Agnès Jaoui has a busy schedule due to the release of the film My life, my face of the late Sophie Fillières this Wednesday, September 18, as well as that of her book The Size of Our Breasts published by Grasset. The artist with many hats multiplies interviews to the point that she reveals a lot. Thus, on the set of 28 minutes on Arte, she is asked about her future project, which aims to denounce the excesses of the #Metoo movement. The César-winning screenwriter did not hide her surprise in front of Elisabeth Quin, thinking that no one knew what her next film was going to be about and forgetting that she herself had spoken about it in The Parisian Weekendwhich then leads him to detail his remarks for the Arte audience.
“As soon as we hear sexual assault, there is no more thinking, there is only emotionso we don’t know if it’s a hand on a knee or a rape characterized“, believes the former partner and eternal friend of Jean-Pierre Bacri. Comments that are difficult to accept given the reactions of many Internet users on X under the publication of the extract of her intervention in 28 minutes.
Most of the reactions highlight the contrast between the admiration for Agnès Jaoui and the latter’s words.Agnès Jaoui, what a disappointment“, one Internet user will say, while another will add “World Class Disappointment“. “Mrs. Jaoui, I will not dwell on the disappointment you cause me, you owe me nothing. Especially not to live up to my admiration. That being said, it is already difficult to arrest a rapist, in what universe do you punish a hand?“, writes a member of X.
Agnès Jaoui was abused as a child
Agnès Jaoui’s reaction to what she considers to be excesses of the #MeToo movement, namely the other #Balancetonporc wave that specifically targeted men, is probably linked to her own experience. She was the victim of abuse by her uncle, a man who raped her when she was 11 and about whom she spoke with nuance in The Parisian Weekend : “I kept quiet enough to be able to talk about it.now, and show other victims that, yes, it often takes a long time to express ourselves on such subjects. Also show that, sometimes, it is so painful to hear for those close to them, that they prefer denial. For that, I excuse them.“
What worries her specifically is that Agnès Jaoui notices a gap growing between her generation and that of younger people on this subject: “I find it terrifying that today we are afraid of every word spoken, every gesture made.. Let’s put a hand on the knee and rape on the same level..” In SHEAgnès Jaoui was pleased that her eldest daughter, aged 21 – she adopted two children from Brazil – was not the type to let things happen: “Today’s girls are more armed.“
Sexual violence is a delicate subject to deal with in the media, especially when the news is facing an unprecedented social fact in France with the Mazan affair and the torture suffered by Gisèle Pelicot – a subject on which Agnès Jaoui reacts elsewhere, shocked by the defense of the accused men. The resonances of her words, she who is an avowed feminist and a strong and free figure in cinema for decades, are therefore necessarily particular. Moreover, the journalist Elisabeth Quin ends her exchange with the director of Taste of others with this mischievous sentence after their exchange on #Metoo: “You’ll make friends, but you don’t care, you’re free..”
