Arielle Dombasle releases a new album on May 24, 2024. A first title, Barbiconic, has already been released, with its colorful and crazy music video. For the occasion, she confided in us in the podcast Current Women. She spoke to us about her journey, her inspirations, her husband Bernard-Henri Lévy as well as her positions regarding the Metoo movement in France. She tells us that she thought of her album as a tribute to “Barbie, Bardot, Beauvoir”, female figures who inspired her a lot. “This album talks about the immense spectrum of women’s hidden strengths”, she told us. Despite her controversial positions, notably her signing of the platform in support of Gérard Depardieu, Arielle Dombasle says she was inspired by major feminist figures. “I was a feminist very early on, after reading Beauvoir. I began to understand the fundamental demands of women.”
“I’ve been in some scary positions.”
Demands that she understands and has integrated, but which have not spared her from the sexist behavior of the men she has encountered along her path. When asked if she has ever experienced problematic behavior on film sets, her answer is unequivocal: “Obviously”she tells us. “Since I was a child, in a country like Mexico which is quite macho, I have been afraid of men”, she specifies. A fear that has not dried up with age, as she tells us. “Later, as a very young actress, I never put myself in the position of going to a director’s house at midnight. No, I tried to avoid it as much as I could. Because obviously, like unfortunately all actresses without exception, I have been in frightening positions where it was almost ‘deals’.”
MeToo… but not too much
An experience sadly similar to what other women in the world of culture report, like Sophie Marceau or Adèle Haenel. However, Arielle Dombasle remains cautious about her support for the Metoo movement. “I believe that [la libération de la parole des femmes] was essentialbecause there are twenty-one centuries of enslavement (…) Of course we must try to avoid these unbearable abuses [dans le monde du cinéma] and speech must be free”she declares. However, she explains that she is not in agreement with the cause across the board. “NOW, I don’t like victimization positions to sell a book either., this abuse and this castrating feminism which can be against men and put them all in the same bag of brutal patriarchy. It’s absurd”, adds the singer. Other actresses, such as Catherine Deneuve and Ingrid Caven, took a stand in 2018 in The world against one “certain feminism” which, according to them, reflected a “hatred of men”.