Given the French state’s generous artist benefits, and the plight of creatives worldwide during the pandemic, Corinne Masiero’s behaviour rang hollow
Another year, another happening at the Césars ceremony, France’s film awards, which took place on Friday night. This year, amid the scatological jokes, sanctimonious, badly written speeches, and recriminations, an actor known for her fiery politics stood out. She appeared naked, covered in (probably fake) blood, and wearing dripping wet tampons as earrings. Nobody batted an eyelid in the audience, since the actor, Corinne Masiero, is a well-known face on French television, involved in all sorts of political agitprop. People in front of their TVs at home were less blase. Perhaps because some of them still look up to artists and regard cinema as an art form. Many of them felt terribly let down.
Masiero had a message for the French government. She had painted it on her breasts: “No culture, no futur” in English. “We are dying, we can’t breathe,” she later claimed. If many people question the current closure of cinemas and theatres, which could arguably reopen under strict sanitary rules, Masiero sounded more preoccupied by the financial plight of French artists. The only thing is, as many vented on Twitter, France has one of the world’s most generous artist benefit schemes. I know it well, since I was lucky enough to use it for a few years.
