Rethinking Pornography within the Context of the New French Extremity: The Case of Baise-Moi

Authors

  • Sirin Fulya Erensoy

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/cinej.2020.236

Keywords:

Gender, sexuality, censorship, screen violence, pornography

Abstract

Baise-Moi(Despentes and Trinh Thi, 2000) is the story of two women who, marginalized by society, go on a destructive rampage where they ‘fuck’ and kill men. This study will discuss the anxieties the film has unearthed in relation to the alternative depiction of culturally accepted sexual roles and legitimate applications of violent acts, through its subversion of the generic expectations of pornography. Furthermore, it will be argued that the film, despite being progressive in form, challenging classical narrative structures and playing with generic tropes, is inherently a pessimistic film, because of its conservative ending that reaffirms the status quo.

References

Austin, G. (2015). Contemporary French Horror Cinema: From Absence to Embodied Presence. In A. Fox, M. Marie, R. Moine & H. Radner (Eds.), A Companion to Contemporary French Cinema, (pp. 275-288). West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Bélot, S. (2004). Baise-Moi: from a Political to a Social Female Friendship Film. Studies in European Cinema, 1(1), 7-17.

Bélot, S. (2019). Authenticity in A Real Young Girl (Catherine Breillat, 1976). Film Studies, 20(1), 21-35.

Beugnet, M. (2004). French Cinema of the Margins. In E. Ezra (Ed.), European Cinema, (pp. 283-298). New York: Oxford University Press.

Beugnet, M. (2007). Cinema and Sensation: French Film and the Art of Transgression. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Billson, A. (2019) Does the 'female gaze' make sexual violence on film any less repugnant?. The Guardian. 2 August.

Frey, M. (2016). The Transgressive Rhetoric of Today’s Art Film Culture. NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Huntley, R. (1998). Slippery When Wet: The Shifting Boundaries of the Pornographic (a class analysis). Continuum, 12 (1), 69-81.

Lim, D. (2006). “Greetings From the Land of Feel-Bad Cinema”. The New York Times, 26 November 2006. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/movies/26lim.html?_r=0

Quandt, J. (2004). Flesh & blood: sex and violence in recent french cinema. Artforum, 42(6), 126-132.

Palmer, T. (2007) Under Your Skin: Marina de Van and the Contemporary French Cinéma du Corps, Studies in French Cinema, 6:3, 171-181.

Rose, S. (2011). “Attenberg, Dogtooth and the Weird Wave of Greek Cinema”. The Guardian, 27 August 2011. Retrived from: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/aug/27/attenberg-dogtooth-greece- cinema

Sawicki, J., (1998) Feminism, Foucault and “Subjects” of Power and Freedom in J. Moss (ed.), The Later Foucault: politics and philosophy .London; Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

Straayer, C. (1993). Lesbian Narratives and Queer Characters in Monika Treut's Virgin Machine. Journal of Film and Video, 24-39.

Varmazi, E. (2019). The Weirdness of Contemporary Greek Cinema. Film International, 47, 40-49.

Vicendeau, G. (2002). “Baise-Moi”. Sight & Sound, May 2002. Retrieved from: http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/review/1715

Williams, L. (1989). Hard Core: Power, Pleasure and the “Frenzy of the Visible”. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press.

Wimmer, L. (2011). Sex and Violence from a Pair of Furies: The Scandal of Baise-Moi. In T. Horeck & T. Kendall (Eds.), The New Extremism in Cinema: From France to Europe, (pp.130-141). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Downloads

Published

2020-03-11

How to Cite

Erensoy, S. F. (2020). Rethinking Pornography within the Context of the New French Extremity: The Case of Baise-Moi. CINEJ Cinema Journal, 8(1), 60–86. https://doi.org/10.5195/cinej.2020.236

Issue

Vol. 8 No. 1 (2020): Winter 2020

Section

Articles

License

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

  1. The Author retains copyright in the Work, where the term “Work” shall include all digital objects that may result in subsequent electronic publication or distribution.
  2. Upon acceptance of the Work, the author shall grant to the Publisher the right of first publication of the Work.
  3. The Author shall grant to the Publisher and its agents the nonexclusive perpetual right and license to publish, archive, and make accessible the Work in whole or in part in all forms of media now or hereafter known under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License or its equivalent, which, for the avoidance of doubt, allows others to copy, distribute, and transmit the Work under the following conditions:
    1. Attribution—other users must attribute the Work in the manner specified by the author as indicated on the journal Web site;
    with the understanding that the above condition can be waived with permission from the Author and that where the Work or any of its elements is in the public domain under applicable law, that status is in no way affected by the license.
  4. The Author is able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the nonexclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the Work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), as long as there is provided in the document an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
  5. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post online a prepublication manuscript (but not the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version of the Work) in institutional repositories or on their Websites prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work. Any such posting made before acceptance and publication of the Work shall be updated upon publication to include a reference to the Publisher-assigned DOI (Digital Object Identifier) and a link to the online abstract for the final published Work in the Journal.
  6. Upon Publisher’s request, the Author agrees to furnish promptly to Publisher, at the Author’s own expense, written evidence of the permissions, licenses, and consents for use of third-party material included within the Work, except as determined by Publisher to be covered by the principles of Fair Use.
  7. The Author represents and warrants that:
    1. the Work is the Author’s original work;
    2. the Author has not transferred, and will not transfer, exclusive rights in the Work to any third party;
    3. the Work is not pending review or under consideration by another publisher;
    4. the Work has not previously been published;
    5. the Work contains no misrepresentation or infringement of the Work or property of other authors or third parties; and
    6. the Work contains no libel, invasion of privacy, or other unlawful matter.
  8. The Author agrees to indemnify and hold Publisher harmless from Author’s breach of the representations and warranties contained in Paragraph 6 above, as well as any claim or proceeding relating to Publisher’s use and publication of any content contained in the Work, including third-party content.

Revised 7/16/2018. Revision Description: Removed outdated link.