Gender in French Banlieue Cinema: Intersectional Perspectives

This edited volume investigates the reconfiguration of gender in French banlieue cinema, interrogating whether the films produced over the last two decades provide new and viable models of resistance to dominant modes of power. Contributors take a critical approach which identifies gender as a marker of both body and identity politics to highlight the need to overcome a binary approach to banlieue aesthetics, which limits inquiry into the basis of conflict. Given that a feminization--and, to some extent, queering--of the once exclusively-masculine space is underway, contributors ultimately conclude that the banlieue and its on-screen representations cannot be properly understood unless intersectionality as a systematic approach is applied as an interpretive lens. Scholars of film, gender studies, and sociology will find this book particularly useful.

Marzia Caporale is professor of French and Italian and associate faculty member in the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at the University of Scranton.

Claire Mouflard is associate professor of French and Francophone studies at Hamilton College.

Habib Zanzana is professor of World Languages and Literatures at the University of Scranton.