Linguistic difference as ontological sameness in Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis (2008)

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article explores the role of linguistic humour in box-office smash Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis (Boon, 2008). The film appears to depart from Michel Chion's model of the historical absence of specific accents in French cinema. However, by charting the process through which the central duo achieve and then exercise joint mastery of communication, their use of language will be shown to support the argument made most explicitly by Susan Purdie: that wit laughs not at any speaker so much as at language itself. In this way, the dialogue works to elide regional specificity and stresses characters' sameness, using humour to draw the spectator into the same collusively generated interpretation. By illustrating the fundamental commutability of linguistic constructs, and thus cultural perspectives, the film's verbal exchanges, like its narrative as a whole, ultimately speak less of regional difference than assimilation, and so contribute to notions of both nationhood and common humanity.