Banlieue Chronicles: A ’demigrantising’, historical look at cinematic representations of the ill-famed French suburbs

TY - JOUR

T1 - Banlieue Chronicles

T2 - A ’demigrantising’, historical look at cinematic representations of the ill-famed French suburbs

AU - Jørholt, Eva

PY - 2017/11/13

Y1 - 2017/11/13

N2 - In the French and international public eye, the French ‘banlieue’, i.e. primarily the large housing estates on the outskirts of the major cities, has come to be associated with crime and violence perpetrated by ‘bad immigrant youth’. The present paper seeks to ‘demigrantise’ the discourse on the banlieues by taking a historical look at French cinema’s representation of the housing estates from their construction during the 1950s, i.e. decades before the immigrants moved in, until the early 1980s. It highlights how French feature films have linked the suburban housing estates to all kinds of trouble, not least juvenile delinquency, ever since the 1960s. While the paper does not go much into the already widely discussed banlieue cinema from the 1980s on, it does take a look at two recent films that address radicalisation, Islamist jihadism as well as violent far-right nationalism, linking both to the dehumanising life conditions in la banlieue. It ends up by returning to the ‘migrantisation’ of the social ills pervading la banlieue, arguing that the stereotypical criminalisation of youth ‘with immigration background’ may lead to actual criminal behaviour, sometimes of an extremely violent kind.

AB - In the French and international public eye, the French ‘banlieue’, i.e. primarily the large housing estates on the outskirts of the major cities, has come to be associated with crime and violence perpetrated by ‘bad immigrant youth’. The present paper seeks to ‘demigrantise’ the discourse on the banlieues by taking a historical look at French cinema’s representation of the housing estates from their construction during the 1950s, i.e. decades before the immigrants moved in, until the early 1980s. It highlights how French feature films have linked the suburban housing estates to all kinds of trouble, not least juvenile delinquency, ever since the 1960s. While the paper does not go much into the already widely discussed banlieue cinema from the 1980s on, it does take a look at two recent films that address radicalisation, Islamist jihadism as well as violent far-right nationalism, linking both to the dehumanising life conditions in la banlieue. It ends up by returning to the ‘migrantisation’ of the social ills pervading la banlieue, arguing that the stereotypical criminalisation of youth ‘with immigration background’ may lead to actual criminal behaviour, sometimes of an extremely violent kind.

KW - Faculty of Humanities

KW - Banlieue

KW - housing estates

KW - immigration

KW - juvenile delinquency

KW - radicalisation

KW - postmigration

U2 - 10.1080/17411548.2017.1376858

DO - 10.1080/17411548.2017.1376858

M3 - Journal article

SN - 1741-1548

VL - 14

SP - 249

EP - 267

JO - Studies in European Cinema

JF - Studies in European Cinema

IS - 3

ER -