My last post

Watching this interview, I realized that I have common point with the film director of JCVD Mabrouk El Mechri when he says he grew up with Jean-Claude’s films. I have to confess that I did too and, like Mabrouk, I even had a poster of his first and maybe most famous film “Bloodsport” on the wall of my room when I was a little boy. I don’t watch Karate films anymore but at that time, he was important and symbolized a lot of things for me, as for a lot of people I suppose.

I want to thank Mabrouk for making JCVD, because in our societies “burn your idol” seems to be the motto of a lot of people. Of course, to have idols is very infantile, but if you are a child, what’s the problem? It is not incoherent. I also think it’s important to remember where you are from, what you did, what you experienced and to not deny the tasteless part of you. If not, it‘s just like saying that your personality came in one block one day, although it is a process.

This also reminds me the way that the mass medias always present art, or entertainment (call it how you want) as a pyramidal stuff. I mean, something with a top, and if we, as an audience, don’t appreciate who is on this top (who mass media usually put on there), we are considered as has-beens. A decade ago, 2be3 were everywhere. Personally, I do respect the fact that people I don’t like, artistically speaking, has an audience and I consider they are useful to it but I think it is incredible that 2be3 won the “best band of the year award” in 97!

I think there is no hierarchy between artists objectively, everything is linear (Objectively, you cannot say that Mozart is better than Lorie who is better than Adamo who is better than The Beatles, etc. They all are on the same line, because for the most easy-listening music, as for the most hardly-listening music, there is an audience). It is just a question of audience and context. Patrick Sebastien’s “on fait tourner les serviettes” is more appropriate for a wedding ceremony than a Bartok piece, isn’t it?

But I regret that every artist doesn’t have the same visibility in the Medias and that audience doesn’t really have the possibility to extend their artistic tastes.

So I don’t agree with Jean-Claude when he says, during interviews and in the film JCVD too, that he received everything from life (glory, etc) although he didn’t give anything to the world. In fact, he gave a lot to his fans, acting in Karate films. He did a lot for this audience and we should respect that.

You don’t like Jean-Claude? It is choice that has to be respected, but even if you don’t like him, or his films, even if you don’t even see one of them, you know him. He is one of the cultural references that almost everybody shares, some part of the collective conscience. I guess you can go almost anywhere on this planet and just say “Jean-Claude Van Damme” to an unknown person and I am sure you will become friend instantly. Thank you Jean-Claude ;) We all are contemporary of you and I am happy to live in the same world that you are living in.

Tribute to Jean-Claude