"I hate the word prostitute – when you think of a prostitute you think of someone on the street who is causing a public nuisance..."I take it that by "Belle Du Jour" Sophie and the Independent are referring to the movie "Belle de Jour," in which the young Catherine Deneuve plays "a respectable young wife who secretly works in a brothel one or two afternoons a week." The word between "Belle" (beauty) and "Jour" (day) is "de" (of) not "du" (of the). The title is premised on "belle de nuit," which means prostitute, in the sense of "lady of the night." Deneuve's character works during the day. I don't know why "the" is left out of both "belle de nuit" and "belle de jour," but I don't think "belle du jour" is a phrase that means anything, an opinion I'm basing on Google's changing my "belle du jour" search to "belle de jour" and not even asking if I really meant "belle du jour."
Sophie* is 22, studying at university and paying for it through sex work... By advertising on an adult site, she can pick who she sees depending on the feedback from girls and customers. They try to establish legitimate clients from potentially dangerous ones, alongside rating and ranking the workers themselves....
Sophie is resigned and bitter about the perception of sex work – particularly the character of Belle du Jour. "I hate it. Because, say I work for a hundred pounds an hour, that it makes it sound very classy, whereas I tend to be going to real s***holes...."
Enter Kathleen Parker, the Washington Post columnist, who's got a new piece titled "The silly, selective 'war on women.'" She begins with the unbelievable assertion: "The war on women is based on just one thing — abortion rights." Maybe no one reads any further after that. (Whatever you think of the packaging of the Democratic Party's gender politics as a "war on women," it obviously includes at least a couple other issues like employment discrimination and violence against women.) But I kept reading until I hit this:
I promise, this isn’t another abortion column, not that the horrific number of abortions performed each year shouldn’t make one’s stomach turn. Instead, extremists on the pro-choice left celebrate the “right” to terminate a 20-week-old fetus. Google an image of this stage of fetal development and try to comprehend the glee we witnessed when state senator Wendy Davis, now running for governor, became the belle du jour upon her filibuster to protect that “right” in Texas.Belle du jour? You'd think after all the trouble Rush Limbaugh got into when he said something that sounded like he called a young woman a prostitute that conservative pundits would be more careful!
I realize that Parker was slapping "du jour" on "belle" in the old "soup du jour" way and meant to say that Davis is the Democrats' darling "du jour." It's a dismissive way of saying that people keep getting a new (whatever) every day the way a restaurant gets a new soup. And somehow Parker decided that the word before "du jour" ought to be in French too, even though the word "soup" in the phrase "soup du jour" isn't French. (In French, it's "soupe.") If you're going to tart up you prose with French, at least Google you're words and see if you've said something stupid. (Or maybe she didn't think "belle" was French at all and was really using the old "soup" format, and "belle" was the "belle" of "Southern belle" and "belle of the ball.")
And how's old Catherine Deneuve doing these days? Here she is at a fashion show in Paris 2 days ago, wearing, among other things, a sweater with the shape of a marijuana leaf knitted into it. And here she is, almost 50 years ago, as Belle de Jour:
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39 comments:
That's where the jour in journalist comes from.
"Belle de Jour" was also the pseudonym of an London sex worker/ blogger a few years back.
I suspect that was the reference intended.
@Chas Yes, she adopted that name based on the movie.
Whatever you think of the packaging of the Democratic Party's gender politics as a "war on women," it obviously includes at least a couple other issues like employment discrimination and violence against women.
Except it really doesn't. You can, as Obama does, pay your female staffers on average less than your male staffers, and still get reelected by Democrats.
You can, as Bob Filner did, grope women and get elected again and again as a Democrat congressman and mayor.
You cannot do anything against abortion and get elected as a Democrat.
It's just a guess, but I would think "Belle du jour" would be a way of talking about some young lady (probably not a prostitute of any sort) with whom you were socializing today, but would likely not be socializing with tomorrow.
It's like a "Soup du Jour" -- it's the thing that's on today, but probably not tomorrow.
At least that's how "du jour" is used frequently, both in the French I learned and in English. Now, the French I learned might have been @$$ wrong... who knows.
I love the way Deneuve displays her circumspection at the top of the landing with the toe of her right shoe (@0:13).
The first season of "Secret Diary of a Call Girl" (With Billy Piper playing Belle) is pretty good.
The later seasons are kinda meh...unless you're a Dr. Who fan, then the show is just downright kinky.
At least that's how "du jour" is used frequently
Indeed. I don't think you should criticize someone for basically no knowing french slang.
why would you assume Belle du Jour is a reference to a nearly 50 yr old movie? If the subject of th einterview is in her 20s, I would assume she was talking about the books and blog by Brooke Magnanti?
Probably, it's a reference to the character in the British TV show Secret Diary of a Call Girl, Belle, played by Billie Piper
Belle du jour? You'd think after all the trouble Rush Limbaugh got into when he said something that sounded like he called a young woman a prostitute that conservative pundits would be more careful!"
Careful about what? Saying the truth bluntly? Sandra Fluke is a whore and so is Wendy Davis. Fluke wants other people to subsidize her love life-she wants other people to pay for her sex life, so how is that not being a whore? As for Davis, her life is evidence of being a whore. If being called a whore is that offensive to the one being called that word the solution is easy. Stop being one.
Belle du jour? You'd think after all the trouble Rush Limbaugh got into when he said something that sounded like he called a young woman a prostitute that conservative pundits would be more careful!"
Careful about what? Saying the truth bluntly? Sandra Fluke is a whore and so is Wendy Davis. Fluke wants other people to subsidize her love life-she wants other people to pay for her sex life, so how is that not being a whore? As for Davis, her life is evidence of being a whore. If being called a whore is that offensive to the one being called that word the solution is easy. Stop being one.
I know one of the very best ways to learn French is to get yourself a "dictionnaire de nuit."
I wasn't aware of the prostitution context of "belle du jour", and not sure Parker was either--I read that just to mean "lady of the moment" and that seems to be what Parker meant.
I'd say the "war on women" is about something far more specific than abortion rights, because at the national level Congress hasn't lately been doing anything about actual access to abortion (that was more an issue a decade ago, with partial birth bans and such). What this is really about is getting government to pay for women's contraception.
Which in a way is far more ridiculous than a war on women based on abortion rights. At least with the latter, whether you support abortion rights or not, you can say this has to do with actual rights. The "right" to have someone else subsidize things you want is far more of a stretch, and calling it a "war" when someone denies you that "right" is hyperbole of the lowest sort.
"why would you assume Belle du Jour is a reference to a nearly 50 yr old movie? If the subject of th einterview is in her 20s, I would assume she was talking about the books and blog by Brooke Magnanti?"
As noted above, that newer material is using the title of the movie, where the term originated. Chas, the second commenter, links to the Wikipedia page, where that is quite clear.
It's an idea of a high-class and beautiful prostitute in cosseted surroundings.
"It's just a guess, but I would think "Belle du jour" would be a way of talking about some young lady (probably not a prostitute of any sort) with whom you were socializing today, but would likely not be socializing with tomorrow."
My point is that someone who casually assumes that and uses that term is embarrassing herself. Kathleen Parker is writing in The Washington Post and using a French phrase is kind of a dopey, hoity-toity thing to do, so don't let any mistakes slip in.
Whores are whores.
Jesus Christ, you either like 'em or you don't.
French ones are actually kinda cool, mostly because they don't share our culture,...
"say I work for a hundred pounds an hour, that it makes it sound very classy, whereas I tend to be going to real s***holes...."
I have read, and believe this to be true although I have done no research, that prostitutes have a much harder time these days what with sex being so available from
"amateurs" so that the pros are mostly dealing with men too repulsive to get free sex or with men who want really kinky stuff.
What's important about this story? Catherine Deneuve is a babe. Snorts, grabs crotch, paws ground.
"French ones are actually kinda cool, mostly because they don't share our culture,..."
You prefer the French culture--which is a "white" culture--over American culture which is heavily influenced by blacks?
Well you wouldn't be the first self-hating black man I ever met.
Deneuve was never more beautiful than in Le Demoiselles de Rochefort with her sister who was killed a few months after making the movie.
Sometimes after I leave my favorite restaurant, I promenade down the boulevard.
You mean that's not a sugar maple leaf?
The Crack Emcee said...
Whores are whores.
Jesus Christ, you either like 'em or you don't.
Blacks are blacks, Jesus Christ, you either like 'em or you don't.
Jews are Jews, Jesus Christ, you either like 'em or you don't.
Whites are whites, Jesus Christ, you either like 'em or you don't.
Mechanics are mechanics, Jesus Christ, you either like 'em or you don't.
Dogs are dogs, Jesus Christ, you either like 'em or you don't.
Actors are actors, Jesus Christ, you either like 'em or you don't.
Bloggers are bloggers, Jesus Christ, you either like 'em or you don't.
Liberals are Liberals, Jesus Christ, you either like 'em or you don't.
Catherine Deneuve has really found the handle on that whole aging process thing. Her, Christie Brinkley, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg have really kept it together......Retired sports stars on canes and former sex symbols with weight problems are distressing to look at. How fleeting are moments of perfection and how vertiginous the fall. But Catherine never fell from grace. It's reassuring that she's still beautiful. Bridget Bardot let the team down.
So some coeds are "sex workers" and some are adolescents who can't look out for themselves.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Do we need legislation? If a college boy pokes a coed sex worker and refuses to pay, is it "college rape?" What if she is drunk? What if she is drunk AND he refuses to pay? Is that an aggravated offense?
Is there a French word for coed sex workers? Is "courtisane" okay? Is it a hate crime to call a college sex worker a whore? A putain?
I need a Democrat, preferably an Obamadupess, to clarify this.
I have to take exception to a point made by Parker in her column--in referring to the Barbara Comstock race in VA, she claims it's sexist that her opponent claimed that Comstock "never held a real job" because she was only a mother and housewife, and that no man would have to endure such a slur.
First, if a man stayed home to take care of the kids while his wife worked, and then he ran for office, you better believe that fact would be used against him--perhaps more so than a female candidate because there is a sexist attitude that a man who attends to domestic duties is somehow less of a man (unfair, of course, but common).
Second, while being a mother and housewife are both important duties, it happens to be true that if you haven't held a paying job then you lack a certain perspective that many of your constituents may value--having to deal with a commute, perhaps, or seeing a chunk of your salary deducted for health coverage and taxes. True, child rearing is another valuable perspective, but it's hardly unfair to point out a candidate's limitations. Just like working class candidates can complain that born-rich candidates don't know what it's like to have a tight household budget, or entrepreneurs can point out that their opponents don't know what it's like to have the responsibility of running a business, or veterans can point out that their non-serving opponents don't know what it's like to serve in uniform. The opponents can overcome these charges, but how is it beyond the pale to point out these differences?
If the point is that Democrats can get away with certain charges that Republicans can't, then that's a fair point--but the shot against Comstock in this context isn't really sexist.
I suspect Parker used "belle du Jour" to mean something closer to "woman of the day". That's how I would have read it prior to this blog post today.
In the U.S. today, would "Hawkeye" connote the archer from The Avengers? The surgeon from M*A*S*H? Or some guy from than old Mohican book?
The ITV's "Secret Diary" was a huge hit for four seasons.
Deneuve is still hot in my book.
I liked demimondaine better.
There would be a LOT less French literature, drama and music without belles de jour, nuit, or whatever.
All the references to Catherine Deneuve are incorrect. As many people have said, they are referring to the book/blog/London newspaper serialization and the Billy Piper TV show. Young people don't care about the origin of the term or Catherine Deneuve, either, for that matter. Or Bob Dylan.
William said..."Catherine Deneuve has really found the handle on that whole aging process thing. ...It's reassuring that she's still beautiful."
The photo of Deneuve of two days ago that Althouse linked to is a very flattering one. Here's one not so flattering from 2013, which is probably closer to the real-life Deneuve.
Misusing foreign phrases just makes you look silly. Deploying duckspeak vocabulary like "sex worker" is symptomatic of a deep rot. Mercifully, neither the writer nor nor anyone quoted in the article deployed any form of the word "empower".
'Du' vs 'de' in French is a subtle difference. 'Du' is short for 'de le' (of the) & denotes possession- Soupe du jour is the day's soup. "De' is descriptive- Belle de jour is literally 'day-lady' & is a pun on belle de nuit, as noted by Althouse.
Thanks, navillus.
So soupe de jour might work for a type of soup eaten during the day?
When I visit prostitutes I get half-off if I make them laugh.
Not a Kathleen Parker fan and I am pro choice (in the sense that I do not want to make abortion illegal and wish that the issue would go away) but she is absolutely right - this whole "War on Women" crap is based on abortion under any circumstances whenever you want it.
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