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.

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.

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.

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…

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.