The Ambivalent Role of Stereotypes in Contemporary French Comedies

The Use of Stereotypes in Contemporary French Comedies
Name:
Institution;
Course code:
Date:
Introduction
This research will concentrate on the ambivalent role of stereotypes in contemporary French comedies. The focus will be on the comedy genre juxtaposed with approaches to generating humorous situations created using stereotypical portrayal of ethnicity, race, nationality, culture, religion, and other/related characteristics.
French audiences are preferring comedy from any other genre (Creton 2015; Moine 2015). Our research will closely examine three highly successful box office films of French origin. Welcome to the Sticks (Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis) (2008), The Untouchables (Intouchables) (2011), and Serial (Bad) Weddings (Qu'est-ce qu'on a fait au Bon Dieu?) (2014). According to cinema audience numbers during the last two decades in France (frenchfilms.org 2019).
Welcome to the Sticks (Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis) (2008)
This "verbal comedy" (Moine 2015, p.575) is exhibited in the dialogue created by Dany Boon, co-writer and director of the film who stars as Antoine Bailleul. The film, "seen by 20,360,000 spectators on national screens" (Moine 2015, p. 582), is the highest-grossing French film of all time at the box office in France (frenchfilms.org 2019).
The story is of a French post office branch manager in southern France, Philippe Abrams, who is sent for two years to Bergues, a small town in northern France, "the sticks," where he is met by his employee Antoine. According to French South people, it is a horrible place where strange live ch'tis speak a bizarre dialect. After a short time, Philippe is astonished at how nice the place is, with friendly inhabitants and co-workers. His wife Julie, who still believes that her husband lives in an awkward banishment, decides to visit him. After experiencing some obscured living conditions, staged by her husband and his friends, she finds out how precious life on North is.
The Untouchables (Intouchables) (2011)
French buddy comedy-drama film, work of directors Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano is a story of a young black man with a criminal record, Driss (Omar Sy), employed by a rich disabled male named Philippe (François Cluzet), as his carer. As inspiration for the film, Philippe Pozzo di Borgo's true story employed a French-Moroccan man with a criminal record Abdel Sellou as his care assistant.
The film collected eight nominations for the César Awards, including the César Award for Best Film, and won the César Award for Best Actor for Omar Sy. In 2012 The Intouchables became the highest-earning all-time movie in a non-English language, grossing $281 million worldwide (McClintock 2012). Seven years later, it remains among the top 10 highest earning non-English films of all time, while on first positions are Chinese films with their incomparably immense market potential (John 2019).
Serial (Bad) Weddings (Qu'est-ce qu'on a fait au Bon Dieu?) (2014)
Philippe de Chauveron directs the film about a wealthy Catholic couple from Chinon: a notary Claude Verneuil and his spouse Marie. Three of their four daughters are married to men, each of them a different religion and a diverse ethnic background: Algerian Muslim, Jew, and Chinese. The parents live in hope in their youngest daughter Laure that she will bring home a Catholic partner. They are shocked when they discover that the man to whom their daughter is engaged is black. The film ends, however, with a happy marriage.
This project focuses on some of the chosen films' sections and provides aspects of using stereotypes by their directors.
Body
Race
"Comedy, more than any other genre, is a 'bad object,' a repository of low-denominator stereotypes and the source of the potentially guilty pleasure. CITATION Har18 \l 1033 (Harrod & Powrie, 2018)” It helps to maintain the status quo and reconcile social tensions. National Identity and immigration are the most prevalent source of tension in French society. The topic's increased disagreements have polarized the nation into a "U.S." vs. "Them" mentality. The stick addresses and mocks the issue and how the French society is caught up in the national sentiments. Characters such as Julie represent the stereotypes people from the south have towards people from the Northern part of France.
The debate on race is represented in the plot of The Untouchables rather than characters. The story is about a rich white man and a black man who is an ex-con from the projects. The white man needs a caretaker, and the black man desires to have his job application turned down so that he is eligible for unemployment benefits. The film uses Driss and Philippe to represent races that have long ignored each other but eventually collided. In the beginning, the two characters clash, but against all odds, Phillipe starts working for the white man. The Untouchables manages to start a discussion and drive the message that both worlds can live and conquer together.
However, racism as a trait is much more apparent in Serial (Bad) Weddings Claude Verneuil and his wife, Marie. The couple seems to have everything going for them as the husband is a wealthy white notaire, and they are blessed with a picturesque rural mansion. However, the source of their sorrows is that three of their lovely daughters have gone against their will to marry Arab, Jew, and Asian husbands. The youngest daughter Laure remains unmarried, and the parents hope that she will save the family's honor; however, those hopes are dashed when she brings home a black man.
The Society
The French society has been exposed to the promotion of assimilation agenda rather than multiculturalism. Millions of Immigrants brought with them different racial, ethnic, and religious statuses, consequently causing fear among the French natives. With far-right politicians and intellectuals sowing seeds of discourse, the French society has seen rising xenophobia cases. Most attacks are targeted towards North Africans and black people, mostly from Africa. Factors such as religion and education play a part in the level of racism a black or Arab person is likely to face. For instance, blacks from Africa face more discrimination than blacks from the Caribbean due to uneducated and perceived Muslim affiliations. Welcome to the sticks uses Julie to show how certain stereotypes have been ingrained in French society. People from the south consider the North to be a horrible place with people who speak a bizarre dialect. Julie herself believes the North to be an awkward banishment and is reluctant to visit her husband there.
"The best part about the film’s success is the fact that a foreign language film is getting its fair turn in the spotlight in this industry. It is movies like this that help us continue to bring smart, entertaining and well-written films that break the mold to theaters everywhere" CITATION McC12 \l 1033 (McClintock, 2012) . These are the words of TWC co-chairman Harvey Weinstein. However, when the Untouchables was brought to American streets, the storyline prompted American critics to label the film as racist. For instance, in the New York Times, Stephen Holden discusses how the film managed to film exploits every possible stereotype that paints the black man as the cultural liberator. Some went further to coin Omar Sy, who plays Driss, as the French Viola Davis CITATION DEN12 \l 1033 (DENIS, 2012). The American society mostly considered Sy's role and portrayal in the film as demeaning, “specifically how Tolédano and Nakache draw on tropes of American blackface, neo-minstrelsy, and 1980s Hollywood interracial buddy comedies starring Eddie Murphy to visualize racial inequality and discrimination in contemporary France” CITATION Pet15 \l 1033 (Pettersen, 2015). However, in the French community, the film is more likely to be criticized for being delusional and politically correct than racist CITATION HUS20 \l 1033 (HUSSAIN, 2020). Omar Sy was the first black actor to receive a Cesar, which is the French equivalent of an Academy Award for his performance. Therefore, the outrage was more focused on why black talent recognition had taken so long and very little directed at the film Omar was rewarded. Americans see the movie as modern-day black servitude; however, the French society knows a world without social conflicts. Symbolically, the film shows men who have been broken, thus the term "untouchables." Despite their color, both men have encountered humiliation, but they find a way to help each other.
In Serial (Bad) Weddings, societal prejudices are mostly observed when Laurie introduces her black Fiancé. Charles is presented as a kind, intelligent and artistic individual; however, the upcoming wedding shocks the family. The plot of the film shows the sinister ways individuals use racial prejudices to get what they want. For instance, the three brothers-in-law are busy planning ways to sabotage the wedding. Their reason is that Charles marrying into the family will upset the racial balance in the family. The situation worsens when the groom's Ivoirian parents come to town with André showing that racism can go both ways CITATION Min14 \l 1033 (Mintzer, 2014). The moral of the story to be derived from the film is the message of getting along. The film had borrowed a leaf from the in Intouchables; however, the execution is more exaggerated. The jokes poke at the generic stereotypes such as the Jew calling the Arab 'Arafat,' and the Asian is good at karate-chop.
Religion and Ethnicity
Religion and ethnicity factor that shapes French society. For instance, the North African population is historically the most marginalized group in the country. Colonialism played a part in this as North Africans have become the largest group of immigrants to come to France since the decolonization in the 1960s CITATION Lun15 \l 1033 (Lund, 2015). Like black Africans from West Africa, North Africans have been categorized as uneducated and taking advantage of welfare system stereotypes. In France, any dark-skinned person is automatically assumed to be Muslim due to its colonial connections to North and West Africa. North Africans make up the lesser classes since the mid-1970s when immigrants got permission to bring their families. After a while, the French government realized that the immigrants were in the country to stay. Despite monetary incentives to return to North Africa, most decided living in poverty in France is better than returning home.
The issues of ethno-racism and religion stereotyping are addressed in Qu'est-ce qu'on a fait au Bon Dieu? And, to a lesser degree, in The Intouchables. Both films feature diverse characters; consequently, they are prematurely judged for their heritage, physical appearance, foreign names, and language. The films manage to show the nuances of how minorities are perceived in French society. The film depicts the char...