No Life is Safe from the Collateral Damage in the Left’s Culture War

Fred Chichin (his real name, by the way), half of the pair known as the Rita Mitsouko died of cancer on 28 November. The ever-repugnant Marianne gives them “the treatment” in spite of a number of readers who are reasonable in their comments:

The Rita Mitsouko [Mysterious Rita] are no more, at least as it was known. They were loved and the duo, and long the most creative of French rock since their formation in 1979. An aggressive cancer overtook Frédéric Chichin, called Fred - guitarist, sometime dandy, and always excellent musician. His cancer had already been present for a few months and probably has not helped to alleviate the health problems of Catherine Ringer, the exuberant singer, and at first glance the more communicative of the pair. So, despite the welcome criticism of their latest effort “Variety”, Les Rita were not doing well. For some until recently in columns of Marianne, they were even very badly worn down politically. It seems, the "counterculture" no longer adored the two fifty-something formerly revered icons who became fair game in a progressive vulgate wrapped up in the a moment in the here-and-now.

Conversations (which in varying degrees met with the happiness of some) were deemed heretical by many others for two "rockers" eternally condemned to bear the burden of a shocked left. We therefore considered it tasteless to look askance at their concern with Nicolas Sarkozy or their friendship with the writer Maurice Dantec, the "sick man" of French Letters who is obsessed with the decline [of France] and assumes that there is an irreversible Islamization of Old Europe.
Les Rita admitted their lack of esteem for the French rap scene. That was enough, it seems, to disqualify the few judged worth in their artistic and moral judgment.
Supposedly out of fear, the polemic that harmed their recent tour had Fred and Catherine refusing to explain to the press their recent and highly controversial beliefs. The nearness of death is assurance that there was still time to use this way for those who convicted in advance.

As if they need to forced to explain anything. Dead only two days, and they have to work him over for no reason other than his personal views not jibing with Marianne’s politics, at it’s least vulgar it’s being done in a seemingly apologetic way. In other words – you can never be dead enough to draw the hateful accusatory tone of the most ideologically obsessed on the left.

Marianne editorialists should have enough of a clue to not say this. More stylized than “countercultural” to begin with, the beating they got for countercultural opinions is what put them out of favor with the vulgar bobos attempting to “manage” a cultural milieu to begin with.

You would think that the style of presence he greatly shared with musical partner Catherine Ringer vibrant presence to the media (her having done some porn in the 70s and 80s) would have given him that “cultural exception” that they dole out for their cultural compatriots, but it hasn’t. It just isn’t enough. Libération, on the other hand did not share their taste for Mao style re-education - the one so arrogant as to believe that it has to even imprint itself on the passing thoughts of the deceased when the normal modality in that media bubble is to display and induce as much fake public weeping as possible when any figure in “the culture” dies. Instead they give the guy an obituary send-off that so underhanded, that their fingertip should be bleeding.




François-Xavier Ajavon has more on some of Marianne’s “cultural” criticism of a man’s death which looks like yet another lame attempt to imprint a critic’s world view on anything it the criti’s path:

Nevertheless, Mme Marteau [tr. Ms. Hammer], Marianne, to investigate an authentic inquisitorial trial. We would like to meet with her in this beautiful little real bride ideal Bernardo Gui. We would like to hear him sing something on stage ... She repeats throughout the article that Rita Mitsouko have the "hatred" to spit (inevitable reference to their earlier, angrier years), They are racist, intolerant, aggressive, fake, crazy, dangerous, and so on. Part-time sociologist for hire that she is, Mme Marteau believes that the path people take is strictly with their political commitments. She believes that we are all determined by the environment in which we grew up and by parents who have done: "In the eyes of all, group emblematic of the Mitterrand years which could have only identified them on the left.”

So a reputation must be trashed, and a life is disposed of in for the sake of “the cause” – whatever it is today probably doesn’t matter. The ideological witch hunt must go on for the likes of these people who prove daily their inability to really live intellectually in a pluralistic society.

Shame on them.