BASTIEN VIVES. Three books by comic book author Bastien Vivès are the subject of a complaint for “dissemination of child pornography images”. The debate is heated, but on the legal level are the incriminated drawings illegal?
Will the controversy surrounding Bastien Vivès’ comic books go to court? And if so, could the author be held responsible for the child pornography charges against him? These are the questions posed by the complaint filed by Innocence in Danger (IED) on Monday, December 19, 2022. The child protection association accuses three works by the author of comics of “dissemination of child pornography”, “incitement to commit sexual assaults on minors” and “dissemination to a minor of violent messages”. If Bastien Vivès is incriminated, it is also the case of the two publishing houses which published the graphic novels: the houses Glénat and Requins hammers. The complaint revives the debate on the drawing boards and their legality, but the subject is controversial and delicate, involving both the text of laws and moral positions.
Which Bastien Vivès comics are accused of child pornography?
Of the dozens of graphic novels and comic strips signed by Bastien Vivès, three books are under fire from critics: Melons of anger (2011) and The Mental Dump (2018) from the “BD CUL” collection of Hammerhead sharks and Little Paul (2018). According to the association Innocence in danger (IED), The Mental Dump depicts the incestuous relationship of a couple with their three daughters aged 18, 15 and 10. In the other two graphic novels it is the same character who is at the heart of the child pornography scenes, the famous Paul, a young child endowed with a disproportionately large penis who first appears in Melons of Wrath during a scene where his sister “imposes fellatio on him” according to the complainant association. The same child is then “raped by his teacher, his sister and his judo teacher” in the last book pointed out by IED. In its complaint filed with the public prosecutor of Paris, the association concludes that “these boards show many minors abused or exhibiting their intimacy” and that as such they correspond to child pornography representations.
Are the pornographic comics of Bastien Vivès illegal?
The phonographic nature of the three comics called into question by the IED’s complaint is beyond doubt. Bastien Vivès himself recognizes that his drawings are not suitable for minors and recalled in a press release published on December 15 that all were sold “in blister packs, with a warning and a ban for those under 18”. But talking about pornography comes down to circumventing the problem because the incriminated comic strips represent minors during sexual acts, for some incestuous, and therefore illegal, and for others possibly carried out under duress. The child protection association sees scenes of rape in the pages of the Little Paulfor instance.
Without dwelling on the illegality of the scenes represented, the simple fact of drawing children in situations of a sexual nature is child pornography and falls under thearticle 227-23 of the Penal Code. Which punishes “the fact, with a view to its dissemination, of fixing, recording or transmitting the image or representation of a minor when this image or this representation is of a pornographic nature”. And the law does not provide for any exception to these representations, as pointed out by IED’s lawyer and author of the complaint, Delphine Girard, in The Parisian. According to her, the article of the Penal Code intends “a fairly broad representation, which also concerns works of the mind, representations of the child whether they are imaginary or not, photographed or drawn, in a situation of sexualized behavior or when dealing with adults”. And Guillaume Beaussonie, professor of criminal law at the University of Toulouse, to add: “The text does not provide for an exception. There is no hypothesis in which an artistic exception could be authorized”.
Bastien Vivès’ comics protected by freedom of expression?
And what about freedom of expression? This is the main argument used by Bastien Vivès and by other authors who defend their colleague, father of Little Paul. An essential right, central in matters affecting the artistic field and laid down by several texts including theArticle 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). This right is also taken up by Agnès Tricoire, lawyer at the court of Paris and delegate of the Observatory of the freedom of creation, whose remarks are transcribed by France info and who considers that if article 227-23 of the Penal Code can be used, it must be so “proportionate” according to the degree of fiction of the representation of the minor and according to the intention of the author. But Bastien Vivès, denies any bad intention behind his drawings and his comics. The fact remains that if freedom of expression is queen, the exercise of this right may be limited in particular by “the defense of order and the prevention of crime, the protection of health or morals”, as also provides for Article 10 of the ECHR.
Legal, but also moral questions on the Bastien Vivès case
The controversy around Bastien Vivès is complex and plays out on several levels. If from an artistic point of view the author and some of his colleagues support freedom of expression, the certainly strong argument comes into opposition with what is legal or not to represent, as explained above. It is up to justice, if it takes up the case after the plain of IED targeting Bastien Vivès, to decide on this point. But other questions raised are more of a moral order: is it correct or not to represent minors in scenes of a sexual nature like the author of the Little Paul the fact ? Do these drawings fuel or incite pedophile acts?
If for the associations which fight against sexual violence and incest see all the harm that these drawings could cause in the hands of victims or people likely to see in them a form of normality or even approval, others consider that a drawing cannot be the cause of an evil or an amoral impulse. According to them, the image only expresses and sometimes relieves these impulses to prevent the desire from being realized in real life and can in no way incite it. All of these sensitive topics and questions were raised in 2018 with a closed report without follow-up. A person who had “personally known victims of incest” expressed concern “about the possible use of this child pornography material by aggressors, with the aim of convincing the child that pedocrime is good, it’s is normal, it’s ‘fun'”, reports France info. But in “the absence of offense”, the report had not succeeded.
What does Bastien Vivès risk if his comics are deemed illegal?
If the three decried Bastien Vivès comics are characterized as child pornography after the complaint from the Innocence in Danger (IED) association, then the author could incur a fine of up to 75,000 euros and 5 years in prison for the chief. of “dissemination of child pornography”, again according to the article article 227-23 of the Penal Code. But the accusations do not stop there because in addition to being considered child pornography, the boards of Bastien Vivès trivialize the sexual abuse of minors, again according to IED which evokes “a provocation to the commission of sexual abuse of minors for fragile people who might think such relationships are the norm”. This is a fact punishable by 5 years in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros.
Charges denied by Bastien Vivès
If everything seems against him, even some of his own statements, Bastien Vivès ended up speaking out on the controversy. In a statement with the air of mea culpa published on December 15 on its instagram account, the comic book author firmly denies the accusations against him and “condemns paedocriminality, as well as its apology and trivialization” as well as “the culture of rape and violence against women”. The man also defends his work and his boards which “evokes[nt] the birth of feelings of love and desire” in a form of expression that falls under the “humorous burlesque genre”. A tone that Bastien Vivès says he likes and regularly repeats in interviews, one can imagine that he is referring here to his exit in miss aforementioned. “At no time did I want to hurt victims of crimes and sexual abuse,” he added. As for the distribution of pornographic content accessible to minors, the artist specifies that his “four so-called ‘pornographic’ books are sold in bookstores in blister packs, with a warning and a ban for those under 18”.