Succès de scandale (French for "success from scandal") is a term for any artistic work whose success is attributed, in whole or in part, to publiccontroversy surrounding the work. In some cases the controversy causes audiences to seek out the work for its titillating content, while in others it simply heightens public curiosity. In English, this concept is commonly echoed by the phrase"there is no such thing as bad publicity".[1]
TheBelle Époque ('beautiful era') in Paris, roughly from 1871 to 1914, was notable for manysuccès de scandale. This was also where and when the term originated. In the examples below, artists started their careers with some sort of scandal, with some connection to turn-of-the-century Paris. In other cities, provoking a scandal appeared more risky, asOscar Wilde found out shortly after his relatively "successful" Parisian scandal (Salomé in 1894, portraying the main character as anecrophile).
Alfred Jarry shocked Paris in 1896 with the first of his absurdistic Ubu plays:Ubu Roi. The performance of this play was forbidden after the first night, though Jarry got around the prohibition by moving the production to a puppet theatre.[citation needed]
A new group of artists, labeled disrespectfully"Les Fauves" ("The Wild Beasts") by an art critic, had their successful debut in 1905 Paris (and kept the name).
Richard Strauss had little success with his first two operas, which today are no longer performed. He then tried something different: he set music to Oscar Wilde'sSalome in 1905. It created a scandal, including in the New YorkMet, where the production had to be closed after one night. But Strauss wanted more, and his next opera (Elektra, 1909) was so "noisy" that cartoons appeared with Strauss directing an orchestra of animals. However, the opera'slibretto, written byHugo von Hofmannsthal, was quite tame.
The 1912 balletAfternoon of a Faun, choreographed and headed byVaslav Nijinsky, provoked strong reactions. The newspaperLe Figaro wrote in a front-page review that the "movements are filthy and bestial in their eroticism".[3] Despite, or because of, this criticism, the ballet was sold-out in Paris.
Paul Chabas had won a most prestigious prize with hisSeptember Morn in Paris in 1912. Nudity as portrayed in this painting was, however, far from shocking to Parisians half a century afterDéjeuner. The market value of the painting remained low. Then, Chabas put it on display in aNew York shop window in 1913. There, for the first time in history, it appears asuccès de scandale scheme was set up by a publicity agent (Harry Reichenbach), who "accidentally" tipped off a morality crusader to the picture. The scandal that evolved brought financial success and secured Chabas's place in art history books. Although later deemedkitsch, the painting ended up in one of the most prestigious museums of New York.
Paul Chabas'sSeptember Morn was not the last time thatComstockery fanned the success it wanted to prohibit:Mae West quipped "I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it."[6][7] after theSociety for the Suppression of Vice had maneuvered to get her playSex re-censored by thePolice Department Play Jury. A few years later, when she was over 40 years old, her sex-symbol status paid off when by 1933, West was one of the largest box-office draws in the United States[8] and, by 1935, she was also the highest paid woman and the second-highest paid person in the United States (afterWilliam Randolph Hearst).[9]
^Le Figaro, 30 May 1912, "Un Faux Pas" Gaston Calmette editorial, cited in Buckle, Nijinsky, p.242. Buckle suggests Calmette was seeking to imply Nijinsky was showing bulging genitalia when seen in profile.
