The powers of humour: racist and anti-Semitic clichés and prejudices put to the test by the French comedy. (Tallinn)

This intervention offers a look at the powers of humor to address concrete or symbolic forms of violence, such as racism, antisemitism and various stigmatizations that cross French society. How has cinema, and particularly comedy, constituted a place to think about differences, point out violence, and work on the imagination of society? Cinema is not only a medium of representation: it is eminently a space where a common culture is invented, likely to contribute to transforming the world. Humor and satire thus allow to highlight prejudices and clichés in order to reveal their mechanisms and move the effects, sketching the horizon of a more inclusive and generous society. During this intervention, we will follow a subjective journey through films by presenting comments on sequences to initiate this questioning.

Filmography

Rabbie Jacob (1973) de Gérard Oury

Le Père Noël est une ordure (1982) de Jean-Marie Poiré

Le Ciel, les oiseaux et… ta mère ! (1999) de Djamel Bensalah

Astérix et Obélix : Mission Cléopâtre (2002) de Alain Chabat

Tout simplement noir (2020) de Jean-Pascal Zadi et John Wax

Viens je t’emmène (2021) de Alain Guiraudie

Youssef Salem a du succès (2022) de Baya Kasmi

Duration 1h30

Biography of the speaker:

Marguerite Vappereau is a lecturer in film studies at the University of Bordeaux-Montaigne. She is a specialist in the forms of cinematic narrative, and is interested in the ways in which films are made, the links between cinema, literature and theatre, as well as the hybridizations of genres. Her research also focuses on cultural policies and forms of artistic experimentation. She is a member of the ARTES laboratory. She has co-directed several collective works, notably on the filmmakers René Allio, Artavazd Péléchian and Nico Papatakis as well as on the Mediterranean Center for Cinematographic Creation.

Link to the research laboratory sheet: https://artes.u-bordeaux-montaigne.fr/fiches/vappereau-marguerite/ https://artes.u-bordeaux-montaigne.fr/fiches/vappereau-marguerite/