The film Wild Side focuses on the relationship between three individuals: Stephany/Pierre, who is a transsexual sex worker, Djamel, an Arab who once had dreams of being a hustler and now is a sex worker too, and Mikahel, a Russian veteran now living in Paris and working in a restaurant. All three have a relationship with each other and travel to be with Stephany’s ailing mother who resides in the French countryside. The three care for her mother until she dies and they all travel back to Paris together, which is where the movie ends. The film shows quite poignantly how the boundaries of the French neoliberal nation-state are produced through validating and invalidating certain types of sexualized and radicalized labor.
The term neo-liberalism refers to liberalism in the market; ultimately a conservative view of capitalism where the rich get richer, the poor become poorer, and the idea of binary sexuality constructed in the form of the nuclear family persists. In this format those individuals that do not fit into hetero-normative gender roles are marginalized. The film introduces each of the characters by showing their naked bodies. Next, Wild Side proceeds to show each of their occupations. The normative gender roles are reinforced by society by relegating where the homosexual acts are solicited and preformed. Stephany is shown in urban settings or in a night club when soliciting or performing sexual acts, as is Djamel, even Mikahel occupies the position of a dishwasher in a restaurant. Their sexual acts and preferences force them into dirty and dark urban spaces. A man with whom Djamel has slept with when asked if he would like to continue to see him responds “My wife will be home soon, I don’t want to repeat bad habits.” Homosexual acts occupy a disturbingly dirty space not only in reality but in the “moral” consciousness of the “upstanding citizen.”
Space also functions in an interesting way in the film. Bustling urban settings are consistently contrasted with open rural spaces. In addition, the space of time comes into play as we learn about each of the characters through contacts with their family, and in Stephany’s case through flashbacks of her childhood. Although the open scenes of the rural French countryside appear to be spatially less constraining all of the main characters finds more freedom in the crowded urban setting as they are free to encompass and perform any sexual identity that they want. Stephany’s memories of being a child are always in open spaces and surrounded by no more than a couple people, however they are sad and disheartening. The scenes of her in the city, while sexually graphic, are to her much more freeing.
The film showcases the image of bodies a lot. It does a great job of aesthetically blurring the culturally established gender binary. Ultimately I find that it is about how we see, negotiate, and interpret our own bodies in the world. Each body holds a “gaze” because it is unique. It is also about not having to define ourselves as a girl or a boy, a theme introduced by the band “Hercules Love Affair” in the opening scene. This reminds me of a film Pink Narcissus. The film is a piece of post-war underground gay cinema. It was made by a man living in New York in the 1950’s inside of his apartment. While he was gay he could not share it with the outside world, and so he saved and made every aspect of this film inside of his apartment, here is a clip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdiV52ByFTI
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I find it particularly interesting how you bring time into the conversation and conceptualize it similarly to your discussion of space in this blog post. I agree with what you say about urban spaces being more freeing than the rural countryside of Stephanie’s hometown. But, it the film, it was notable that certain rural spaces were portrayed as being particularly liberating, despite the social unacceptability of the main characters' gender identities and sexualities. For example, when Mikhail runs through the forest, he is alone and seemingly without constraints. Also, at one moment in the film, the three lovers roll around gleefully and affectionately, even though they are outside of the urban space. It’s almost as if the urban is freeing because it is the only space in which they can wear their true identities, but it is also constraining in that it keeps them trapped in the cycle of sex work, of busy city life for survival, but there is no escape, for the rural would be too confining in it’s ideological constraints. There's a lot of layers to sift through, and the concept of space in this film is really complicated. Thank you for your post!
ReplyDeleteThe idea of space is really interesting, and you have got me thinking. While the urban space functions as a freeing environment it also constrains the characters to their jobs as sex workers. However, I wondered if this was yet another social stigma to sift through. I remember when Djamel relays to his brother that he finds his profession liberating. Is it only me perspective that finds it objectifying and confining? San Francisco has an individual running for city council who is a proclaimed sex worker. In a vote 41% of the San Francisco population decided that they wanted to make sex work legal. It seems to me that Djamel could have gone home or found other employment if he wanted to. It raises the question of how to “categorize” sex work.
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