Tomboy Performativity in Contemporary Western and East Asian Queer Films

Review: <i>Life-Destroying Diagrams</i>, by Eugenie Brinkema

The Handmaiden

Affect and Narrative in Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue Is the Warmest Color Milo Sweedler (bio) In The Antinomies of Realism (2013), Fredric Jameson distinguishes between two very different sources of literary realism. The first is the tale, which has its origin in storytelling and takes diverse forms in such genres such as the epic, the art-novella, the ballad, and finally the novel, Jameson’s particular object of study. All of these genres are motivated by what Jameson calls “the narrative impulse.” Recounting the adventures or the development of a central character or set of characters, they transmit a conception of time as a linear progression from past to present to future. The first modality of realism therefore engages the reader’s cognition, challenging her to integrate new narrative information into the developing story and to revise earlier suppositions as she reads. The second impulse, which Jameson variously calls “affect” and “the body’s present,” implies a very different sort of temporality. Rather than prompting the reader to correlate narrative events as the story unfolds, the second modality of realism plunges the reader into what Jameson calls a “perpetual present,” in which the immediacy of the moment overwhelms and suppresses the reader’s relation to historical time. These two impulses are co-present in the novels of Flaubert and his successors, Jameson argues, yet they do not mix. Rather than simply being in contradiction with one another, the relation between these “twin sources of realism” is antinomian (the difference being that, whereas contradictions can be resolved, antinomies cannot). Narrative and affect co-exist in the realist novel, Jameson asserts, but they repel each other like wax and water. [End Page 152] Released the same year as Jameson’s 2013 treatise on the realist novel, Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue Is the Warmest Color (La Vie d’Adèle: Chapitres 1 et 2) bears witness to a similar tension between affect and narrative. Indeed, Jameson’s disquisition on the heterogeneous sources of realism seems tailor-made for Kechiche’s highly realistic film. Presented in two chapters as the cinematic bildungsroman of a young woman whose sexual self-discovery is catalyzed by her encounter with a blue-haired lesbian, the movie contains numerous atmospheric shots that serve no obvious narrative function. Operating as cinematic analogues of the literary phenomenon that Roland Barthes famously called “the reality effect” (l’effet de réel) in his 1968 article of that title, isolated shots of the heroine sleeping, smoking, or staring out of her bedroom window do something other than advance the plot. Even scenes that do advance the narrative are frequently filmed in ways that exceed the requirements of the story. The notoriously long and graphic sex scenes are a case in point, but virtually the entire film exemplifies a sustained, unresolved tension between narrative filmmaking and a type of cinematography that I will call “affective.” This tension between affect and narrative is evident in nearly every salient aspect of the film. Through analysis of Kechiche’s camerawork and his editing style, his use of close-ups to capture the heroine’s ever-shifting expression, and especially the complex ways the screenwriter-director uses intertexts to refract the larger film text, I argue that Blue is both a highly self-conscious work of art and a viscerally engaging movie designed to make us feel as much as think. “The Life of Adèle,” or, Antinomies of the Intertext Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, Blue Is the Warmest Color, loosely based on Julie Maroh’s 2010 graphic novel of the same title, narrates two chapters in the life of a young woman coming of age in present-day Lille, a medium-sized city in northern France. The film begins with Adèle (played by Adèle Exarchopoulos) navigating her way through her junior year of high school. Urged by her girlfriends to return the attentions of Thomas (Jérémie Laheurte), a high school [End Page 153] heartthrob in his senior year, Adèle agrees to go on a date with this Brad Pitt look-alike. On her way to meet Thomas in the city’s main square, she...

Mobilising the Monster: Modern Disabled Performers’ Manipulation of the Freakshow

Structuring Conflict in the Arab World: Incumbents, Opponents, and Institutions, Ellen Lust-Okar, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 279.For a very long time, the scholarship on Middle Eastern politics has suffered from scarce use of the analytical tools provided by the field of comparative politics. The result has too often been descriptive research in the anthropological style. Such studies lacked the rigour necessary for providing cumulative knowledge and theoretical insight. In recent years, however, an increasing number of scholars have been recognizing the value of complementing their in-depth knowledge of the region with appropriate social science theories. New theoretically oriented scholarship—produced by Mark Tessler (Area Study and Social Science, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), Carrie Wickham Rosefsky (Mobilizing Islam, New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), Quintan Wikorowitcz (Islamic Activism, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), Eva Bellin (Stalled Democracy, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002), Lisa Anderson (Transition to Democracy, New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), and a few others—filled such a need that, as a result of their publication, knowledge of Middle Eastern politics has taken a great leap forward since the early 2000s.

ABSTRACTWritten, co-produced and directed by Abdellatif Kechiche, the French film Blue Is the Warmest Colour (2013) generated a considerable amount of controversy before and after its release at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. While the film is an acknowledged adaptation of the 2010 French graphic novel of the same name by Julie Maroh, it is also an adaptation of the symbolic function of the colour blue within French national and European collective discourse. Blue Is the Warmest Colour probes the very nature of what it means to be free on both an individual and collective level, drawing from the symbolism of the colour blue from the French flag. By examining the adaptation process from graphic novel to film, this essay seeks to argue that Kechiche’s work is part of a wider debate in France and in Europe about what a contemporary European identity looks like, and where individual freedom fits into it. In this ‘debate’, Kechiche utilises the narrative of the film to question both historical discourses of nationality, cultural identity, and individuality, and their destabilisation in contemporary culture, thereby highlighting the limits of the ideology of ‘Europe’ through a distinct class politics.

The 2000s have been years of political violence, agricultural and economic degeneration, and the suppression of liberties in Zimbabwe. As the nation counts down towards the 2005 parliamentary elections-25 years after a hardwon independence that promised peace, prosperity, and freedom-it might be time to reflect, not on the chronology of decline, but on its impact upon the idea of citizenship and the idea of individuals as citizens. There is a dual problematique here, the first part of which was expressed in political scientific literature comparatively recently,2 to do with the extent that communitarianism is embedded in humanity as a polis,3 and the extent of individual freedom founded on an agency answerable finally only to a 'natural law' of universal justice. This has been typified as a Hegelian/Kantian divide; that the divide is artificial has been pointed out by many.4 However, what has not been indicated sufficiently, and this is the second part of the problematique, is just how messy both the polis and the individual can be. In Zimbabwe, the polis has been hijacked by the party, so that the idea of citizen rights has been funnelled into rights for party loyalists; and the citizen, far from revelling in his or her association with natural justice, is deprived and traumatised. In short, the preoccupation with normative values has left little apparatus to deal with the abnormative and the actuality of political life under an increasingly totalitarian government. Anglophonic philosophers and theorists have written little originally on despair, either communal or individual despair. French thinkers have, but have drawn from psychoanalytical and linguistic traditions far removed from those seemingly apparent in Africa. They have often privileged creative writing, fiction, in their reflectionsas if no clinical revelation could ever be carried so far into abjection as Celine writing about the spilt guts of a World War I battlefield.5 In this article, too, we turn to literature-that written in Zimbabwe itself-and seek to illustrate a condition

The hall was filled to overcapacity for all five days of the event. Sixty-four survivors from nine countries (South Korea, North Korea, the People's Republic of China, Taiwan, the Philippines, the ...

An instant bestseller since its first publication on 24 October 1929, and reviewed by Rebecca West as ‘an uncompromising piece of feminist propaganda’,1 A Room of One's Own, despite the many contro...

WEN‐HSIN YEH (ed). Becoming Chinese: passages to Modernity and Beyond. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. x, 435 pp. US$55.00, hardcover; US$22.00, paper. CLAIRE HUOT. China's New Cultural Scene: a Handbook of Changes. Durham: Duke University Press, 2000. viii, 258 pp. US$18.95, paper. PANG‐YUAN CHI and DAVID DER‐WEI WANG (eds). Chinese Literature in the Second Half of a Modern Century: a Critical Survey. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000. xliii, 332 pp. US$39.95, hardcover. RICHARD JOHN LYNN (trans). The Classic of the Way and Virtue: a New Translation of the Tao‐te Ching of Laozi as Interpreted by Wang Bi. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. 244 pp. US$29.00, hardcover. KENNETH G. HENSHALL. Dimensions of Japanese Society: gender, Margins and Mainstream. New York and London: St Martin's Press/Macmillan Press, 1999. xxi, 249 pp. List of tables, preface, acknowledgments, glossary, introduction, notes, references, index. £47.50, hardcover; £20.99, paper. KENNETH G. HENSHALL. A History of Japan. From Stone‐Age to Superpower. London: Macmillan Press, 1999. xvi, 242 pp. List of tables, preface, acknowledgments, introduction, notes, references, glossary of Japanese terms, index. £19.99, paper. ROGER BUCKLEY. Japan Today, 3rd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. xiv, 233 pp. Preface to the first edition, preface to the third edition, abbreviations, note on Japanese names, map, introduction, appendices, bibliography, index. £13.95, paper. SUSAN ORPHETT LONG (ed). Lives in Motion: composing Circles of Self and Community in Japan. Ithaca, NY: East Asia Program, Cornell University, 1999. xii, 295 pp. Preface, list of contributors, introduction, index. No price given, paper. DEWI ANGGRAENI. Neighbourhood Tales: a Bilingual Collection of Short Stories. Briar Hill, VIC: Indra Publishing, 2001. 248 pp. A$21.95, paper. KANDICE CHUH and KAREN SHIMAKAWA (eds). Orientations: mapping Studies in the Asian Diaspora. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001. 339 pp. US$19.95, paper. HAROLD D. ROTH. Original Tao: inward Training (Nei‐yeh) and the Foundations of Taoist Mysticism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. 275 pp. US$29.50, hardcover. CHIANG YEE. The Silent Traveller in London. Oxford: Signal Books Ltd, 2002. xvi, 216 pp. £24.95, hardcover; £10.99, paper.

THE HANDBOOK OF COMMUNITY PRACTICE, edited by Marie Weil. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2005, ISBN: 0-761-92177-X, 708pp. Reviewed by Calvin Streeter, PhD MOVE THE MESSAGE: YOUR GUIDE TO MAKING A DIFFERENCE AND CHANGING THE WORLD, by Josephine BeUacomo. New York: Lantern Books, 2004, ISBN: 1-590-56029-9, 355 pp. Reviewed by Natasha Freidus, MCP FUNDRAISING BASICS: A COMPLETE GUIDE (2ND EDITION), by Barbara L. Ciconte and Jeanne G. Jacob. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 2004, ISBN: 0-763-73446-2, 438pp. Reviewed by Jennifer E. Heller MANAGING HUMAN BEHAVIOR IN PUBLIC AND NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS, by Robert B. Denhart, Janet Vinzant Denhart, and Maria P. Aristigueta. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2002, ISBN: 0-761-92474-4, 456pp. Reviewed by David W. Schwertfager, MSSA HUMAN SERVICES TECHNOLOGY: UNDERSTANDING, DESIGNING, AND IMPLEMENTING COMPUTER AND INTERNET APPLICATIONS IN THE SOCIAL SERVICES, by Dick Schoech. Bingham-ton, NY: The Haworth Press, Inc., 1999, ISBN: 0-789-00108-X, 451 pp. Reviewed by Myron E. Weiner, MBA NURTURING THE ONE, SUPPORTING THE MANY: THE CENTER FOR FAMILY LIFE IN SUNSET PARK, BROOKLYN, by Peg McCartt Hess, Brenda G. McGowan, and Michael Botsko. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003, ISBN: 0-231-11594-6 (hardcover), 0-231-11595-4 (paperback), 256pp. Reviewed by Abdul-Rahmaan Abd-Raheem Muhammad, MSW BEST PRACTICES FOR SOCIAL WORK WITH REFUGEES AND IMMIGRANTS, by Miriam Potocky-Tripodi. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002, ISBN: 0-231-11583-0, 538 pp. Reviewed by Rev. Valerie Pacini, BSW, MSW, LMSW ONE NATION, UNDERPRIVILEGED: WHY AMERICAN POVERTY AFFECTS US ALL, by Mark Robert Rank. Oxford: University Press, 2004, ISBN: 0-195-10168-5, 356pp. Reviewed by Martin Pool, MSW POOR KIDS IN A RICH COUNTRY: AMERICA'S CHILDREN IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE, by Lee Rainwater and Timothy M. Smeeding. New York: Russell Sage Foundation Publications, 2003, ISBN: 0-871-54702-3, 263 pp. Reviewed by Robin Späth, PhD, MSW GLOBALIZE LIBERATION: HOW TO UPROOT THE SYSTEM AND BUILD A BETTER WORLD, edited by David Solnit. San Francisco, CA: City Light Books, 2004, ISBN: 0-872-86420-0, 448 pp. Reviewed by Ayala Cnaan Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute ROOTS FOR RADICALS: ORGANIZING FOR POWER, ACTION, AND JUSTICE, by Edward T. Chambers and Michael A. Cowan. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2003, ISBN: 0-826-41499-0,152 pp. Reviewed by Karen Gray, PhD, LISW-CP & AP VOLUNTARISM, COMMUNITY LIFE AND THE AMERICAN ETHIC, by Robert S. Ogilvie. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004, ISBN: 0-253-34423-9, 272 pp. Reviewed by Stephen P. Wernet, PhD

The Columbia Book of Later Chinese Poetry: Yüan, Ming, and Ch'ing Dynasties (1279–1911). Translated and edited by Jonathan Chaves. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986. xii, 483 pp. $10.95 (paper). - Volume 47 Issue 2

There is a lack of queer visibility in the mainstream Hollywood films because of the Production Code Administration in October 1961 that prohibited the presentation of “sexual perversion” on screen. However, the amendment of this code and gay liberation movements in 1970s, and the era of “new queer cinema” in the 1990s increased media representations of sexual minorities. Based on this context, the article critically analyzes the depiction of lesbian characters and their romance in the films The Killing of Sister George (1968) and Blue is the Warmest Color (2013). The Killing of Sister George depicts the life story of June Buckridge who loses her career and her relationship due to her sexuality, and Blue is the Warmest Color is a story about Adele, who explores her sexuality as a teenager. Whereas the former film depicts lesbianism from a promiscuous lens, the latter approaches this topic from a realistic and contemporary perspective. Thus, the films represent lesbian sexuality in unique ways that allows us to investigate the progression of queer depiction in the mainstream cinema. The similarities and differences between the queer representation in the films, as well as the way the film portrayal of lesbian romance relate to the current research literature are discussed.

Every now and then when watching a movie, we come across faces in which we recognize a significant value, because they represent some important cultural models we use to assign meaning to our experience of the world. By way of example, I will discuss the faces of the protagonists of two recent films, Abdellatif Kechiche’s La vie d’Adèle. Chapitres 1 &amp; 2 (2013; English title Blue Is the Warmest Colour) and Léonor Sérraille’s Jeune femme (2017), comparing them with the faces of the protagonists of some older movies, such as Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson’s Shrek (2001) and James Cameron’s Avatar (2009). I will argue that the way in which the faces are portrayed is similar to the narrative structure of the stories of the characters they belong to, and that the signs and narrative structures used to construct the discourses about the world in those films are at the same time similar to those of two important cultural models of what it means to be young men and women in our times. As these cultural models are different, yet interconnected, I will argue that the most meaningful faces in cinema change due to the transformation of the cultural models they derive from and that a sociosemiotic method based on a structuralist vision of culture can help identify the most culturally significant symbolic faces on screen, and elsewhere.

THE FEMALE DOUBLE: SUBJECTIVITY BETWEEN ALLEGORY, FACTICITY AND MARIVAUDAGE 'What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind'George Berkeley (1685-1753) It is certainly significant that in two subsequent years Cristian Mungiu's film, Beyond the Hills (Dupa dealuri, Romania-France-Belgium, 2012) - or BTH - and Abdellatif Kechiche's Blue Is the Warmest Colour (aka La vie d'Adèle, France-Belgium-Spain, 2013) - or BITWC - were nominated for the highest award at the Cannes film festival, which the latter did get, while Mungiu (who got the Palme D'Or in 2007 for his 4 Months, 3 weeks and 2 Days/ 4 luni, 3 saptamâni si 2 zile) had to settle for the Best Screenplay award. But even more remarkable is that the duos of principal actresses - the Romanians Cristina Flutur and Cosmina Stratan, and the French Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos - became recipients of the Best...