Recentrement de masculinités ridicules dans les comédies québécoises : un mémoire proféministe
In Quebec, the most popular and successful film genre is without a doubt comedy. These movies are the most successful at the national Box Office and are usually appreciated by both critics and audiences alike. From a “profeminist” perspective, this thesis aims to demonstrate how representations of masculinity, or masculinities, become a means to provoke laughter in six Quebec comedies: Les Boys (Saia 1997), Québec-Montréal (Trogi 2002), Horloge biologique (Trogi 2005), Les 3’ptits cochons (Huard 2007), De père en flic (Gaudreault 2009) and De père en flic 2 (Gaudreault 2017). In these movies, men are portrayed as being self-centered, horny, competitive, immature, dumb or even “unmanly”. These masculine “flaws” are precisely what make these male characters funny, despite how problematic their behavior can become. These comedies also tend to categorize individuals based on their biological sex, which seems to be linked to their capacity to provoke laughter. On the one hand, men are flawed but still funny and thus entertaining, while women, on the other hand, represent stability and more accepted social norms, which makes them boring and less funny in comparison. The “comical” appears to be exclusive to men in these comedies. In that regard, genders get an uneven time of screen, often making women the “Others” to the male protagonists. This greater attention on men allows them to be targeted by ridicule, an inherently disciplinary state of being. Despite being constantly ridiculed for their actions, male characters are still funny, thanks to a ridicule that affects them more than it does for women. This ridicule also seems to act as a “gender police”, suggesting a male-male gaze. Men gaze upon one another to make sure male characters act in accordance with traditional masculine norms. Therefore, they try to avoid being ridiculed under the gaze of other men. The ones who can’t act accordingly see themselves becoming the target of ridicule, which becomes a means for men to reach normative configurations of masculinity. What seems paradoxical is how men are usually able to reach a “non-ridicule” masculinity. We consider this to be part of a “decentralization” followed by “recentralization” of their masculinity. Their questionable behavior, typical of traditional and normative masculinities, is thus trivialized and serves comical purposes. By doing so, these six Quebec comedies reassert traditional representations of genders without questioning them, which mostly benefits men.
Ridicule Masculinity Gender studies Comical Representation feminism Quebec comedies