Realism of Convention and Realism of Queering

Sexual Violence in two European Art Films

Bibliographic Data

ID12115757
AuthorsWencke Mühleisen (corresponding author)
Year2005
Volume13
Issue2
Pages115-125
Publication date2005-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueNORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0803-8740 • E-ISSN: 1502-394X
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/08038740500353792
OpenAlexW2021225501
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited11

The article analyses two contrasting examples of representations of rape in French art films. One is Virginie Despentes and Coralie Thrin Thi's film Baise‐moi (Fuck me). The other is Caspar Noé's film Irreversible. By using these two films as examples, I wish to point out the relation between aesthetics and ideological effects by employing the deconstructive potentials of feminist and queer theory. These films are part of a European trend using explicit, documentary depictions of sexuality in the shock‐aesthetics of new‐realism. Though having very different implications with regard to gendered ideological discourses, both enactments of rape in Baise‐moi and Irreversible indicate a heteronormative cultural script as a parameter. This script is either repeated through what I call a realism of convention or displaced and challenged through a performative politics of “perverse” aesthetics: a realism of queering

Aesthetics · Art · Human sexuality · Ideology · Literature · Performative utterance · Political science · Politics · Queer · Realism · Sociology · Cinema and Media Studies · French Historical and Cultural Studies · Gender Studies · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies · Law

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