Living in the United States of Puritanical Views on Sex, I sometimes think of Canada as the bastion of forward thinking liberals who are more enlightened about sexuality than we are. But faster than you can say Zut Alors!, they go and do something like firing a 73-year old teacher because she appeared in some softcore flicks 40 years ago.
According to Jezebel (link below), Jacueline Laurent-Auger taught drama for 15 years at Le Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf, and was outed by her own students at the prestigious Montreal secondary Christian school for boys.
Some of those boys—who were presumably online looking for Bible verses or chicken soup recipes or very early Mother's Day gifts—somehow managed to stumble across Laurent-Auger's acting work from the '60s and '70s, when she was a young actress in Europe, appearing in films like Le journal intime d'une nymphomane (The Secret Diary of a Nymphomaniac), and according to her IMDB page, Swedish Sex Games and Nathalie: Escape from Hell.
The films aren't pornographic, Laurent-Auger told the Globe and Mail newspaper, more like soft-core in the style that movies in the '60s and '70s often were. (Also, they were filmed 40 years ago.) But none of that particularly mattered to Brébeuf; Laurent-Auger says she was told by school officials in July that her contract would not be renewed. She asked if there was any issue with her teaching performance and was told no, there was not.
As always, I'm heartened to learn that hypocrisy isn't solely an American virtue, but this just reeks of stupidity on the school's part. I understand the concept of private school, and they have the right to do whatever they feel, but their reasoning makes no sense...
In a statement to the Globe and Mail, the college blamed Laurent-Auger and the Internet in equal parts, writing, "the availability on the Internet of erotic films in which she acted created an entirely new context that was not ideal for our students. After discussion and reflection, we concluded that adult films must remain just that, a product for adults. That's why we decided not to renew Mrs. Laurent-Auger's contract." The statement also said her "erotic scenes" called her judgement into question, given that they were not "models to follow for high-school students becoming initiated into theatre and arts in general."
That's just rough. It's not like this was ever an issue before it was discovered. Bureaucrats are bureaucrats no matter where you go apparently. Hopefully she'll land on her feet.
Via Jezebel