%0 Journal Article
%T Rethinking Intouchables: Race and performance in contemporary France
%A Emine Fi£¿ek
%J French Cultural Studies
%@ 1740-2352
%D 2018
%R 10.1177/0957155818755607
%X The 2011 French blockbuster film Intouchables is based on a true story and depicts the friendship between Parisian Philippe, a white millionaire who is quadriplegic, and his carer Driss, a black man from the city¡¯s banlieues. Whereas the film¡¯s American reception focused on race and criticised the stereotypes imposed on the performing black body, French critics focused on class, and discussed the film¡¯s easy depiction of economic domination. This article approaches this critical disparity through the lens of performance, and argues that the film¡¯s contrasting receptions demonstrate the distinct legacies of American slavery and French colonialism in understanding contemporary iconographies of black performance. A further focus on the film¡¯s source material, as well as the filmmakers¡¯ adaptation of an Algerian character into a Senegalese one, reveals the continued role that the legacy of French colonialism plays in aesthetic representations of race and gender in contemporary France
%K black performance
%K colour-blind casting
%K France
%K Intouchables
%K race and aesthetics
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0957155818755607