Brigitte Bardot has a neckline named after her, an off-the-shoulder cut that exposes your shoulders and collarbones and that signals a kind of sun-warmed carefreeness, a look that screams sex without strain. The silhouette is still sold every summer by designers who use Bardot’s name and image as cultural shorthand for relaxed, unapologetic sensuality, whether or not they care to acknowledge the woman herself. When she died this week, it was a reminder that certain people with certain beliefs must be disposed of carefully.
True, it’s hard to sum up Bardot’s legacy. There’s so much of it. In the early 1960s, Bardot ranked among the highest paid actresses in France, an international box-office draw whose films reshaped Europe’s understanding of female sexuality. As a singer, her collaborations, most famously “Bonnie and Clyde” with Serge Gainsbourg, defined a particular strain of French pop. Then, in the second half of her life, she turned away from the arts and devoted herself almost exclusively to animal-rights activism, founding the Brigitte Bardot Foundation in 1986 and insisting repeatedly that this—not her films, her lovers, or her looks—was how she wished to be remembered.
Nevertheless, in the wake of her death, she was mostly remembered for something else—as a quick scroll through the headlines can attest. From The Guardian: “Brigitte Bardot’s image complicated by her controversial politics.” And The New York Times: “Brigitte Bardot’s Legacy of Racist Rhetoric.” Here’s France’s most popular newspaper, Le Monde: “Brigitte Bardot’s 30 years of sympathy for the far right.” And finally Euronews: “Should France honour Brigitte Bardot? And if so, how? A nation divided.”
