BASTIEN VIVES. The author of comics, Bastien Vivès, is the subject of a complaint for the dissemination of child pornography images. Three books by the author are concerned by the complaint, what is drawn on their boards?
It’s a bad patch that lasts for the author of comics, Bastien Vivès. The artist is the subject of a complaint filed Monday, December 19, 2022 by the association Innocence in danger (IED) for “dissemination of child pornography images”, “incitement to commit sexual assaults on minors” and “dissemination to a minor violent messages”. The Glénat and Hammerheads publishing houses, which worked with the comic book author on the three incriminated works, are also implicated by the complaint. The complaint viewed by RMC comes less than a week after the cancellation by the Angoulême comic book festival of the “carte blanche” exhibition which had been granted to Bastien Vivès. It is then a petition denouncing the same three books of the author responsible for making the apology for incest.
Which Bastien Vivès comics are accused of child pornography?
Of the dozens of graphic novels and comic strips signed by Bastien Vivès, three books are under fire from critics: Melons of anger (2011) and The Mental Dump (2018) from the “BD CUL” collection of Hammerhead sharks and Little Paul (2018). According to IED, The Mental Dump depicts the incestuous relationship of a couple with their three daughters aged 18, 15 and 10. In the other two graphic novels it is the same character who is at the heart of the child pornography scenes, the famous Paul, a young child endowed with a disproportionately large penis who first appears in Melons of Wrath in a scene where his sister “imposes fellatio on him” according to the complainant association. The same child is then “raped by his teacher, his sister and his judo teacher” in the last book pointed out by IED. In its complaint filed with the public prosecutor of Paris, the association Innocence in danger concludes that “these boards show many abused minors or exhibiting their intimacy” and that as such they correspond to child pornography representations.
Bastien Vivès responsible for incitement to child pornography?
If the three decried Bastien Vivès comics are characterized as child pornography after the complaint from the Innocence in Danger (IED) association, then the author could incur a fine of up to 75,000 euros and 5 years in prison. But the accusations do not stop there because in addition to being considered child pornography, the boards of Bastien Vivès trivialize the sexual abuse of minors, again according to IED which evokes “a provocation to the commission of sexual abuse of minors for fragile people who might think such relationships are the norm”. This is a fact punishable by 5 years in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros.
The complainants do not rely solely on the graphic novels of Bastien Vivès and also use statements by the cartoonist in the press to support their accusations of incitement to child pornography and the commission of sexual abuse. The man who describes himself as a follower of provocation had declared to the media Madmoizelle in 2017: “Me, incest excites me to death (…) since I can’t do incest in real life and that I don’t have a big sister to be able to do that, I do that in my books”. Since the beginning of the controversy around the works of Bastien Vivès, this sentence has been mentioned several times by the detractors of the designer.
What does the law say about child pornography in comics?
The case around Bastien Vivès is arousing debate and many discussions seek to know whether or not the author’s drawings can be representations of child pornography or responsible for incitement to acts of the same nature or even pedocriminal, more only to debate on the pornographic character of the boards, which makes him little doubt. From a legal point of view, certain drawings from Little Paul or the two other incriminated works by Bastien Vivès may fall under article 227-23 of the Penal Code which punishes “the fact, with a view to its dissemination, of fixing, recording or transmitting the image or the representation of a minor when this image or representation is pornographic”. However, this representation can be a drawing which did not require the realization of the act to be laid down on the paper in spite of the arguments of some who judge that the detractors of the author of BD confuse the various forms of representations in particular the films, which record a real act, and drawings, which are an image of the mind. Moreover, the judgment of the Court of Cassation of September 12, 2007 establishes case law in this area and states that “non-real images representing an imaginary minor, such as drawings or images resulting from the transformation of a real image , fall within the provisions” of article 227-23 of the Penal Code.
Still, the article opposes the freedom of expression, which is central in matters affecting the artistic field. Agnès Tricoire, lawyer at the court of Paris and delegate of the Observatory of the freedom of creation whose remarks are transcribed by France infothus considers that if article 227-23 of the Penal Code can be used, it must be so “proportionate” according to the degree of fiction of the representation of the minor and according to the intention of the author.
Legal, but also moral questions on the Bastien Vivès case
The controversy around Bastien Vivès is complex and plays out on several levels. If from an artistic point of view the author and some of his colleagues who defend him support freedom of expression, the certainly strong argument comes into opposition with what is legal or not to represent, as explained above. It is up to justice, if it takes up the case after the plain of IED targeting Bastien Vivès, to decide on this point. But other questions raised are more of a moral order: is it correct or not to represent minors in scenes of a sexual nature like the author of the Little Paul the fact ? Do these drawings fuel or incite pedophile acts?
If for the associations which fight against sexual violence and incest see all the harm that these drawings could cause in the hands of victims or people likely to see in them a form of normality or even approval, others consider that a drawing cannot be the cause of an evil or an amoral impulse. According to them, the image only expresses and sometimes relieves these impulses to prevent the desire from being realized in real life and can in no way incite it. All of these sensitive topics and questions were raised in 2018 with a closed report without follow-up. A person who had “personally known victims of incest” expressed concern “about the possible use of this child pornography material by aggressors, with the aim of convincing the child that pedocrime is good, it’s is normal, it’s ‘fun’”, reports France info. But in “the absence of offense”, the report had not succeeded.
Charges denied by Bastien Vivès
If everything seems against him, even some of his own statements, Bastien Vivès ended up speaking out on the controversy. In a mea culpa-like press release published on December 15 on his Instagram account, the comic book author firmly denies the accusations against him and “condemns pedocrime, as well as its apology and trivialization” as well as “the culture of rape and violence against women”. The man also defends his work and his boards which “evokes[nt] the birth of feelings of love and desire” in a form of expression that falls under the “humorous burlesque genre”. A tone that Bastien Vivès says he likes and regularly repeats in interviews, one can imagine that he is referring here to his exit in miss aforementioned. “At no time did I want to hurt victims of crimes and sexual abuse,” he added. As for the distribution of pornographic content accessible to minors, the artist specifies that his “four so-called “pornographic” books are sold in bookstores in blister packs, with a warning and a ban for those under 18″.
