“No hands, no chocolate”: Gender, race, disability and class in the film Intouchables

Abstract

Background: The interplay of culture and disability is an interesting topic to explore, and by focusing on different cultural productions it is possible to understand societies’ values at different times in history. Films can be categorized as cultural productions that express values in time and space, and can potentially influence public opinion. This article is about the French film Intouchables, which premiered in 2011 and was well received and nominated for several awards. The film is based on a true story about a Parisian aristocrat, Philippe, who is a quadriplegic millionaire, and Driss, his personal assistant, an immigrant from Senegal who has no formal training or knowledge of how disabled people should be assisted and supported in their daily lives. The film was directed by Oliver Nakache and Éric Toledano, and although the film was very popular in Europe, including Iceland, it received mixed reviews from film critics. It was critiqued for underestimating the seriousness of living with quadriplegia and for being borderline racist (O‘Sullivan, 2012). However, disability is a common theme in film and TV, and in fact the disability studies scholar Tobin Sieber (2008) claims that there is a strong link between playing the role of a disabled character and receiving Oscar nominations. Common representations of disability in film and media are characters who are violent, dependent on others or incompetent, and it is possible that audiences transfer these ideas to disabled people living in their community (Saffran, 2000). Films and media commonly use disability stereotypes portraying disabled people in negative ways, and similar practices can be found in relation to other minority groups. Tolenado and Nakache (2012) announced publicly that their main goal was to make a feel-good, buddy film, but they also wanted to stay true to the original story. Since the film became so widely popular in Iceland, and since disability in film has received little attention in the Icelandic research literature, this film is an interesting topic to explore in the Icelandic context. Purpose and methods: The aim of this article is to explore the representation of gender, disability, race and class in the French film Intouchables. There is no one method to study or analyze film, and beside the field of film studies the topic of film or cinema has been popular in many different academic fields, such as folkloristics, disability studies, and philosophy. In this article we categorize film as a cultural production rather than analysing the genre or basing our analysis on auteur theory. The film was analyzed by employing a historical analysis of discourse (Foucault, 1972; Jóhannesson, 2006), which has the potential to identify the interplay of contradicting ideas at a certain time and place (Jóhannesson, 2006). By employing historical analysis of discourse we examined how ideas of gender, race, class and disability are represented. We also used the feminist theory of intersectionality, which is an interdisciplinary method to analyse the multiple dimensions of social relations in the oppression of subordinate groups in society. Results: On the surface, Intouchables is a simple buddy film, but by employing historical analysis of discourse and theories of intersectionality it is possible to identify social issues of inequality and privilege. The findings suggest that the film portrays the intersection of class, race, and disability. Classism was the center of many of the film’s carnevalesque jokes, although it was often difficult to determine if lower class or upper class should be interpreted as “better”, “worse”, “upper” or “lower”. Class and disability, for example, were found to intersect in the theme of disabled or unemployed pensioners, considered lazy and possibly cheating the welfare system. Such negative ideas about disabled and unemployed people as burdens on society have even been linked to hate discourse and hate crime. Ableism is a form of social prejudice against disabled people, where it is implied that it is “normal” and always better to be non-disabled. The ableism in the film is interconnected with sexism and racism. Ableist, sexist and racist perspectives are iterated with stereotypes, such as the dependent and asexual disabled man and the black, hyper-sexual non-disabled man. The film is filled with contradictions, including how the men can simultaneously experience inequality and privilege based on what categories of oppression we focus on. We do not intend to evaluate the quality of the film but instead focus on how it simultaneously reinforces and weakens social hegemony depending on the analytical lenses applied by the audience.