Analyzing Sexuality in French and Francophone Film

112 Analyzing Sexuality in French and Francophone Film Michelle Chilcoat Union College Feminist theory has contributed greatly to the discussion of how cinema and psychoanalysis intersect, especially in terms of their keen interest in matters of sexuality, and, more particularly, the containment or correction of "subversive" or "non-normative" sexuality. In psychoanalysis, "straight" male sexuality, as Luce Irigaray has noted, is the normative "one" against which all others are judged incomplete, if not pathological. In cinema, because "Hollywood's great subject is heterosexuality," as Susan Hayward observes, "the plot resolution 'requires' heterosexual couple formation" (158). Such a requirement is in keeping with what Judith Butler has labeled "the heterosexual imperative" (237). Butler's term refers to the traditional way heterosexual relationships, the only ones deemed fully legitimate in Western society, are "performed" so as to perpetuate male dominance over and exploitation of the female. Film provides an ideal medium for critically examining performances of sexuality, and for determining just what is at stake in or compels the repetition and thus recognition of such performances. According to Michel Foucault ("The Perverse Implantation" 36) and then Butler who builds upon his theory, sexuality is "constructed" largely by and through discursive practices (of which film is a powerful example). Knowledge of the "constructedness" of sexuality invites the recognition of its susceptibility to deconstruction; this knowledge can empower those who have it, affording liberation from the oppressive structures of traditional sex and gender role expectations. Susan Bordo, however, advises that the implementation of this idea is more difficult than Foucault makes it appear, given the negative effects this "constructed" sexuality nevertheless continues to have on real people, especially women (246). These observations furnish the general theoretical framework for an undergraduate-level theme-based film course I call "Sex Lives and Videotape: Casting Sexuality in French and Francophone Film." A general aim of this course is to provide students the means for interrogating so- ANALYZING SEXUALITY IN FRENCH AND FRANCOPHONE FILM1 1 3 called "normative" sexuality, and to gauge how, if at all, the films studied disrupt or resist "heterosexual hegemony" (Butler 243). To this end, the course engages critical readings that supplement the viewing of a selection of French-language films (and some US remakes) whose theme is nonnormative sexuality. In the course introduction, students are familiarized with a number of terms recurrent in film, feminist, and sex and gender studies. Susan Hayward's Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts is extremely helpful in this regard. "Agency," for example, refers to whether a subject has the ability to both act upon desire and fulfill it (9), and one's "sexuality" is said to determine the way one desires (326-327). In film studies, the question of agency must be asked of the director (who controls the camera lens), the spectator and the film characters. This "triple" consideration also applies to the "gaze" (the power to look and see of principal concern in cinema) and must again be asked of spectator, director and film character (158). The question ultimately is who has the power to gaze and act upon this gaze, and who can only be gazed upon? Traditionally, the male gaze has been considered active, while the female can only be the passive object of this gaze, and this is why the question of gender is so important in film studies. "Discourse" must also be considered in film studies, referring to the way ideas are communicated, whether through language or image (87). Discourse most often bears the message of the dominant "ideology," a political concept referring to the way meaning is legitimated in a certain society or nation, and which, through force of repetition, makes dominant ideas seem natural, rather than constructed—hence the assumed "naturalness" of male-as-dominator and female-as-subordinate. In feminist theory, among others, these roles are seen as perpetuating a "capitalist system" that relies on the harnessing of numerous others (implicating class, gender and race considerations) to supply the needs of a privileged few (193-194). Many films, thus, end by restoring an "order" that responds to the oppressive requirements of capitalist concerns, a resolution that is one of the defining characteristics of "classic narrative" cinema (194). This narrative...