The French are getting a trifle too PC for my taste. There is a great exhibition on Jacques Tati in Paris right now. The Monsieur Hulot character created by Jacques Tati smokes the pipe, or, at least, has a pipe in his month, although he does not appear to be smoking it (or at least, I do not remember him puffing away.) Posters announcing exhibitions are traditionally featured in Paris on the sides of the buses, and inside the metro. Well, both companies refused to feature the Tati poster as is, because Mr. Hulot smokes the pipe, and that would be the 1991 "Evin law" prohibits any propaganda or publicity, direct or indirect, of tobacco or tobacco products.
But both the SRF, Société des Réalisateurs de Films, (filmmakers society), and the Syndicat de la Critique de Cinéma (cinema critic syndicate), issued a common press release asking bith the bus and the metro companies to finance a reprinting of new posters featuring Monsieur Hulot and his pipe, claiming that "This censoring in the name of health leads to an unbearable revisionism which affects art and culture" ("Cette censure sanitaire conduit à un révisionnisme insupportable touchant l’art et la culture.) They also claim that, by presenting a distorted picture of Jacques Tati, it diverted and undermined the integrity and spirit of his work, and that constitutes an offense under the Code of intellectual property.
Indeed, the French IP Code protects the integrity of the works through the droit moral. Pursuant to Article L121-1 of the Intellectual Property Code, " An author shall enjoy the right to respect for his name, his authorship and his work. This right shall attach to his person. It shall be perpetual, inalienable and imprescriptible."
You may sign a petition against erasing Mr. Hulot's pipe here.
But both the SRF, Société des Réalisateurs de Films, (filmmakers society), and the Syndicat de la Critique de Cinéma (cinema critic syndicate), issued a common press release asking bith the bus and the metro companies to finance a reprinting of new posters featuring Monsieur Hulot and his pipe, claiming that "This censoring in the name of health leads to an unbearable revisionism which affects art and culture" ("Cette censure sanitaire conduit à un révisionnisme insupportable touchant l’art et la culture.) They also claim that, by presenting a distorted picture of Jacques Tati, it diverted and undermined the integrity and spirit of his work, and that constitutes an offense under the Code of intellectual property.
Indeed, the French IP Code protects the integrity of the works through the droit moral. Pursuant to Article L121-1 of the Intellectual Property Code, " An author shall enjoy the right to respect for his name, his authorship and his work. This right shall attach to his person. It shall be perpetual, inalienable and imprescriptible."
You may sign a petition against erasing Mr. Hulot's pipe here.
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