24 research outputs found
âCâĂ©tait moi mais ce nâĂ©tait pas moiâ: portrayal of the disabled body in Catherine Breillatâs Abus de faiblesse (2013)
Writer/director Catherine Breillatâs most recent film, Abus de faiblesse (2013), explores an important moment of bodily transition: the change from able to disabled body. This semi-autobiographic film follows the story of film director Maud (Breillatâs alter ego), who forms a destructive relationship with a conman, Vilko, after she suffers a disabling stroke. This film shows consistency with Breillatâs previous work in its exploration of the constructed nature of the female body onscreen. In the past the filmmaker has portrayed moments of trauma and transition (such as childbirth, loss of virginity or rape) to subvert processes of objectification. The article argues that Abus de faiblesse challenges and subverts representation of the post-menopausal and disabled body onscreen. The film interrogates binary oppositions such as able/disabled and independence/dependency to challenge representations of the disabled body as âotherâ. With reference to scholarly work on disability and the ageing female body, the article suggests that Maudâs sadomasochistic relationship with Vilko is driven by a quest to retain her subjectivity after her stroke. The article demonstrates that the film dissects the feared and the unknown territory of the ageing female body
âOlder-wiser-lesbiansâ and âbaby-dykesâ: mediating age and generation in New Queer Cinema
Representations of intersections of gender, age, and sexuality can reveal deep-rooted cultural anxieties about older women and sexuality. Images of lesbian ageing are of particular interest in terms of alterity, as the old/er queer woman can combine layers of othernessânot only is she the cultural âotherâ within heteronormativity, but she can also appear as the opposite of popular cultureâs lesbian chic. In this article, a cultural analysis of a range of filmsâIf These Walls Could Talk 2 (dir. Anderson, Coolidge, and Heche 2000), Itty Bitty Titty Committee (dir. Babbit 2007), The Owls (dir. Dunye 2010), Hannah Free (dir. Carlton 2009), and Cloudburst (dir. Fitzgerald 2011)âconsiders diverse dramatisations of lesbian generations. This article interrogates to what extent alternative cinemas deconstruct normative conceptualisations of ageing. Drawing on recent critiques of post-feminist culture, and a range of feminist and age/ing studies scholarship, it suggests that a linear understanding of ageing and the generational underlies dominant depictions of oppositional binaries of young versus old, of generational segregation or rivalry, and the othering of age. It concludes that non-linear understandings of temporality and ageing contain the potential for New Queer Cinema to counteract such idealisations of youthfulness, which, it argues, is one of the most deep-rooted manifestations of (hetero)normativity