Gerard Depardieu doesn't love Pussy

Hey, does anyone remember what happened to the women from Pussy Riot? I seem to remember that they were a big deal during the summer, with Madonna taking her bra off or something in their support. It was around the time that I realised that I might want to add a political dimension to my criticism, since there were protestors outside the Playhouse shouting that Batsheva Dance were implicated in the Israeli government's treatment of Palestinians and The Guardian was complaining about Putin's treatment of the riot grrl activists...

I mention it only because I have been reading Jennifer Homan's magisterial Apollo's Angels, a history of ballet that certainly counts as "criticism as art." It has this great chapter about how the Soviets used ballet as a cultural weapon, impressing the capitalist world with the discipline and technique of their ballerinas. Aside from the large number of artists who ended up on the wrong side of Stalin, it is an impressive description of how the state can use art to further its foreign policy, and explains why many socialists interpret art as a subsection of propaganda - Marxist inspired regimes are really good at it.

It seems a bit of a shame that a political act like Pussy Riot's gig in the church can be so quickly relegated from the front-page: by recalling the glory days of Bikini Kill and their re-appropriation of punk rock for feminism, Pussy Riot gave me nostalgia and a sense that art could be a serious threat to totalitarian government.

Luckily, Gerard Depardieu still cares. In the sort of florid announcement that is a reminder why artists might not be the best people to ask about issues, he has reminded the world that "the masses are stupid, and only the individual is beautiful." Apart from a worry that Depardieu is confusing himself for Brad Pitt (he didn't get that role in Cyrano because he was the sexy one), this sound-bite was part of a conversation that revealed how clearly his recent nationality change (he's Russian, now) is nothing to do with the tax, and all about his love for one-party states.

Depardieu and his new BFF Putin share a simple rationalisation for the imprisonment of Pussy Riot. Two years in a labour camp might be tough, but had they done their gig in a mosque in an Islamic state, they would have been executed.

Depardieu's little speech might be a warning that artists ought to stick to what they know. He makes a point that chess master Gary Kasparav is part of the opposition to Putin" "good for chess, but not much else." Maybe I ought to keep off the politics until I have thought about them a bit more: on the condition that Depardieu remembers that, as an actor, his mouth could be full of Shakespeare, Aeschylus or Moliere.

All of which would be a step up from the words that come from his enthusiasm for getting a new nationality. In the meantime, I'm off to find a ballet master who can explain quantum physics to me.