I should have known I couldn’t get away with quietly dissing Amélie forever. I made a reference to it in my apostrophe of Sin noticias de Dios, and I guess Sam (H.) picked up on it, and has been calling me out ever since (which is fine). What follows is a response to his most recent comment, which, in itself, is a response to a comment of mine and the fake Google translation of a writeup of the movie that rakes it over the coals on political grounds. My basic point I’ll make right after a joke that can serve as an epigraph:
What’s the name of the dad on The Jetsons?
George.
The son?
Elroy.
The dog?
Astro.
The minority?
Ummm… What minority?
Ain’t the future great?
Amélie presents a white-washed version of 1997 Montmartre, (nearly) completely devoid of racial or ethnic diversity. That is bad enough. The astonishing popularity of the movie, along with the willingness of critics to denounce those who make hay over the racial issues, act as a set of indicators that should trouble far more than they seem to, because they indict groups who should know better (the sensitive, “intellectual” art-house crowd that fueled the movie’s popularity in the US and the French population that made it a super-blockbuster there). That they didn’t know better suggests that the movie works on a covertly racist narrative like the one in the Jetsons joke, and, because of that, should be investigated further.
Now, I feel the need to start with a series of disclaimers: I have not seen Amélie since it played at Doc several years ago (June 2002?). Furthermore, I have never been to Paris, so I am taking the descriptions of Montmartre as “ethnically diverse,” or whatever, based on the authors of articles I’ve found, and I have yet to find a single review of the movie that suggests that it presents Montmartre as it really is. A few minutes of playing with Google will show, additionally, that France is perpetually engaged in a strife between its legacy as a “French” (ethnically “pure”) nation and its legacy as a colonising power whose subjects have come to the metropolis. That said, when I saw Amélie, I was more struck by the icky misogyny of the movie than any racist representation. This is because, as I’ve said, I was not able to read the racial signals of the movie. Instead, on racial/ethnic grounds, I felt, like the Images viewer quoted below, that I was watching something “typically parisian.” This is a fault of my own, and, as such, I was complicit in the FN politics of the movie as well. I won’t pursue a reading of the movie’s gender roles, since no one seems interested in that, and I don’t feel like rewatching the movie to build up that reading to even blog standards of depth and analysis.
My attack begins on the back of a piece in Libération. Sam asked if it’s “a critique of the movie itself, some French reactionary currents, or the international culture that lapped it up.” It is definitely not the latter. Of the first two terms, it is both, as can be told from the opening sentence: (my shitty translation, partly assisted by Raver, throughout) “It is time to talk about all that we think is bad about this movie and its fixed aestheticism, which, above all, presents a France that is retrograde, ethnically cleansed, and nauseating.” However, it does touch into the currents later in the opening paragraph, when the author, Serge Kaganski, complains about the “large part of France that constitutes a national front [sic] of cinema, masturbating its [?] identity with the sentimental-passéiste [nostalgic?] image that Jean-Pierre Jeunet gives.” Kaganski’s second paragraph is his call to arms: “It is perhaps time to talk about, in black on white…all the evil that one has the right to think of this movie, a right which they ought to turn into an obligation after the near-totality of the French media, inoculated and rendered blind by ‘the event [the movie's popularity?],’ seems blocked in full Poulinesque genuflection.”
No surprise; Kaganski’s argument is like my own: say what you will about whether or not Amélie is actually a good movie or not. Its astounding popularity demands that we look at it more carefully, and that those who do not buy into the movie’s greatness have to figure out precisely why the movie disturbed them, and what that, hence, says about the society around them. Kaganski builds up steam with his trashing of the general aesthetics of the movie (like this review, he has issues with plot and character development, as well as with politics), before moving in for the kill in the closing paragraphs, which, under a stream of identifiers, further make the reader see what a weird Montmartre Jeunet has imagined. I mean, it’s good… it’s damning… I just hope that my translation below does not become the focus of criticism of my post. Anyway, Kaganski writes that Jeunet has reimagined Montmartre as a tiny, fenced-in French village that includes in it the…
fear of modernity, of change, of the movements of the world and the mixing of populations. The vision of Jeunet on this last point constitutes precisely the most unsettling aspect of his movie. I live in that section of the Saint-Martin canal represented in the movie. What do I see every day while out on the street? Parisans, some undoubtably of French “stock,” others of Antillean, Maghreb, African, Indian, Kurdish, Turkish, Jewish, Russian, Asian descent… I see hetero couples, but also fag couples, lesbian couples, queer couples… What do I see in the Montmartre of Jeunet? French with patronyms that have the nice smell of the earth. I see also a de-arabised [beur] named Lucien. But where are the Antilleans, the Maghreb? the Turks? the Chinese? the Pakis? etc.? Where are those who have different sexualities? Where are the Parisians who make up the capital in 1997 (the year when the film takes place)?
[...]
And this all signifies what? That Jeunet regards people with sympathy, sure, but exclusively the monmartro-retro-franco-franchouillard [reactionary, I guess] people. That the Paris of Jeunet is carefully “cleansed” of all its ethnic, social, sexual, and cultural polysemy. That the Other is lovable and presentable when he is far away. I’ll ask rhetorically: and then? Jeunet does not pretend to represent exactly the Parisian population—his film is a stylised fable, not a documentary. Yes, of course, Jeunet has the right to stylise Paris as he chooses; and we have the right to find that stylisation contestable, wrapped up in an old-fashioned and stifling idea of France, totally disconnected from any contemporary reality.
I don’t know Jean-Pierre Jeunet; I don’t know what his profound ideas are. Furthermore, I’m convinced that the millions of people who have appreciated this film loved it sincerely, be they right-wing, left-wing, or other, but I think, nevertheless, that the success, like all success, would not suffice to make Amélie an admirable or uncontestable work. But I am tortured by a disturbing enough hypothesis, but which does not appear farfetched based on the preceding: if the demagogue of La Trinité-sur-Mer [Le Pen] were to look for a clip to illustrate his speeches, to promote his vision of the people and his idea of France, it seems to me that Amélie Poulain would be the ideal candidate.
So there’s a lot here, and it actually shortens my argument a bit. But the reference to Le Pen at the end, along with the reference to the “front national du cinéma” establishes a connection to fascism and racism. It could just be rhetoric, sure, but while searching for articles in English that echo Kaganski’s concerns, I came upon an article for a publication related to the National Alliance. It’s kind of unfair to quote a fascist to show that something is fascist, but the author puts my complaints in context by approaching them from precisely the opposite direction. (And, yes, I refuse to link to the page, since I don’t want the guy to get any further pageviews.) So here’s why racist fascists like Amélie:
While not specifically racially conscious, it is pleasantly surprising to note the almost total absence of negroes in this movie. I say surprising because in real life, beautiful Paris — that once wonderful city of lights — is absolutely infested with … all sorts of racial undesireables… In crafting such a wholesome and life-affirming work, the director has, like most White lemmings when they envisage their ideal world, unconsciously (?) come up with one that is almost entirely White… a sort of French “Bedford Falls,” so to speak.
The author is reading too much into Jeunet, I’m sure. Kaganski doesn’t dare to psychoanalyse Jeunet’s idealised Paris, in contrast. But what does it mean that France’s signature movie of that year, or of the past five years, has only one non-white character, despite the fact that it takes place in the middle of a bubbling, multi-racial, globalized metropolis? So in that sense, the movie is like Birth of a Nation—a blockbuster growing out of reprehensible politics. Who knows if Amélie was a blockbuster in France because of racist nostalgia for a pre-transnational era. Who knows if people engage in the nostalgia willingly or not. I can’t tell, largely since the dead tone of the movie isn’t enough to capture one’s imagination from not noticing these things. But this is just for France. What about abroad?
Reviews I’ve found that bring up the racial homogeneity of the cast dismiss it. In Image, the reviewer writes:
instead of the glum, hopelessly noir world of his first two films, we are transferred to the romantic world of Montmartre. It’s as light and dainty as a vol-au-vent, and it is as clean and fragrant as a ‘50s or ‘60s musical; you almost expect the characters to grab a baguette and break out in a Francis Ley number. It is also a Paris-neighborhood movie in the grand old Carne-Prevert tradition, with a bemused voice-over commentary, a soundtrack heavy on the accordion, and a set of charming “typical Parisian” characters whiling away the time at their favorite café. (The grim French critics accused Jeunet of showing an artificial Montmartre devoid of ethnic and cultural diversity. Alas, PC rules across the Atlantic, too.)
Note what’s going on here—the author is creating an image of “typical Parisian” characters, and says Amélie is full of them. But are the characters in the movie typical of Paris in 1997? No! Kagarski even takes Jeunet to task for doing what the author here lauds him for: recreating the image of the Carné/Prévert tradition, of playing to a stereotype of Paris that is accordions, berets, and white as snow. The adjectives are particularly telling: “clean,” “fragrant,” “typical.” “Clean” denotes order, fascist order. “Fragrant,” well, I’m sure you can imagine how that’s anti-Other. And “typical” signals “normative.” But normative of a France that has not existed for decades. And to call that Paris, transplanted into 1997, “typical” is racist to the extreme. This is not a question of political correctness. This is a question of continued, forced marginalisation of a population within something that is becoming a national treasure.
In Empire, the reviewer notes that:
In France, Amélie was attacked for depicting a Montmartre without ethnic diversity. But to criticise this film on racial grounds is like complaining that Beethoven’s 5th Symphony is a bit too loud — it’s just carping for the sake of it. Anyway, the whole film is filtered through the imagination of its central character, a woman who withdrew into her private little world as a child cut off from her peers.
It is not carping for the sake of it, and I don’t know if I can make this any more clearly than I have above. If this movie were just a small trifle being screened in a hateshack on an old-ass TV for a handful of FNers, that’d be one thing. They can dream away about a white Montmartre. But it’s not. It’s a super blockbuster, and it represented, abroad, France. As the reviewer in WSWS mentioned, Jospin and Chirac fell over themselves regarding the film; it has political capital.
The Empire reviewer, however, does at least offer a way out: The whitewashing could be a product of Amélie’s own isolation growing up, such that she only imagines the world white like her. As such, Jeunet is doing a bit of racial jujitsu: yes, this Montmartre is a racist paradise, but only because it’s so imagined by someone who, like the racists, is so culturally/emotionally isolated that that’s the only kind of world she can imagine. I’d have to rewatch the movie to see how this plays out, but it’s a potential point of salvation.
Sam dismisses the politics of the movie by comparing it to something like Sleepless in Seattle. Well, you can’t dismiss the political capital of anything, just because it falls into a genre that you do not imagine as being political. Just because National Treasure is a big-budget piece of fluff doesn’t mean that its nationalism can pass by without comment. It is representative of American exceptionalism, and, as such, deserves criticism. Now, especially, is a time when we should be understanding that we can’t go shit alone, figuring our uniqueness and might will always have our back. Similarly, just because Amélie strikes us as a flighty date movie doesn’t mean that it we shouldn’t attack how it justifies racism (or misogyny).
Look to the epigraph, the joke that began this. I return to that joke rather often, because it shows how people often imagine utopias in their own image. I don’t honestly believe that the politics of The Jetsons goes beyond saying something like, “as with most cartoons of the era, it had no interest in representing racial diversity.” But it’s easy to forget, overlook, marginalise. People with good intentions do this all the time, and this is a function of a society that still functions on racist axes. But it’s only forgivable if it’s returned to and apologised for. If one reads this post and says, “wow, maybe I shouldn’t consider a movie that has this kind of fucked up politics to be one of my all-time faves; I should notice this shit in the future,” then I think the point is made. But saying something like, “stop whining. It’s cute and whimsical!” only maintains the status quo. And that is never good, lest our future look like the one in The Jetsons.
PS: The movie continues to be very popular. What about the movie allows people to overlook the racism (and the misogyny)? Is it because it’s a charming love story? Sam says it represents existentialism, which I don’t understand. Nor do I think that that would be a good enough reason to love the movie. Because the effects are impressive? Because it’s funny? Cute?
Perhaps because it’s “not supposed” to be political, but only a date movie? If that’s your perspective, then fine, but, again, normativising force can be a terror, and it’s important to remember, when considering this one of the best movies ever, what that signals about your own politics.
June 21st, 2005 at 18:48
Nicely said. One point I might add, too, is that the politics of “I don’t want to think about it, I just want to enjoy it” is in fact very close to the politics of turning the clock back, imagining oneself in Paris in 1890. They’re both invested in the myth of the organic community, where people all understand each other, differences are contained within a common/mutual destiny, and no one is ever anxious about anything.
Paris is an awfully white city, though. Not like in the movie, but first- or second-generation immigrants tend to live in the banlieue, not in the city.
June 22nd, 2005 at 0:05
Yeah, there is something reactionary about putting your hands over your ears and singing “Mary Had a Little Lamb” instead of investigating and attacking the politics of treasured cultural objects. It’s not just normativising then, but it’s actually counter-productive. I’m finally reading Political Unconscious, and I love how Jameson sort of just establishes the primacy of historical materialism to any “literary or cultural text.” They are all written in a world of class conflict, hence they must in some way reflect class conflict. Similarly, this movie here is written in a racialist world, hence it must reflect that in some way. There is no “but it’s just a movie!”
One thing has been bugging me, though. A friend said that she finds the movie as reprehensible politically as a Disney cartoon. That’s, in a way, obviously true. But I actually own Aladdin but wouldn’t consider buying Amélie. What gives? And aren’t I guilty of the same thing I mention above? What is so special about this movie that earns it the scorn I have?
I mean, just about every wide-release movie has some screwy politics in some place, right? I guess I can’t explain why it is this specific movie without having to make, in addition to the political argument above, an aesthetic argument. And both of these relate to the film’s super-popularity here, especially among people who should “know better,” that class of cultural consumer that pat themselves on the back for being liberal and open-minded. So I guess it’s because of this intersection of these three things that gets me going. And, in fact, if I think about most movies I hate vocally, I can generally say this about them:
“I don’t get why everyone else likes (Kill Bill|Kids|Amélie). Not only is it a shitty movie, but its politics are reprehensible!”
So it’s a question not just of aesthetics, not just of politics, and not just of popularity, but all three have to hit at once. In that sense, Aladdin is saved since I find it aesthetically more enjoyable. But it’s also saved since I grant that it has screwy politics. If someone says to me “Arabs are grossly misrepresented,” I say, “yes, I know, and let’s talk about why that is,” not, “stop whining! It’s a kid’s movie, not a PC treatise!” If I could ever get a similar level of response from Amélie die-hards…
June 22nd, 2005 at 0:18
I suppose a response to my comment above could be, “well, if all movies have bad politics, then saying you don’t like popular movies that suck and have bad politlcs is equivalent to saying you don’t like popular movies that suck. Hence, you don’t like the movie on solely aesthetic grounds, and, since you’re explicitly not making an aesthetic argument above, and you refuse to see the movie again in order to make an aesthetic argument, your whole point is moot.” My response then is in terms of kind.
I’m rereading that line where Kaganski says that Montmartre is reimagined as a tiny French village with its “fear of modernity, of change, of the movements of the world and the mixing of populations.” Dismissing the movie as “cute,” or liking it because of that plays into precisely the same fear. It’s a move that involves assuming blinders on your head, because you are avoiding some sort of contemporary reality.
The reception to Amélie includes willful suspension of political concern—either on behalf of the French viewership that knows that Montmartre is being white-washed or on behalf of the American viewing audience which has, in my experience, responded overly defensively to questions of the politics of the movie. That is to say, in order to like this movie specifically, you must engage in a racist fantasy of an all-white utopia. There is no “well, maybe there were no qualified racial others for the parts.” This is a direct move on Jeunet’s part to create an FN fantasy. So, in that sense, I’d argue that the politics of this movie, in terms of its reception, are extra reprehensible, and, hence, I’m still making a solely political claim. I’ll let Kaganski and others point out that the fucked up politics then, in turn, create bad aesthetics, such that it is impossible to find the movie aesthetically pleasing without agreeing to the racist politics—I suspect that if you view the movie critically from a racial perspective, then the flick falls aesthetically flat. I think that’s what happened with me, albeit on gender terms.
Finally, an analogy: I’ve been trying to wonder what a “US version” of this movie would feel like, and I can’t really think of anything that compares. All I can create are weirdly inappropriate scenes, like a movie that takes place in the UIC of 2005 that has only white undergraduates. It would be ridiculous, and anyone watching the movie who knows anything about UIC in 2005 would know that the movie is a willful misrepresentation. To then not wonder what that misrepresentation means, it seems, is an abdication of critical responsibility on behalf of the viewer.
June 22nd, 2005 at 9:21
This is one of my favorite posts. Thank you.
I didn’t mean to sound overly defensive of the movie. Despite its being readily available on our cable for months at a time, I haven’t been able to bring myself to rewatch it either, mainly because what I liked about it is less interesting the second time around. What I did like about it was the quirky nature, especially in the intro of the movie, where meaningless real events without moral context were what shaped the drama (i.e. I liked that the mother was killed by someone else’s suicide attempt). I was probably remiss in calling this a whimsical take on existentialism, but I figured that if I said I liked it because it kinda reminded me of the assumptions of Real Business Cycle Theory I would sound too pretentious to go on living (as if saying something is a whimsical take on existentialism doesn’t sound terrible already — gag me).
I honestly had no idea that you were being literal with your use of the word ‘fascist’ and not tounge in cheek. Being ignorant of French politics, I did need the step-by-step explanation of what you were saying. Thanks
June 22nd, 2005 at 9:34
did you ever post about Kids?
June 22nd, 2005 at 11:18
Sam: I hope it all makes more sense. I didn’t feel like you were a hard-core defender, though I do know some hard-core defenders. That’s why I just used your last comment as a basic framework, and didn’t pick at anything you said in specific.
As for calling the movie “fascist,” I am still being a little cheeky. The movie can be used for fascist/racist aims, and it requires a bit of buying into a racist utopia to enjoy, but I would not say that Jeunet is a fascist for making this movie, etc.
No, I never wrote about Kids, which was the first movie I ever considered leaving the theater during. This is mostly since I saw it pre-blog. And it still startles me to hear, even today, people refer to that movie with adulation. But it’s the perfect example of this trifecta: popular, terrible politics, awful aesthetics.
December 4th, 2006 at 3:19
y cant u just enjoy the movie? it isnt consciously racist, jeunet is white and therefore his films will have a white cast as a majority simply because there is no reason why they shouldn’t. if he worried about PC and satisfying ethnic minorities while shooting it then perhaps the movie wouldn’t have been such a success, which it undoubtedly was.
April 15th, 2009 at 11:00
I have to say I find condemnation of this movie a bit disconcerting. The absence of ethnic minorities from a location usually moderately diverse cannot be necessarily connected to racist politics. Consider first the need to create a backdrop for the heroine (a childlike fantasist). It stands to reason that this backdrop would be markedly different from an ‘honest’ portrait of montmartre. I am not a massive fan of the film by any stretch of the imagination, but I cannot see why people seize on a lack of realistic ethnic diversity in a deliberately UNrealistic setting as an adequate reason to a) dislike the film and b) accuse it of racism.
Even if it had been set in a banlieue normally populated mostly by what the french indiscriminately term ‘immigres’, the overriding impression would be of distorted reality. The fact that the lack of ethnic diversity in the film has led people(amongst whom, incidentally, the FN were notable for their absence)to see amelie as a sort of recruiting campaign for Le Pen’s particularly ridiculous brand of racist politics is tenuous at best.
I would like to question the assertion made above that it is necessary to engage in a racist fantasy to enjoy the film, apparently made on the dubious assumption that Jeunet has made a direct attempt to create an FN fantasy. I am baffled as to how that adds up. Firstly the film is not an all-white utopia. Secondly, the level of representation of minorities in the film, such as it is, simply cannot be taken to be a normative statement. If you believe it can, can you explain how you get to your conclusion? I am not saying that Jeunet absent-mindedly forgot ethnic minorities. In fact, I think he quite probably intended his fantasy montmartre to be so devoid of diversity. But just because it is a feel good film in which there are few beurs and blacks, that does not mean that the absence of beurs and blacks and chinese and gay and lesbian and transsexuals is at the core of its attempt to make you feel good!
July 6th, 2010 at 3:15
Then again, if Kaganski had his way, and Amelie featured France’s ethnic minorities, it wouldn’t nearly be as light-hearted and whimsically charming… what with all the car fires and street rape.
October 10th, 2010 at 20:02
“…it wouldn’t nearly be as light-hearted and whimsically charming…”
Too, movies may be an art form, but they’re also business. There’s typically a boat load of money riding on their success. Too, I think most people see movies as escapism. Taking those two factors into account, it would probably be considered unwise to risk a substantial amount of borrowed money producing a movie and risk increasing the likelihood that it would be shunned by the movie-going public, if it reflected present-day circumstances in Paris too accurately. Even if it was attempted, Marxist naysayers would probably grouse about the absence of burning cars.