Title: Looking at Muslims: the visibility of Islam in contemporary French cinema
Abstract: ABSTRACTTarr analyses the representation of Islam in five feature films made since 2006 that centre on the changing identities of Muslims in contemporary France. She locates the films within the context of the rise in Islamophobia in France following 9/11 and anxieties about immigration and terrorism, but also in relation to France's troubled postcolonial history and French republican ideology. In particular, the French notion of laïcité (secularism) has given rise to active hostility to any public expression of religious or cultural difference, particularly on the part of Muslims. Cinematic representations of Muslims, and particularly of the children of migrants from the Maghreb, have, therefore, since the mid-1980s, been treated with caution in order not to alienate mainstream Franco-French audiences and to facilitate the second generation's integration into French society. However, the five feature films addressed here—two mainstream popular comedies, Mauvaise foi/Bad Faith (2006) and L'Italien/The Italian (2010), and three independent, low budget, auteur-led, realist films, Dans la vie/Two Ladies (2008), Dernier maquis (2008) and La Désintégration/Disintegration (2012)—offer new narratives that challenge fears of Islam by foregrounding the protagonists' negotiation of their Muslim identities in a French context and, by implication, argue for the integration of Islam as a legitimate referent of French identity. However, their construction of Islam does not extend to positive representations of young veiled women, and they thus still risk confirming the oppressive majority view that certain practices associated with Islam, such as the wearing of the veil, are incompatible with the secularism of the French Republic.KEYWORDS: French cinemaidentityintegrationIslamIslamophobiaMuslimspostcolonialsecularism Notes1 See ‘Musulmans et “occupation”: Marine Le Pen “persiste et signe”’, Le Monde, 13 December 2010.2 See Nacira Guénif-Souilamas and Eric Macé, Les Féministes et le garçon arabe (Paris: Editions de l'Aube 2004).3 There is in fact no single Muslim community in France, though, as Michel Cadé points out: ‘In France, Islam is primarily Maghrebi, that is, Maliki Sunni with ethnic and cultural variants’: Michel Cadé, ‘Hidden Islam: the role of the religious in beur and banlieue cinema in France’, in Sylvie Durmelat and Vinay Swamy (eds), Screening Integration: Recasting Maghrebi Immigration in Contemporary France (Lincoln and London: Nebraska University Press 2011), 41–57 (48).4 Although, for a critical discussion of Islamophobia and the (mis)representation of Islam in the United Kingdom, see Julian Petley and Robin Richardson (eds), Pointing the Finger: Islam and Muslims in the British Media (London: Oneworld Publications 2011).5 See Anna Kemp, Voices and Veils: Feminism and Islam in French Women's Writing and Activism (Oxford: Legenda 2010), 42.6 Tariq Modood, ‘Is there a crisis of secularism in Western Europe?’, Sociology of Religion, vol. 73, no. 2, 2010, 130–49 (135).7 Kemp, Voices and Veils, 43.8 See Maurice Barbier, ‘Towards a definition of French secularism’, trans. Gregory Elliott, available on the France Diplomatie website at www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/IMG/pdf/0205-Barbier-GB.pdf (viewed 3 September 2014) (a translation of Barbier's ‘Pour une définition de la laïcité française’, Le Débat, no. 134, March–April 2005).9 Modood, ‘ Is there a crisis of secularism in Western Europe?’, 136.10 See Alec G. Hargreaves, Multi-Ethnic France: Immigration, Politics, Culture and Society, 2nd edn (New York and London: Routledge 2007).11 The term beur (feminine beurette) is a backslang inversion of the word arabe, and refers to second-generation migrants from the Maghreb who wished to be accepted as French citizens, unlike their parents. See Carrie Tarr, Reframing Difference: Beur and Banlieue Cinema in France (Manchester: Manchester University Press 2005), 4–9.12 See Driss el Yazami and Smaïn Laacher, ‘Être ou ne pas être maghrébin en France?’, in Driss el Yazami, Yvan Gastaut and Naïma Yahi (eds), Générations: Un siècle d'histoire culturelle des Maghrébins en France (Paris: Gallimard 2009), 328–31.13 For a discussion of the relentless demonization of Arabs in Hollywood cinema from the silent era to the present, see Jack G. Shaheen, Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People [2001], revd edn (Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press 2009).14 See Cadé, ‘Hidden Islam’.15 Exceptions include Douce France (Malik Chibane, 1995) in which a young Muslim woman who attends the mosque and chooses to wear the veil realizes in the end that she has made the wrong decision, and La Nuit du destin (Abdelkrim Balhoul, 1999), a crime thriller that presents the mosque as the site of law and order, honesty and integrity, in contrast to the vicious criminality of the white Franco-French murderers. 100% Arabica (1997), a farce by Algerian director Mahmoud Zemmouri, also centres on the role of the mosque in France in order to make fun of incompetent and hypocritical fundamentalists. See Tarr, Reframing Difference, 198–202.16 A series of French films of the 2000s feature young men (and occasionally women) seeking their roots in North Africa or elsewhere in a quest that also involves the (often negatively perceived) religious dimension of their parents' culture, a theme first addressed in Rachid Bouchareb's Cheb (1991) and, for example, L'Autre monde (Merzak Allouache, 2001), La Fille de Kelthoum (Mehdi Charef, 2002), Le Chemin de l'oued (Gaël Morel, 2003), Exil(s) (Tony Gatlif, 2004), Tenja (Hassan Legzouli, 2005), Il était une fois dans l'oued (Djamel Bensalah, 2005) and Bled Number One (Rabah Ameur-Zaïmèche, 2006). See Will Higbee, ‘“Et si on allait en Algérie?” Home, displacement, and the myth of return in recent journey films by Maghrebi-French and North African émigré directors’, in Durmelat and Swamy (eds), Screening Integration, 58–76.17 Zem was one of the stars of Rachid Bouchareb's award-winning war film Indigènes/Days of Glory (2008), and Merad was the star of Dany Boon's megahit comedy Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis/Welcome to the Sticks (2008). Another less successful mainstream comedy, which I do not have the space to address here, Anne Depétrini's Il reste du jambon? (2010), also focuses on the troubled identity of its Arab Muslim protagonist.18 For a discussion of identity as a mode of narrative, see Nira Yuval-Davis, ‘Theorizing identity: beyond the “us” and “them” dichotomy’, Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 44, no 3, 2010, 261–80.19 Yamina Benguigui's Aïcha (2008), broadcast on France 2, the first in a series of popular television films focusing on a young, westernized woman of Maghrebi origin, her family and community, acknowledges the existence of young women who choose to veil themselves only in order to ridicule them.20 Mauvaise foi attracted an audience of 566,138 in France, and L'Italien an impressive 1,111,351: see LUMIERE, a data base of admissions to films released in the EU, on the Council of Europe website at http://lumiere.obs.coe.int/web/search (viewed 3 September 2014).21 For a wider discussion of representations of the historically entwined relationship between Jewish and Arab-Muslim Maghrebi communities in postcolonial francophone film, see Carrie Tarr, ‘Jewish-Arab relations in French, Maghrebi-French and Maghrebi cinema(s)’, in Sarah Leahy and Will Higbee (eds), Studies in French Cinema: UK Perspectives 1985–2010 (Bristol and Chicago: Intellect 2011), 323–35. See also Lincoln Z. Shlensky, ‘Otherwise occupied: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the francophone cinema’, in Nathalie Debrauwere-Miller (ed.), Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in the Francophone World (New York and London: Routledge 2010), 105–22.22 It is notable that there is never any question of Clara converting to Islam, which, along with the majority French population, she unproblematically associates with the enforced wearing of the Islamic headscarf and thus the oppression of women, a misapprehension that the film does not challenge.23 ‘In the 1950s and 1960s, following France's withdrawal from its Empire in North Africa, some 300,000 Sephardic Jews immigrated to France from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Egypt. This immigration changed the makeup of France's Jewish community, which was until then mostly Ashkenazi. Today, 60% of French Jews are Sephardic’: ‘The Jewish community of France: history’, available on the website of the European Jewish Congress at www.eurojewcong.org/communities/france.html (viewed 4 September 2014).24 In contrast to La Petite Jerusalem (Karin Albou, 2005), in which family pressure forces an Algerian immigrant to end his relationship with a Jewish girl. For an analysis of this film, see Carrie Tarr, ‘Community, identity and the dynamics of borders in Yasmina Yahiaoui's Rue des Figuiers (2005) and Karin Albou's La Petite Jérusalem (2006)’, in Nadia Kiwan and Helen Vassallo (eds), Alterity and Identity: Otherness in Contemporary Francophone Cultures, a special issue of International Journal of Francophone Studies, vol. 12, no. 1, 2009, 77–90.25 All translations from the French, unless otherwise stated, are by the author.26 ‘[L'Italien] est largement inspiré de l'histoire personnelle que je trimballe, du fait de mes origines' (‘The Italian is largely inspired by the personal history I carry around, based on my origins’), quoted in Carlos Gomez, ‘Kad Merad, la honte de la jungle’, Le Journal du dimanche, 31 March 2009.27 A similar strategy is deployed in the popular comedy hit Chouchou (Merzak Allouache, 2003), in which the central Maghrebi immigrant protagonist pretends to come from Latin America.28 Dans la vie attracted an audience of 85,530 in France, Dernier maquis 33,987, and La Désintégration 56,127: see LUMIERE, a data base of admissions to films released in the EU, available on the Council of Europe website at http://lumiere.obs.coe.int/web/search (viewed 5 September 2014).29 Other representations of Islamic fundamentalism in France include the Arte television film Pour l'amour de Dieu (Zakia Tahiri and Ahmed Bouchaâla, 2006), which charts the tragic demise of a lonely schoolboy convert of Maghrebi origin, and Bruno Dumont's Hadewijch (2009), which features a young, lonely Christian fundamentalist who is befriended by a French Arab Muslim terrorist active in Israel, leading her to participate in terrorist activity in Paris. More recently, Voyage sans retour (François Gérard, 2013), the story of an alienated banlieue youth who finds himself being trained as a jihadist, was denounced by its star Samy Nacéri as Islamophobic, was refused screenings in Paris, and achieved an audience of only 2,415 overall.30 For a discussion of the riots, see Nabil Echchaïbi, ‘Republican betrayal: Beur FM and the suburban riots in France’, Journal of Intercultural Studies, vol. 28, no. 3, 2007, 301–16.31 It was also originally thought that the killings were the work of right-wing extremists. See Hélène L'Heuillet, ‘L’énigme Mohamed Merah’, Le Monde, 16 March 2013.32 Modood, ‘ Is there a crisis of secularism in Western Europe?’, 6.33 Films like Lourdes (Jessica Hausner, 2010), Des hommes et des dieux/Of Gods and Men (Xavier Beauvois, 2010), Un poison violent/Love Like Poison (Katell Quillévéré, 2010) and Hadjewich (Bruno Dumont, 2009) show that French cinema has also recently become interested in investigating its Catholic heritage on screen.Additional informationNotes on contributorsCarrie TarrCarrie Tarr is Emerita Professor of Film in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Kingston University in England. She has published widely on ethnicity, identity, gender and sexuality in postcolonial French and francophone cinema. Her publications include Cinema and the Second Sex: Women's Filmmaking in France in the 1980s and 1990s (with Brigitte Rollet, Bloomsbury 2001) and Reframing Difference: Beur and Banlieue Cinema in France (Manchester 2005). Her edited publications include a special issue of Modern and Contemporary France (2007) on ‘French Cinema: Transnational Cinema?’, and a special issue of Studies in French Cinema (2012) on ‘Women's Filmmaking in France 2000–2010’. Email: [email protected]
Publication Year: 2014
Publication Date: 2014-10-20
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 8
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot