Frédéric Canovas

Against the Canon: Jean Cocteau or the Rise of the Gay Cultural Icon

A very limited number of scholars who specialize in French art and/or literature and gay studies, have underlined the role played by Cocteau’s work in the concept and articulation of homosexual identity. There is no doubt that Gide and Proust remain the central figures when it comes to studies dealing with homosexuality in modern literature, even if most scholars agree on the fact that their conceptualization of homosexual identity is outdated today. Thus any attempt to understand Cocteau’s definition and representation of homosexuality without looking at his position toward Gide and Proust would be incomplete and inaccurate. In light of Cocteau’s tumultuous relationship with Gide and Proust, this essay will attempt to retrace the emergence of Cocteau’s written and visual discourse on homosexuality as well as his original role as a homosexual role model.

2009 marks the tenth anniversary of Jean Marais’ death. A few weeks after his passing, the French gay magazine Têtu published the results of a national poll. Gay readers had been asked to select their favorite gay icons. Surprisingly Jean Cocteau (ranked number 1), who had died more than forty years ago, and Jean Marais (number 2) came ahead of contemporary pop stars like George Michael (ranked number 7) and Elton John (number 9), and French fashion’s enfant terrible Jean-Paul Gaultier (number 8). Perhaps Cocteau’s prediction was finally becoming a reality. After years of being considered too much of a frivolous1 and shallow artist, Cocteau was finally granted what he had longed for during his entire life? In his diary, Cocteau wrote in 1943: ‘Gide says that I am “incapable of being serious”. I, Cocteau, accuse Gide, Valéry and Claudel of being diabolically frivolous...’ It is normal that this fake seriousness bear its fruit in 1943, and that our own hidden seriousness be revealed only after the year 2000.2

1 The title of this essay was inspired by the title of Cocteau’s second book Le Prince frivole published at the age of twenty one.

2 Jean Cocteau, Journal 1942-1945 (Paris: Gallimard, 1989), p. 413. All translations are mine with the exception of quotations taken from Arthur King Peters’ book, Jean Cocteau and André Gide: An Abrasive Friendship, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1973. Interestingly enough a poll on ‘the best French writers of today’ conducted in 1943 by the newspaper Combat placed Gide number one (with 423 votes), followed by Camus, Sartre and Malraux. Cocteau is number 17 (with only 93 votes) behind Montherlant, Claudel,

134 Frédéric Canovas

If it is indeed understandable, if not ‘normal’, for the young generation of the forties to identify with the works of Gide, Valéry and Claudel, was Cocteau actually right when he hinted at the fact that his own work would eventually be better understood and appreciated in the future unlike that of his rivals of 1943? It would be non-sense to claim today that the works of Gide, Valéry and Claudel have lost their meaning and purpose. Quite the contrary, these authors still enjoy much popularity in 2004, both in the academic world, in the French collective mind and among gay readers (in fact, Gide is ranked number 6 in the Têtu poll). As for Cocteau’s wish to be, in the year 2000, where his rivals stood in 1943, things are not as clear-cut as he would have wished them to be. In spite of the public’s undeniable fascination for Cocteau’s character and creations, one is forced to admit that few of his works have received more – or even as much – attention than those of Gide for instance. Scholars generally tend to focus on a very limited number of books, films and plays. If Cocteau’s murals and erotic drawings for instance have been the object of recent publications, his paintings, for example, still remain to be discovered.3 For better or worse, Cocteau 2004 is as much of an ambiguous and contradictory figure as the Cocteau of the Forties. The 1943 prediction has not quite fully materialized yet. Gallimard’s prestigious Pléiade collection has recently released two volumes devoted to Cocteau’s poetry and drama.4 However Cocteau had to wait for almost forty years to achieve what Gide, Julien Green and Marguerite Yourcenar, or even lesser known writers such as Julien Gracq and Nathalie Sarraute, had reached in their lifetime. In the field of what is called ‘gay studies’ or ‘queer studies’ in the American academic world, Cocteau’s place seems rather discrete. A very limited number of scholars, who specialize in French art and/or literature and gay studies, have underlined the role played by Cocteau’s work in the concept and articulation of homosexual identity.5 For instance there is no doubt that Gide remains one of the central figures and the focus of all the attention when it comes to studies dealing with homosexuality in modern

Mauriac, Martin du Gard, Colette and Breton, among other writers [in Paul Léautaud, Journal littéraire, vol VII (Paris: Mercure de France, p. 291)].

3 See Suzanne Helde, Les Murs de Jean Cocteau (Paris: Herme, 1998), and Annie Guédras, Ils: dessins érotiques de Jean Cocteau (Paris: Le Pré aux Clercs, 1998). The completion of this essay coincides with the exhibition devoted to Cocteau by the Centre Georges Pompidou, the first major retrospective show of Cocteau’s works in many years.

4 Œuvres poétiques complètes (Paris: Gallimard, 1999), and Théâtre complet (Paris: Gallimard, 2003), under the direction of Michel Décaudin.

5 See essentially Christopher Robinson’s Scandal in the Ink (London: Cassel, 1985), and Pamela Genova’s entry on Cocteau in The Reader’s Guide to Lesbian and Gay Studies (Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2000).