To understand the keyword, we must first travel back to 1964. The French music industry, heavily influenced by the British Invasion (The Beatles, The Rolling Stones) and American surf rock (The Ventures, Dick Dale), was producing its own wave of “yé-yé” and instrumental rock.
The English parenthetical is likely an alternate band name used for the international release. In the US and UK, the label probably thought "Joy et Joan" sounded too French. They anglicized it to "Joy and the Pharaohs" to capitalize on the surf rock trend (e.g., "The Pyramids," "The Pharaohs" were common band names at the time).
Released in 1993, (widely known as Joy and the Pharaohs ) is a significant entry in the 1990s French erotic cinema landscape. Directed by Jean-Pierre Garnier (also credited as Jean-Pierre Floran in some regions), the film serves as a meta-narrative about the production of an erotic epic. Synopsis and Plot