UNE NOUVELLE

AMIE
Francois Ozon
Xi Shengjie
Preface:
Judith Butler’s Gender Theory
■ “…any feminist theory that restricts the meaning of gender in the presuppositions of its
own practice sets up exclusionary gender norms within feminism, often with
homophobic consequences.”
■ “One might wonder what use ‘opening up possibilities’ finally is, but no one who has
understood what it is to live in the social world as what is “impossible,” illegible,
unrealizable, unreal, and illegitimate is likely to pose that question.”
■ “…the ways that the panic in the face of such practices rendered them unthinkable. Is
the breakdown of gender binaries, for instance, so monstrous, so frightening, that it
must be held to be definitionally impossible and heuristically precluded from any effort
to think gender?”
■ “Instead, the text asks, how do non-normative sexual practices call into question the
stability of gender as a category of analysis? How do certain sexual practices compel the
question: what is a woman, what is a man?”
Preface:
Beyond male and female…
■ Today, gender is likely to be considered as a spectrum, male at one end and female at the
other. While between the two there are a whole lot of other POSSIBILITIES that can be put
under an umbrella term: Non-binary (Enby). There are demigirls, demiboys, androgynous,
gender fluids…Some may even identify themselves completely out of this spectrum.
■ It’s common to be confused by the opposition between sex and gender, especially when
they are translated into Chinese as “biological sex” and “social sex” literally. Actually, to
cite Butler’s theory, the conventional binary gender system is pure socio-historical
construction, and the “biological sex” concept is a delusion. Even just speaking of biology
we should be aware that there still are intersexes, challenging this discourse.
■ In Butler’s saying, it is the social norms of man and woman that performs themselves on
people’s body, hence creat a subject that is subordinate to the norms, at the same time,
writing/citing the norms as well. BUT the writing/citing process could miss once in a while,
and there always will be ones whom are different from the norms. They will destabilize this
building. (And I will avoid explicit pronouns when denoting David/Virginia in the
following presentation.)
I. The Flashback Montage
& Regarding Claire
■ This 10min montage sequence might be one classic narrative in cinema presented with
almost no lines. It briefly traces Laura’s life purely by images—from the encounter of
the two girlfriends, the teenage years, their respective love affairs and marriage, at last
the ultimate separation of death.
■ It’s worth noticing that this retrospective is from Claire’s perspective, during a eulogy,
hence we could say these scenes were unconsciously selected by her. We can see the
story is told subtly as a mimicry or repetition: Laura raised her hand, Claire followed;
Laura cut her palm (to vow), Claire followed; Laura dated, Claire followed; Laura broke
up, we then don’t see Claire’s date as well; and the scene where they met their future
husband at the club, including the following marriage—was also in tandem. With the
movie proceeding, we will gradually discover her lesbianism and realize Laura is the
very OLD GIRLFRIEND of her.
II. David/Virginia – Laura – Claire
& What is a woman, what is a man?
■ It is obvious to perceive the two ambivalent identities. Claire at first refused the drag
version of David, but it was her who later helped the birth of Virginia.
■ During the process, we can notice Claire subconsciously took this new girlfriend as a
mirror of Laura. After they went on the vacation at Créancy, things got even deeper and
wilder: we see her had a dream of engaging lesbianism with Virginia→Laura; and there
was a scene where Claire bumped into DAVID dressed in man suits, which startled her.
She could not accept David as closely as with Virginia. Although she denied the saying
that “You enjoy this game, too”, declaring it’s the death of Laura that got them closer,
there was still an unignorable gap for Claire between David and Virginia.
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II. David/Virginia – Laura – Claire
& What is a woman, what is a man?
■ That is the reason why Claire acted reluctant when David kissed her at the tennis scene,
while engaged passionately with Virginia at the hotel. Here we see two bodies opposing
and colliding, authentic/fake characters of femininity (like breasts and hips) mirroring.
But that didn’t scare Claire away. So what makes a woman? What makes a man? Does
the mere sex characters decide what a human being is? As I put in the preface, I
disagree with this point—The performativity does. (More explanation here…)
■ Just when they were groping each other, she touched to a penis. All of a sudden, this
lesbian relationship was “screwed”. She was struck to “reality”. She denied. She
retreated.
■ With Claire’s heartbreaking denial, we are only to see Virginia walking into the street
even more firmly, knowing: “Je suis femme”. Even though the makeup was messed up,
she was no longer in care of others’ judgement, unlike when they were practicing in the
mall.
II. David/Virginia – Laura – Claire
& What is a woman, what is a man?
■ However, the car accident is an event—that make this gender practice of subversion
exposed to the public, under many circumstances—being judged and excluded by social
norms. In this case, Virginia only had to be gazed and inspected while in a coma, and be
reduced back to David without the capability of refusal, except for the nail polish.
(Well, it’s actually a pretty warmer case compared to reality, but still.)
II. David/Virginia – Laura – Claire
& What is a woman, what is a man?
■ What waked David/Virginia was the ceremony of approval. It clearly matches with the
bridal dressing that David did to Laura before the funeral. But there’s one difference:
after finishing the dress up, David lay down to Laura’s side with her horizontally,
grieving for Laura in death; while Claire lifted Virginia’s bed upright, calling Virginia
back from the coma to life in the song of Une Femme Avec Toi.
 A quick inspection of social norms
and its writing in the bodies
■ The non-binary presence…being denied and banished.
■ What makes of a woman? Why is it so tricky to be a woman?
■ In Butler’s words, how do non-normative sexual practices question the stability of
binary genders?
III. Music, Performance
and Dancefloor in Queer Cinema
 Eva Carlton

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MissGengDiva in Delicious Romance, 《爱很美味》