Your Guide to Unforgettable Sexy Scenes by Brigitte Bardot
The “Sexy Kitten” Construction The phrase didn’t come from nowhere. It was printed, repeated, polished, and fed back to audiences until it stuck: Brigitte Bardot as the “sexy kitten,” the “wild child,” the girl who didn’t quite know what she was doing with all that allure. On paper, it sounded playful. On screen, and behind it, the consequences were anything but. This was an era when the press needed a way to talk about female sexuality without admitting fear, so they reached for animals—small ones, preferably. Less threatening. Easier to pet. Easier to excuse. Watch the magazines of the late 1950s and early 1960s and you’ll see it happen in real time. Bardot is never introduced as strategic or ambitious. She’s “instinctual.” “Natural.” “Untamed.” These words appear again and again, like a protective spell cast by publicists and editors who wanted audiences to believe that desire simply happened to her, rather than being something she owned. It’s a familiar trick. If a woman is fra...
