The question is would Serge's record company continue to release albums when placed under pressure. Would French TV continue to allow him to perform there? Would French radio continue to play his albums? Would he appear in French magazines and newspapers.
In those days when Serge was the enfant terrible the answer was clearly yes, they all would and they did. Today, I still strongly suspect they all would, at least in France. But what do I know of it?
How about the "next Serge" if such a phrase can have meaning. The person trying to get noticed with their work using youtube, soundcloud, myspace, their own domain etc. How would it play out if they released something as unsettling as "Lemon Incest" in duet with their under-aged daughter? [1].
Accusation is also a hell of a powerful thing. The prevailing zeitgeist of "believe the accuser" is understandable given historical context but seems to be equally capable of damage to the innocent. It seems someone would accuse something to supercharge the outrage machine and that accusation could even be true. And it sticks impacting that persons' access to something as basic as the financial system even when it seems pretty unlikely that it is true, eg Julian Assange. I guess some people still believe he's a rapist but the accusation has massively impacted his life and work even if it came from someone who literally wrote about the need to take revenge on former lovers. [2] Among a series of other pieces of information that seemed to strongly undermine her accusations. Being "likable" like Matt Lauer and Katie Couric seems to be more important in such things - which whatever one thinks of their relative merits as humans or even as "the accused" it just doesn't quite seem like justice according to law. [3]
So, I think we can only speculate about what would happen in France. As we can if the "next Serge" were born and raised in the USA.
Full disclosure: I think I'd cross the road to avoid all of Gainsbourg, Assange, Lauer and Couric. I can't imagine liking any of them at all. The cancelling business bothers me. Law reform seems to me to be the correct place to address shortcomings in the rule of law. The endrun around it will be abused by the powerful against the less so. The importance of the rule of law is that the strongest might not always get their way. As corruption rages, the agents of the strongest aren't your friends the way they claim to be by standing against those who are the objects of the current edition of "the hate" be it 2 minutes or more.
Assange the person can make my skin crawl while I still acknowledge the ideas - he really was more right about the Afghanistan war than what I was reading in the NYT, WJS, WaPo, ToL, Guardian etc. And it really did greatly annoy a lot of people with power and/or money fueled vested interest in a quite different view of that war than the one he was publicizing - and we now know how it all turned out.
I am a Gainsbourg fan. When he pushed the boundaries he was both clever and artistic about it. The rest of the people you mention have no artistic integrity? I don't care anything about them, really.
I don't know, I am on the fence about Woody Allen so I'm probably hypocritical. I grew up liking his stuff and so find it hard to despise him now. "Manhattan" might (now) be his most cringey film but it has one of the best closing lines of any film ("You gotta have a little faith in people.").
The question is would Serge's record company continue to release albums when placed under pressure. Would French TV continue to allow him to perform there? Would French radio continue to play his albums? Would he appear in French magazines and newspapers.
In those days when Serge was the enfant terrible the answer was clearly yes, they all would and they did. Today, I still strongly suspect they all would, at least in France. But what do I know of it?
How about the "next Serge" if such a phrase can have meaning. The person trying to get noticed with their work using youtube, soundcloud, myspace, their own domain etc. How would it play out if they released something as unsettling as "Lemon Incest" in duet with their under-aged daughter? [1].
Accusation is also a hell of a powerful thing. The prevailing zeitgeist of "believe the accuser" is understandable given historical context but seems to be equally capable of damage to the innocent. It seems someone would accuse something to supercharge the outrage machine and that accusation could even be true. And it sticks impacting that persons' access to something as basic as the financial system even when it seems pretty unlikely that it is true, eg Julian Assange. I guess some people still believe he's a rapist but the accusation has massively impacted his life and work even if it came from someone who literally wrote about the need to take revenge on former lovers. [2] Among a series of other pieces of information that seemed to strongly undermine her accusations. Being "likable" like Matt Lauer and Katie Couric seems to be more important in such things - which whatever one thinks of their relative merits as humans or even as "the accused" it just doesn't quite seem like justice according to law. [3]
So, I think we can only speculate about what would happen in France. As we can if the "next Serge" were born and raised in the USA.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_Incest
[2] https://www.crikey.com.au/2010/12/13/rundle-assange-accuser-...
[3] https://nypost.com/2021/10/01/katie-couric-reveals-herself-a...
Full disclosure: I think I'd cross the road to avoid all of Gainsbourg, Assange, Lauer and Couric. I can't imagine liking any of them at all. The cancelling business bothers me. Law reform seems to me to be the correct place to address shortcomings in the rule of law. The endrun around it will be abused by the powerful against the less so. The importance of the rule of law is that the strongest might not always get their way. As corruption rages, the agents of the strongest aren't your friends the way they claim to be by standing against those who are the objects of the current edition of "the hate" be it 2 minutes or more.
Assange the person can make my skin crawl while I still acknowledge the ideas - he really was more right about the Afghanistan war than what I was reading in the NYT, WJS, WaPo, ToL, Guardian etc. And it really did greatly annoy a lot of people with power and/or money fueled vested interest in a quite different view of that war than the one he was publicizing - and we now know how it all turned out.