Succès de scandale

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Succès de scandale is French for "success by scandal", i.e. when (part of) a success derives from a scandal.

It might seem contradictory that any kind of success might follow from scandal: but scandal attracts attention, and this attention (whether gossip or bad press or any other kind) is sometimes the beginning of notoriety and/or other successes. Today, the often used cynical phrase "no such thing as bad publicity" is indicative of the extent to which "success by scandal" is a part of modern culture.

The archetypal example of succès de scandale in art is Stravinsky's ballet Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) , which premiered in 1913 by the Ballets Russes. In the high days of the Belle Époque, the public attending this premiere was so scandalised by the brutal sounds produced by the orchestra and the evocation of a blood sacrifice on stage that a riot broke out. A shower of bad press and criticism followed, but Stravinsky kept aloof, as if he knew that overnight he had become the most famous composer of the 20th century. He would never have to return to scandalous music again; he moved to chamber music and the neoclassical style for the next few years, nothing that could upset large audiences. From what he said years later — the Sacre du Printemps had eventually been turned into a Disney classic — he appeared certain that none were better than him at exploiting a scandal for success.

[edit] Belle Époque

Belle Époque Paris appears to have had exactly the right climate for succès de scandale (which is probably also the reason why this is where the term originated): in all examples below, regarding famous artists kicking off their career with some sort of scandal, there are at least some connections with turn-of-the-century Paris. In other cities, provoking a scandal appeared more risky, as Oscar Wilde would find out shortly after his relatively "successful" Parisian scandal (Salomé — 1894, portraying the main character as a Necrophile):

The Luncheon on the Grass was one of the first in a series of Parisian succès de scandales

Le déjeuner sur l'herbe (The Luncheon on the Grass) by Edouard Manet, presented at the Salon des refusés, 1863: Even the Emperor was scandalised — but Manet had a nice start to his career.
Alfred Jarry shocked Paris in 1896 with the first of his absurdistic Ubu plays: Ubu Roi. The performance of this play was forbidden after the first night. No problem for Jarry: he moved the production to a puppet theatre.
A new group of artists, labelled disrespectfully Les Fauves ("The Wild Beasts") by an art critic, had their successful debut in 1905 Paris (and kept the name).
Richard Strauss had had little success with his first two operas, which today are no longer performed. Consequently, he tried something different: he set music to Wilde's Salomé in 1905, and racketed quite some scandal with this opera, including in the New York Met, where the production had to be closed after one night. But Strauss wanted more: his next opera (Elektra — 1909) was so "noisy" that cartoons appeared with Strauss directing an orchestra of animals. Then Hugo von Hoffmansthal, the textwriter of this second "successful" production, seems to have taken the right decision, in restraining Strauss from getting even bolder: Strauss's success was guaranteed without any further scandal, so Hoffmansthal wrote a bittersweet scenario with a theme of resigning to the fact of getting older, for Strauss's next (and after all most successful) opera. Only two world wars later Strauss would get involved in scandal again, for his way of realising what was then considered as the highest ambition: directing the Bayreuther Festspiele). Here, however, scandal came after the success.

Not a commercial success in Europe, Paul Chabas's September Morn ended up in the permanent collection of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, after scandalising Anthony Comstock and his New York Society for the Suppression of Vice

L'après-midi d'un faune (1912): see Afternoon of a Faun (ballet).
The Rite of Spring (1913): see introduction to this article.
Parade production of 1917: see Parade (ballet).
Paul Chabas had won a most prestigious prize with his September Morn in Paris in 1912. Nudity as portrayed in this painting was however far from being able to shock a Parisian public, half a century after the Déjeuner. So, notwithstanding the "official" prize, market value of the painting remained low. Then, Chabas put it on show in a New York shop window in 1913. There, for the first time in history, it appears a succès de scandale scheme was set up by a publicity agent (Harry Reichenbach), who "accidentally" coached a morality crusader along the picture. The scandal that evolved brought financial success and secured Chabas's place in art history books. Although later deemed kitsch, the painting ended up in one of the most prestigious museums of New York.

[edit] No such thing as bad publicity

This would not be the last time that Comstockery fanned the success it wanted to fence: "I expect it will be the making of me" said Mae West to the press in 1927, under arrest after the Society for the Suppression of Vice had maneuvered to get her play titled Sex re-censored by the Police Department Play Jury — a few years later, over forty, her sex symbol status paid off: her 1935 film contract made her the highest paid woman till that day.

Later in the 20th century several more succès de scandale examples would show what a powerful instrument scandal can be for turning a publicity campaign into a success, to the point it can make any other publicity agent's trick redundant. One of the most notorious examples of that was the late 20th century publicity campaign by Benetton. It scored at least two major scandals: one regarding the controversial photographs (e.g. of people dying of AIDS) that were used to promote colourful Italian clothing; the second scandal went maybe even deeper, while the brain behind the campaign, the photographer Oliviero Toscani wiped the floor with the world of publicity at large: absolutely no other publicity device than photos unrelated to the brand that was promoted had been used to reach soaring high sales for that brand: Toscani had scorned every rule of the book. And this feat probably made Toscani the most famous publicity photographer ever.

Due to more widespread use of the Internet, recently celebrity sex tapes have found widespread distribution. However, in many cases, these tapes have served to cause an increase in popularity of those featured, most notably in the case of Paris Hilton, whose tape was discovered shortly before her reality show debuted, and Edison Chen, in which hundreds of pictures flooded the internet depicting the Canadian-Hong Kong singer in various sexual acts with several mainstream Hong Kong actresses.