ArcaMax

PARIS — Just days after French screen icon Brigitte Bardot passed away peacefully at the age of 91, I found myself wandering around the Molitor pool, the very place where the bikini she made famous first made its splash in 1946. At the time Bardot strutted it in “Manina, the Girl in the Bikini” (1952) at the tender age of 17, it was considered shockingly daring. Though let’s be honest, most men were probably too busy drooling to object. The real controversy, as it often is with women who demonstrate a propensity for refusing to stay in the box that society builds for them, would come later.

Everyone adored Bardot as long as she squeezed into the narrow window of femininity that men had built for her. She was the girl next door and the soft-edged starlet. Until she did the unthinkable and insisted on being a fully free woman. One who wouldn’t play by the rules of men, society or even the feminist script.

She rejected motherhood even after giving birth, vocally defended women’s reproductive rights that wouldn’t become law in France for another 15 years and refused to define herself by someone else’s expectations of who or what a woman should be or do.

Her insistence on nonconformity, owning her body and her choices, made social conservatives — both men and women — squirm. But the feminist movement has never quite known what to do with her either, because she didn’t recite their talking points verbatim. As a free and independent thinker, she didn’t reliably march in lockstep with any ideology beyond that of freedom itself.

Over the years, Bardot spoke out against France’s lax migration policies and faced several hate speech convictions for criticizing everything from the religious slaughter of sheep by newcomers to the country, to rapid demographic shifts. The former became a genuine debate in France’s 2012 elections, six years after she’d written a letter to the interior minister about it. As for the latter — let’s just say that France and much of Europe are now scrambling to resolve the problem in ways that would make her original letters seem quaint, including deporting asylum seekers to other countries. Bardot was just ahead of the curve, yet again.

When the #MeToo movement swept Hollywood in 2018, Bardot called the whole thing “hypocritical.” She added that some women “flirt with producers to get a role.” In other words, she refused to play the part of the victim when the script demanded it. And for that, she was once again deemed inconvenient.

Even in death, her fierce independence has made some uncomfortable. People who knew Bardot only as a symbol of beauty — and assumed that she fit their version of femininity that they consider Instagrammable — discovered, to their horror, that she was an actual human being with a mind of her own.

Singer Chappell Roan wrote of Bardot, “Holy s-t I did not know all that insane s-t Ms. Bardot stood for,” calling it “very disappointing to learn.”

Actress Gwyneth Paltrow’s daughter, Apple, deleted her own tribute, lamenting, “I was completely unaware of Bardots [sic] views and will never support any kind of hatred directed at anyone. She is not the person I thought she was whatsoever.”

Apparently, Bardot was iconic when she could serve to boost their social media clout, but scandalous when it emerged that she dared to have a brain with thoughts of its own. Even Vogue joined the pile-on: “Mourning Brigitte Bardot doesn’t mean absolving her”…of supporting right-wing politicians, the author argued.

One of those right-wing politicians, anti-establishment leader Marine Le Pen, was invited to Bardot’s funeral and is currently topping French presidential polls alongside her equally right-wing protégé, Jordan Bardella. Meanwhile, current French President Emmanuel Macron, who has bottomed out at 11 percent national support according to Le Figaro, was politely denied the opportunity by Bardot’s family to turn her death into a national circus with himself at the center. Instead, her husband, Bernard d’Ormale, suggested, “As a national tribute, they only need to create a state secretariat for animal welfare,” honoring Bardot’s lifelong work defending animals.

Her critics screamed “racism” at her defense of French culture in an era of globalist-backed dilution, conveniently ignoring that in 1964 she had gone on national television to rally support for African-American star and French Resistance icon Josephine Baker and her 12 multiracial children, who had fallen on hard times and risked losing their home.

Bardot championed freedom above all — a value the pro-globalist French establishment doesn’t seem to hold. At least not anymore, if their recent actions and policies are any indication. That’s why, a few years ago, she donned a yellow vest and joined the eponymous protest movement against creeping authoritarianism.

Did Bardot call herself a feminist? Not in the traditional sense. But she sure lived like one. Instead of being boxed in by leftist talking points, her feminism was about radical freedom, fearless independence and the audacity to define femininity on her own terms.

If feminism is to evolve and expand to include all women, it would do well to follow her lead. And the pro-freedom populist movements that she supported would do well to embrace the brand of freedom and femininity that she exemplified. Because, as always, Bardot was ahead of her time. And so much more than just a pretty face.