Gazon Maudit lecture notes PDF

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Gazon Maudit lecture notes...

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Week 19 Gazon Maudit (1995) Notes  Comedy  One of the only French films to have a dubbed version for English audiences  Ménage à trois    

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Change of music between driving through city and driving through countryside  create two different atmosphere – busy vs calm Chubby friend = comedic value? Marijo cries – shows feminine side Laurent and Marijo in the kitchen but Marijo seems to be the more dominant/masculine one – he feeds the kids while she chops (holding the knife more masculine) Use newspaper to separate Laurent and the girls Playing cards to ‘settle’ things is a manly thing – Marijo and Laurent

Fluidity of Gender and Sexuality in Gazon Maudit – Darren Waldron Page 65  Second most popular French Film of 1995  Received nomination for Golden Globe Award  does this show it is good competition with Hollywood films?  Seems to comply perfectly with the French comedy – the ménage à trois  Surprise = the film’s success despite a lesbian couple being at the centre of its plot  Sexual identity and sexuality is presented as fluid – rejects established notions of gender  Deconstruction of established gender identity.  Lesbian disrupts heterosexual couple and causes the shift of gender identity. Marijo = masculine/butch lesbian (fits the expected norms from society of a lesbian – is this the reason for her success of disrupting the heterosexual relationship) Page 66  Each character goes on a journey to reveal their gender identity - ‘butch lesbian’, ‘philandering husband’ and ‘subservient wife’. How is gender shown through the structural elements of the film? (narrative/iconography/space/location)  ‘Butch femme’  heterosexual stereotype or urban reality?  Laurent sees women as sexual objects, apart from Marijo who becomes his rival, because she doesn’t fit the generic stereotype of a feminine woman  did not want Laurent to see Marijo as a sexual object or be attracted to her Page 67

Exploitation of stereotypes is crucial to the comedic value of the films – needs to relate to reality  mocks the habits of the bourgeoisie  Challenge beauty culture (Marijo) Page 68  Lesbians are heroines of the film but aren’t ridiculed for it Page 69  Opening credit = masculinity vs femininity Page 70  Marijo defies a strong woman Page 71  Uses Hollywood film technique to create romantic fiction – masculine character seduce feminine, although it is Marijo and Loli Page 72  Mise-en-scene used to highlight contrast between masculinity of Laurent and Marijo 

SEMINAR Sequence at beginning of Loli doing house work chores  shows the setting of southern/provincial France and puts Loli in the setting as the stereotypical housewife.  Long shot/low-angle shot when Marijo stands in the door-way to make her appear more butch and masculine. Shit is a silhouette which makes her gender more ambiguous  Who is the object of desire? – Loli, a few long shots which shows her legs, Marijo is fixing the pipe underneath her and the shot is a point-of-view shot which makes Loli the object of desire who is being gazed at like a sexual object. Desire is immediately represented in this sequence, their first meeting. We are encouraged to identify with a female gaze – which overturns the norm as women are normally the objects of male gaze, whereas here a woman is the sexual object of a female gaze (subversion of stereotypes from the beginning of the film) Spanish stereotypes reinforced...