A "Girlboy's" Own Story: Non-Masculine Narrativity In Ma Vie en Rose

Ma Vie En Rose (My Life in Pink) (1997) puts at center-screen a figure never before seen in cinema: an effeminate, cross-dressing, boy-loving, girl-identified, pre-pubescent male. Whether in print or on screen, gay, effeminate, transvestite, and/or transsexual characters seldom receive fully-realized narrative treatment—particularly not in the case of a seven-year old protagonist. Far more typical is the portrayal of such (necessarily adolescent or adult) characters as simple comic relief or readily-dispatched problems. This article analyzes ways in which director Alain Berliner and co-screenwriter Chris Vander Stappen keep their young protagonist's life-narrative, against the vigilance of parents, school, and the medical community, under his own fabulous control. Little Ludo's precocious relationship to spectatorship and feminine performance saves him from narrative oblivion; it also signals to viewers the countless stories yet untold by and about non-masculine boys.