The representation of girls and boys in the cinéma de banlieue of the year 2000

Abstract

In the first part, this article questions the cinéma de banlieue as cinema centred on a dominant male subject (L. De Franceschi) in the face of the irruption, in the 2000s, of narratives characterised by female directors or with female protagonists, paying attention to the recurrences and novelties representing girls in this specific filmic category, through three exemplary feature films: La Squale (Philippe Genestal, 2000), Bande de filles (Céline Sciamma, 2014), Divines (Houda Benyamina, 2016). In the final part, the article focuses on the short film Guy Moquet (Demis Herenger, 2014), which, even if its protagonist is a young boy from the suburbs, is an interesting and innovative cinematic product that opens up new possibilities for the representation of banlieue in French cinema.

Keywords: banlieue movies, french cinema, gender studies, postcolonial studies, Céline Sciamma.