way for the GAFAs (Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon) to control our lives, even if it means putting our pleasures and freedoms on the back burner - and anesthetizing our desires. Analysis.

Ah, sexual liberation! We thought that the end of the old, patriarchal, puritanical world would give way to a brighter tomorrow, where desires would be satisfied and sexual frustration would be a thing of the past... The big joke! This was without taking into account that the ideology of the end of frontiers and the end of barriers characteristic of the activist left of May 68 would lead to a loss of landmarks. Withdrawn into himself, the individual heir to this great shift would soon no longer know to whom or what to attach himself. Nation, tradition, literature and even family were no longer available. What was left to justify his causes and actions? Communities. And so it was that various reflexes of the new left gradually took hold, taking the name of communitarianism, neo-feminism or anti-racist indigenism.

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The problem, or rather the irony of history, is that wiping the slate clean can often lead to the very excesses we were trying to combat. Communism was an example of this. Before it, the French Revolution had led to the Terror. One Manichaeism can give way to another, however laudable the intentions of the instigators of the new world may seem. History is full of such examples. Our own era is no exception. Just look at the direction anti-racism has taken in recent months: brandished as a banner of identity, race is back in the spotlight. Just as universalism was inviting us to stop seeing individuals in terms of their origins, but rather in terms of the humanity they share, indigenism is calling on «blacks» to assert themselves as such - and as victims of a system.

The same analysis can be made of neo-feminism, which feeds on «reflections on gender» and theories aimed at putting an end to the «macho culture» of our societies. Let's be clear: it's obvious that women shouldn't be discriminated against, since every human being has equal rights. But this is not how fashionable movements deal with the issue. It's all about thinking like sociologists, whatever the subject and whatever the level of discussion: there are only «social groups» - in short, communities. Add good old Marxist dialectics to this reductive picture, and the battleground is ready: «rape culture» oppresses women just as the «bourgeoisie» oppressed the proletariat. So much for the complexity of the human race.

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A new puritanism

It's hardly surprising, then, that the sexual liberation movement, which sought to strike a fatal blow against the excessive puritanism of the old society, gave birth to a new puritanism. By dint of seeing sexism everywhere and tracking down the slightest sexual representation of women, we end up with aberrations that can only be described as puritanical censorship. The idea that we need to protect certain audiences who might be shocked - young people, religious believers, and so on - is just a by-product. This episode reported today by a friend is a good example: the video clip for the song Rock'n'roll attitude is no longer available on YouTube. Click on the link to the video, the Google-owned platform states: «The YouTube community has deemed the following content inappropriate or offensive for certain audiences.» At issue: bare breasts appearing for a few seconds in the clip.

It's all there: the YouTube «community» deemed the content «inappropriate» for «certain audiences» - by which we mean the community of d'jeun's, and who knows what others. Seeing bare breasts would therefore be shocking for younger generations. In the past, even as recently as fifteen years ago, it was up to education - mainly parental education - to ensure that children's discovery of sexuality was gradual. Of course, children have always known a little more than they're willing to admit to their parents - that's part of life. What's funny is that we've reached a society where a simple click gives a kid of any age access to pornography of all kinds, including hardcore, GAFA's response is to censor any teat that shows up on their platforms. This is tantamount to responding to debauchery by creating frustration!

Of course, other instances of this kind of nonsense abound. Jean-Paul Brighelli, of Causeur.fr, notes that periods of pandemic would be particularly conducive to this. Here are a few cases worth noting:

It's striking, though, that alongside the ongoing contagion (which isn't the abomination we hear so much about in the media, but that's another story), in a country as liberated as ours, some very strange initiatives bear witness to a puritanical narrow-mindedness. A plunging neckline in a supermarket? A security guard, outraged in his belief in the virtue of women, tells off the young woman who wanted to do her shopping. Bare breasts on a beach? Gendarmes ticketed the lady, even though she had committed no offence. We learned that a number of communes had passed municipal by-laws banning these obscene displays - which have to be obscene.

Who benefits from crime?

But let's go a step further. Is it really a question of sparing our dear little blonde heads from those breasts that we can't see - but now know how to hide? I'm not so sure that the ideology of the moment is solely responsible for these maneuvers by the big multinationals. If you visit Youtube without a Google account, not only do you have to click on «I understand and wish to continue» if you want to view this clip, but you also have to create a Google account and enter your age in your personal details! Of course, it's easy as pie to cheat in the delivery of this information. Google's direct interest here is simply to attract more subscribers.

So it's not anti-Americanism to note that this hypocritical puritanism has its origins in the United States. A certain influence from across the Atlantic may well explain this immersion of the public in the private sphere, and this cult of corporations as the alpha and omega of existence. The all-out regulations of the Web giants, like the perhaps too-strict rules of the traditional family sixty years ago, are killing off the very possibility of a "family". rock'n'roll attitude. For arbitrariness and stiffness, in this case, are not present in the magnificent images of Rock'n'roll attitude, This is a great opportunity for these companies to create needs, frustrate them and offer paid services to satisfy them. This is the perfect opportunity for these companies to create needs, frustrate them and offer paid services to satisfy them. Seriously, the situation is becoming worrying.

Lost liberties

That's why the example of this Johnny Hallyday video shot in the eighties is particularly interesting. Rock music may seem dull to the kids of the 2000s, but it's still a oasis of lightness far more promising than the world that is taking shape, made up of nameless sexual brutality available to all, but the disappearance of eroticism from the official heritage. The lyrics of this song written by Michel Berger, a veritable hymn to non-conformity, curiosity, discovery, enjoyment, diversity of experience and, above all, love of music, describe an attitude that seems old-fashioned nowadays, yet so much freer than what the self-righteous zeitgeist promises us for the future:

«Everything cracks me up
It's still the last rain I want to be born
Death, I thumb my nose at it
Love, I'm not decided, I still want to try

But you, struggle to write your story
Fight to keep your memory
And to keep within you
A rock'n'roll attitude
Don't stay at home with your certainties
Rock'n'roll attitude
If summer's too heavy, if winter's too harsh
Fight against the life you lead
Fight for the music you love
And that you keep within you

Laughing, laughing at all the nights that go by
That tear us apart and take our place
Still warm from our desires
Live all the moments you've dreamed of living
May it love, may it hold, may it break
Breathe every minute you breathe

Rock'n'roll attitude
The risk of love is the love of risk
Rock'n'roll attitude
Only wax passions are engraved on the discs
Fight against easy words
Fighting the hatred of fools
Always keep within you
A rock'n'roll attitude».»

Let's fight against easy words. Let's fight against ridiculous indignation. And for the return of nipples! Attention all fans: for the moment, the clip from That I love you, also showing off some beautiful shapes, is still available on Dailymotion. But a new clip - devoid of nude women, therefore politically correct - was made in 2019 following the release of the album Johnny featuring some of his greatest hits rearranged by Yvan Cassar with a symphony orchestra. This is the only official video clip from That I love you currently available on YouTube... Fortunately, Johnny Hallyday is just as sensual as the women in his old videos. This will soon be forgotten, just as suggestion will soon be forgotten: rock'n'roll is based on a continually sensual attitude. No sexism on the horizon. Let's make the most of it while there's still time.

Write to the author: jonas.follonier@leregardlibre.com

Header image: © «Rock'n'roll attitude», Bernard Schmitt, 1985

Notice: When we shared this article on Facebook, we had to change the header image so that it no longer showed bare breasts. Once this was done, we decided to sponsor the publication, i.e., to promote it on the social network for around ten Swiss francs, as we do for many articles in order to gain visibility. We were all smiles when we received a message from Facebook telling us that the advertisement had been refused on the following grounds: