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Gender and Sexuality in Breillat’s Fat Girl (2001)

&NewLine;<p>Contemporary French cinema has seen a rise in the number of female filmmakers&comma; and in turn an increased focus on feminist perspectives in French film&period; This is most notable in the &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;cinema du corps&comma;” a term referring to French films of the 1990’s and 2000’s that are both graphic in their visual representations of the body and oftentimes radical in their ideological assertions&period; While not all of the films in this group are directed by women&comma; they almost all show an interest in the female body and representations of sexuality&period; In particular&comma; many of these films harbor ambivalence towards relationships and utilize graphic depictions of both male and female sexuality&period; Many of the films of Catherine Breillat fit into this categorization&comma; particularly <em>Fat Girl<&sol;em> &lpar;2001&rpar;&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>The film follows a young&comma; overweight French girl as she tries to cope with her body&comma; her family&comma; and her burgeoning sexuality&period; This film is a prime example of the cinema du corps&comma; not only for its graphic content&comma; but also its cynical reflections on sexual relations between men and women&comma; and the shamed and confused depictions of female sexuality&period; Breillat’s <em>Fat Girl<&sol;em> &lpar;2001&rpar; offers a nihilistic reflection on gender relations&comma; using graphic visual representations of rape and female sexuality to explore the tensions formed from these failed relations&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>In Breillat’s <em>Fat Girl<&sol;em> &lpar;2001&rpar; a 12-year-old French girl named Anaïs is on vacation with her family&period; Her older sister&comma; Elena&comma; is skinnier and more attractive than Anaïs&comma; and Elena constantly reminds her of this&period; Their parents are relatively despondent&comma; but when they do participate in the girls’ lives&comma; it is most often to criticize&period; They are particularly cruel to Anaïs regarding her weight and eating habits&period; As the story progresses&comma; the father leaves on business while Elena&comma; who is 15-years-old&comma; meets a college-aged boy named Fernando&comma; who convinces Elena that he loves her&period; One night&comma; while Anaïs lies awake in the same room&comma; Fernando rapes Elena&comma; only to have Elena retrospectively insist that it was consensual and fall deeply in love with him&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Fernando secretly proposes to Elena and gives her an expensive opal ring&period; Anaïs silently observes their relationship and shares her distrust of Fernando with Elena&comma; but Elena dismisses her and insists that they love each other&period; Following this conversation&comma; Fernando’s mother comes to the family’s vacation home to retrieve the ring that Fernando stole and gave to Elena&period; Elena begrudgingly returns the ring and the family begins the long drive back to their home&period; While the mother and daughters are sleeping in the car at a rest stop&comma; a wild-looking man breaks the windshield with a hatchet and kills Elena and the mother&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Anaïs&comma; who is awake to witness the attack&comma; gets out of the car and retreats into the woods&period; The man rapes Anaïs&comma; but halfway through the act Anaïs seems to acquiesce to his aggression&period; The man flees and the police arrive&comma; but Anaïs insists that the man did not rape her&period; The film ends with Anaïs’s denial accompanied by a freeze-frame of her face looking back toward the camera&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<figure class&equals;"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;philosophyinfilm&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;03&sol;fat-girl-1200-1200-675-675-crop-000000-1024x576&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Fat Girl &lpar;2001&rpar;" class&equals;"wp-image-1910"&sol;><figcaption class&equals;"wp-element-caption"><em>Fat Girl<&sol;em> &lpar;2001&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>While on the surface Breillat’s <em>Fat Girl<&sol;em> &lpar;2001&rpar; seems like a sad story about a young French girl struggling with her weight and her familial and sexual frustrations&comma; the graphic depictions of these frustrations work to offer a more vivid and complex analysis of female sexuality&period; For Breillat&comma; the purpose of visualizing rape has greater aspirations than merely shocking the audience&comma; it also works as &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;a complex representation involving formal strategies that have ideological effects” &lpar;Keesey 96&rpar;&period; These ideological effects can be seen in the context of the rape&comma; the female victim’s reaction to the rape&comma; and the intention to encourage contradictory and ultimately unsavory identifications on the part of the spectator&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>For example&comma; in the first rape scene&comma; which can most accurately be characterized as a &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;date rape&comma;” the camera looms over the two young lovers as Fernando tries unsuccessfully to have sex with Elena&period; She is apprehensive and tells him that she is not ready&period; He becomes frustrated with her repeated rejections and eventually has sex with her anyway&period; Elena has no choice but to submit to him&comma; and even though she cries and feels guilty afterward&comma; Fernando convinces her that since they are in love&comma; it was all for the best&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>This scene is complicated by the potential for contradictory spectator identification&period; The scene does not offer any formal hints as to which character the spectator is meant to identify or sympathize with&period; If it is Fernando&comma; then the spectator has no choice but to adopt the guilt of predatory male sexuality acted out on a helpless female victim&period; His unapologetic advances force the spectator to &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;adopt a pedophile’s perspective and to participate in his movement toward the object of desire” &lpar;Keesey 101&rpar;&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>If it is Elena&comma; then the spectator is made to identify &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;masochistically with the victim” &lpar;Keesey 103&rpar;&period; However&comma; there is also the third and most likely option for identification&comma; which is Anaïs&period; She lies in the corner&comma; acting as the silent voyeur while the rape unfolds in front of her&period; Just like the spectator&comma; she is forced to watch the rape and powerless to stop it&period; This scene also reflects Breillat’s concept of passive female desire&period; Elena willingly removed all of her clothing&comma; indicating to Fernando that she wanted to have sex&comma; only to realize that she was not ready&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Even though Elena insists on waiting to have sex&comma; and Anaïs watches the entire scenario unfold from across the room&comma; neither girl is able to defend Elena’s body against the penetrating male&period; It is this helplessness that leads to the sense of shame on the part of the female and the uneven power dynamic between the sexuality of the man and the woman&period; Like many of Breillat’s films&comma; the sexual encounters are often marked by contradictory elements&comma; in this case &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;desire and shame” and &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;submission and power” &lpar;Gorton 114&rpar;&period; While the male uses his power to play out his desires on the female body&comma; the female feels shame and confusion at her own submissive&comma; and ultimately powerless sexuality at the hands of the aggressive&comma; powerful male&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<figure class&equals;"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;philosophyinfilm&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;03&sol;MV5BNGI1M2MwZmYtYTQwNy00ZmRkLWE4ZDgtNDg0OWM0OGQ5NmUyXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNTc0NjY1ODk&commat;&period;&lowbar;V1&lowbar;-1024x550&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Fat Girl &lpar;2001&rpar;" class&equals;"wp-image-1911"&sol;><figcaption class&equals;"wp-element-caption"><em>Fat Girl <&sol;em>&lpar;2001&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>During Fernando and Elena’s second sexual encounter&comma; which is consensual and regarded by Elena as her &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;real” first time&comma; the camera focuses on Anaïs’s face&period; As her sister has sex in the background of the shot&comma; Anaïs lies in bed&comma; turned away from her sister&comma; silently crying&period; The exact meaning of this emotion is left somewhat ambiguous&period; She could be crying out of jealousy of her sister’s sexual &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;success&comma;” or because she knows her sister is being taken advantage of&comma; or even a combination of the two&period; Despite the ambiguity of Anaïs’s crying&comma; it is obvious that Fernando&comma; and by extension&comma; the power of aggressive male sexuality&comma; is causing pain for both girls&period; While Elena cries out in physical pain in the background of the shot&comma; Anaïs silently weeps over the pain of Fernando’s presence in their lives&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>In the final and most graphic scene of the film&comma; Anaïs is raped by the man who killed Elena and her mother&period; The surrealist nature of this scene allows for it to be read as a &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;rape fantasy” in which Anaïs’s identification is split between the attacker and &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;herself as willing victim&comma; split between the man’s sadism and her own &OpenCurlyQuote;feminine’ masochistic desire to be punished” &lpar;Keesey 103&rpar;&period; Whether or not this event really takes place or if it is just a fantasy is unclear&comma; but Breillat herself reinforces the notions of a split identification and Anaïs’s desire to be raped&comma; saying that &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;for girls who have been &OpenCurlyQuote;brought up to be decent&comma;’ rape is the only way to enact their desire for a man…because&comma; following the mindset of our society&comma; they must as it were &OpenCurlyQuote;foist’ the guilt of desire onto the man whom they did not have the power to resist” &lpar;Keesey 102&rpar;&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>This reading as a rape fantasy is further legitimized by the conversation that Anaïs and Elena have one night in bed&period; After Anaïs criticizes Elena for simultaneously idealizing and attempting to erase her first sexual experience with Fernando&comma; Elena claims that she is ultimately glad that her first time was with someone she loved&comma; and that Anaïs is too young to understand&period; To this Anaïs blandly replies that she hopes her first time is not with someone she loves&period; She argues that if he doesn’t love her and she doesn’t love him&comma; there can be no disappointment afterward&comma; and the man cannot have the satisfaction of taking advantage of her love&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>This scenario that Anaïs describes comes to fruition with the rape at the end of the film&period; As Anaïs exits the car&comma; the attacker takes notice and slowly walks toward her&period; She backs away slowly without breaking eye contact with her assailant&period; In this moment&comma; Anaïs is relatively powerful and unwilling to completely submit to her attacker&period; As she backs into the woods&comma; the man tackles her and pins her down&period; She struggles and pleads that he not hurt her&comma; but as he begins to rape her&comma; she suddenly stops struggling&period; She makes eye contact with him and gently wraps her arms around his neck&period; Both characters linger for a moment&comma; and then the man leaves&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>This is a strange and troubling scenario for the spectator&period; Not only is it a graphic depiction of the rape of a 12-year-old girl&comma; but it is also a representation of a female embracing her rapist and accepting the role as the submissive object of predatory male desire&period; Following the rape&comma; although Anaïs does survive&comma; she harbors a similar reaction to that of her sister&comma; by denying that the rape ever happened&period; This repeated denial reflects the guilt and shame that Anaïs feels about her sexual desires&colon; she theoretically experienced her ideal first sexual encounter &lpar;a sexual encounter free of love&rpar;&comma; but she feels ashamed of her own desires and her submission to male power&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>All three sexual encounters of the film&comma; and the subsequent reactions that the female characters have to them&comma; reflect a nihilistic attitude toward gender relations&period; Elena is raped&comma; humiliated&comma; and then dumped&period; Anaïs is forced to witness her sister’s rape and the murder of her sister and mother&comma; and is then raped by their killer&period; Even though both girls are victims at the hands of powerful men&comma; they feel shame&period; Elena’s shame stems from being tricked into having sex and then left to feel guilty for indulging her sexual desires&period; Anaïs’s shame comes from her fantasy of rape and her complete submission to the rapist&period; In both scenarios&comma; the sexual relations &lpar;and&comma; by extension&comma; <em>all<&sol;em> intimate relations&rpar; between men and women are doomed to fail&period; Both Elena and Anaïs recognize this failure and come to realize that between men and women&comma; intimacy will always be &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;violently rejected” &lpar;Gorton 121&rpar;&period; In this way&comma; Breillat’s film works as a feminist critique of traditional gender roles and heteronormative relations between men and women&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>However&comma; there is a strong case for seeing <em>Fat Girl<&sol;em> &lpar;2001&rpar;&comma; and other &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;feminist” films from Catherine Breillat&comma; as actually working against feminist ideals&comma; namely insofar as they perpetuate the notion of the female body as an object for the male gaze&period; One could further argue that these films do not operate well as feminist works because of their excessive reliance on pornographic&comma; often violently sexual depictions of the female body&period; While it cannot be ignored that <em>Fat Girl<&sol;em> &lpar;2001&rpar; and other Breillat films&comma; such as <em>Romance<&sol;em> &lpar;1999&rpar; and <em>Anatomy of Hell<&sol;em> &lpar;2004&rpar;&comma; rely on these unsettling graphic representations&comma; it is actually the intensely graphic nature of these films that forces an awareness of their feminist message&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>First&comma; the scenes featuring sex are too unsettling to provide any sexual appeal to the mass audience&period; However&comma; at the time of its release&comma; censorship boards were worried that the representations of rape in the film &lpar;particularly because the victims are young girls&rpar; would serve to titillate and even encourage potential rapists and pedophiles &lpar;Keesey 101&rpar;&period; Breillat herself sees this concern as an attempt to censor the bodies of young females and perpetuate the ideals of a &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;masculinist social system that stigmatizes the female victims of rape and their bodies rather than attending to the male perpetrators and their violent desires” &lpar;Keesey 101&rpar;&period; Second&comma; by making the rape scenes so violent and unappealing to the vast majority of male viewers&comma; Breillat &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;upsets the viewer and unsettles the possibility of watching her film for entertainment only” &lpar;Gorton 119&rpar;&period; By reducing or even eliminating the entertainment value of her films&comma; Breillat forces the spectator to engage with the images as ideological representations rather than mere titillations&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>While Catherine Breillat’s <em>Fat Girl<&sol;em> &lpar;2001&rpar; is very graphic and divisive among theorists and mass audiences alike&comma; it is also unapologetic in its rejection of male&sol;female gender relations as a viable option for women&period; By limiting the female characters&&num;8217&semi; choices to rape and sadomasochistic fantasy&comma; the director shows the unappealing nature of these relations and portrays female sexuality&comma; insofar as it is determined by the patriarchal society that it exists in&comma; as confused and shameful&period; By the end of the film&comma; women are either killed or reduced to being ashamed of their own sexuality and victimhood at the hands of men&comma; and any sexual intimacy between men and women only serves to further subjugate women within the male-dominated power structure&comma; thus making these relations ultimately unsustainable&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p><strong>Gorton&comma; Kristyn&period; &&num;8220&semi;<&sol;strong><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;tandfonline&period;com&sol;doi&sol;abs&sol;10&period;1386&sol;seci&period;4&period;2&period;111&lowbar;1" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noreferrer noopener"><strong>The Point of View of Shame&&num;8221&semi;&colon; Re-viewing Female Desire in Catherine<&sol;strong> <strong>Breillat&&num;8217&semi;s <em>Romance<&sol;em> &lpar;1999&rpar; and <em>Anatomy of Hell<&sol;em> &lpar;2004&rpar;<&sol;strong><&sol;a><strong>&period;&&num;8221&semi; <em>Studies in European Cinema<&sol;em> 4&period;2 &lpar;2007&rpar;&colon; 111-24&period; Print&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p><strong>Keesey&comma; Douglas&period; &&num;8220&semi;<&sol;strong><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;semanticscholar&period;org&sol;paper&sol;Split-identification&percnt;3A-Representations-of-rape-in-A-Keesey&sol;dcbc6bf71a402aa050ed5e11fc3121404ddbc40c&quest;p2df" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noreferrer noopener"><strong>Split Identification&colon; Representations of Rape in Gaspar Noe&&num;8217&semi;s<&sol;strong> <strong><em>Irreversible<&sol;em> and Catherine Breillat&&num;8217&semi;s <em>A Ma Soeur&excl;&sol;Fat Girl<&sol;em><&sol;strong><&sol;a><strong>&period;&&num;8221&semi; <em>Studies in European Cinema<&sol;em> 7&period;2 &lpar;2010&rpar;&colon; 95-107&period; Print&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>For more essays like this one&comma; check out the&nbsp&semi;<a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;philosophyinfilm&period;com&sol;">Philosophy in Film Homepage<&sol;a>&excl;<&sol;p>&NewLine;

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