{"id":62338,"date":"2021-11-22T17:57:24","date_gmt":"2021-11-22T17:57:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=62338"},"modified":"2021-11-22T21:46:11","modified_gmt":"2021-11-22T21:46:11","slug":"62338","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=62338","title":{"rendered":"Mixed-Race Melodrama: M\u00e9tisse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mixed-Race Melodrama: M\u00e9tisse<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Dr Z\u00e9lie Asava: Rethinking Representation<\/a>
\n2020-12-14<\/p>\n

Z\u00e9lie Asava<\/strong><\/a>, Academic. Speaker. Author.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

M\u00e9tisse<\/em><\/a> [Mixed-Race] (Kassovitz<\/a>, France, 1993) adheres to the ethics of beur<\/em><\/a> cinema by reimagining the French nuclear family<\/a> as black, mixed and white through its central characters. As a pioneering work it is flawed but, by directly engaging with issues of race, class, gender and sexuality, the film challenges the culturally embedded assumptions of its socio-historic moment and space.<\/p>\n

Like Kassovitz\u2019s 1995 film La Haine<\/em><\/a>, M\u00e9tisse<\/em> visualises a France infused with Americana<\/a> \u2013 various scenes feature fast food chains, basketball, drug dealing, graffiti, and hip hop. This cross-cultural focus belies the mixed history of the French nation, and locates the film in a society and industry profoundly changed by the post-WWII<\/a> period of American commercial domination.[1] M\u00e9tisse\u2019s<\/em> mise en sc\u00e8ne<\/em><\/a> evades traditional Parisian tropes \u2013 key landmarks are absent and there is little philosophising or romance (only its troublesome consequences). The protagonists are immature anti-heroes \u2013 rather than effortlessly chic intellectuals \u2013 and embody a mixed-race France. As such, they stand as a contrast to contemporaneous cinema culture \u2013 e.g. Am\u00e9lie<\/em><\/a> (Jeunet<\/a>, France, 2001) or Les Apprentis<\/em><\/a> [The Apprentices] (Salvadori<\/a>, France, 1995) \u2013 where Paris<\/a> is visualised through a white lens. M\u00e9tisse<\/em> is a conscious attempt to rewrite the city as its ordinary inhabitants know it; to show characters driven by tangible problems rather than ennui<\/em>…<\/p>\n