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Chaos And Sexism

The film, Chaos, directed by Coline Serreau is set in France, following Helene, a wealthy parisian woman and Malika (Noemie), a young prostitute. There are themes throughout the movie of both sexism and abuse of varying degrees. These themes are spread across different races and social classes through different parts of France. France today also has a fierce sense of nationalism, so much so that they only offer assimilation for immigrants. Any immigrants who come to France must learn French and have an identity as a French person.

This is to such an extent that it is unknown quite how many immigrants are in France, as the government simply classifies them as French citizens. This paper explores the complexities between French nationalism and racism, as well as overcoming sexism within different social and racial backgrounds. From the very beginning of the film, sexism is apparent. When Malika is running from her pimp and Paul immediately locks the doors to the car, even though Helene resists, he is taking the leadership role. When Helene feels the need to do the right thing and help Malika, she is overpowered by and submissive to her husband Paul.

Helene wants to call an ambulance to help Malika, but Paul doesn’t allow her to because he doesn’t want the inconvenience of having to speak to the cops. Paul immediately gets rid of any evidence tying them to the scene, meanwhile it is apparent that Helene is still worried and wants to help, but feels unable to because her husband told her she is not allowed to help. This theme continues throughout the film after Helene had been seeing Malika in secret and Paul finds out and becomes enraged. Helene sees how incapable Paul is of normal tasks around the house and gains power from that.

There is a certain expectation for Paul to have a handle on his wife, and he feels emasculated when he doesn’t know where she is. Eventually Helene stands up to her oppressor and frees herself, this theme persists with other women throughout the movie. Malika faced a very troubled past, and when she tried to escape her father, who was trying to marry her off, she ended up becoming forced on heroin and into prostitution. Touki, her now pimp, and his men took advantage of her situation, then beat, raped and drugged her into submission. Noemie tried to escape, but eventually came back, as she was forced to do.

She then decided to try and outsmart her oppressors so that she could escape and go back to her family. She quit heroin, then conned a man into giving her all of his money. She then tried to make off with it to start a better life with her sister. Unfortunately, Touki and his men found out that she got money from the man and demanded she sign it over to them. At this point, Malika decided she would rather be dead than give up the money. This is when she unknowingly encounters Helene, then has to fight for her life after being beaten almost to death.

After she has healed enough, she creates a plan to stop Touki and the others from hurting anyone else. She sets them up and has them taken in by cops, freeing herself and the other girls. Zora, Malika’s younger sister is also about to be married off by their father. Zora is treated horribly at home, constantly being ordered around by the men of the house, including her younger brothers. When Malika tries to spare her sister the fate of an arranged marriage, Zora does not believe that their father would ever try to sell either of them off.

Malika claims that this is just “how it is” with the men in her family and in the rest of Algeria. Zora goes home and refuses a task her brothers give her for the first time in her life. They respond very angrily, yelling at her and even going so far as to slap her. Her father intervenes to stop the fighting, only because he can’t sell her if her face isn’t perfect. At this point, Zora realizes that her sister is right, and she needs to escape from her father and brothers. She flees her father much the same way Malika did, except she turns to her sister, who protects her, instead of having to figure things out alone.

Another very important part of French culture is the nationalistic spirit. Immigrants in France are expected to assimilate and act like French citizens, but they are still seen as the “other” in French culture. For decades “France has been the most stubbornly deaf to the growing wants of the linguistic and cultural minority populations living in the nation,” (Levobics 126). Many natural born French citizens do not want minorities in their country because they believe it is a danger to French culture.

Because of this, the French government had long ignored the needs of these people in favor of the natural born French. Under the Gaullist regime, France brought in immigrants because they needed them to work in factories and on farms, but they also expected them to assimilate and become French, but still be seen as the “other. ”(139) Immigrants were once welcomed into France, but they are still seen as inferior, even as naturalized citizens, because of racist stereotypes. Edward Said talks in a publication about orientalism and the struggles of being of East Asian descent and living in Egypt.

Said says “Orientals lived in their world, ‘we’ lived in ours,” a troubling and divisive statement (44). This is similar to the current conflict in France addressing Muslims in the French communities, where many Muslims are seen as “other. ” Many of the French also believe that muslims shouldn’t be allowed in their country because of their customs that are believed to be ‘oppressive’ to women. Just as some Egyptians believed, “Orientals are inveterate liars, they are ‘lethargic and suspicious,’ and in everything oppose the clarity, directness and nobility of the Anglo-Saxon race,” (Said 39).

In a similar way, some French people believe that Muslims are ruining their country and their nationalistic ideals. They believe that the way immigrants from other religions and different countries treat their women will ruin French culture. It is apparent in the movie, Chaos, that both the French (represented by Paul) and the immigrants (Zora and Malika’s family) have underlying sexist ideals. This sexism spans across many different social classes in the movie, with Paul being wealthy, and with Malika is used when she is dirt poor.

Although the sexism is shown as more blatantly abusive in the cases of Malika and Zora, it still exists coming from someone who is wealthy, white, and French. Also mentioned in Said’s article is a quote from Cromer saying “the real future of Egypt… lies not in the direction of a narrow nationalism, which will only embrace native Egyptians… but rather that of a large cosmopolitanism,” (37). This is something the French need to embrace with their immigrant population and accept that France as a country is changing and needs to be accepting of the immigrants they welcomed into the country.

As Levobics states in his paper, “Cultures are about freedom, options, and learning new ways of living,” something that seems to be lost on the resistant French (11). However, it is also stated in his paper that “The ‘eradication of cultural differences’ is an old tradition in France, and not an easy one to eliminate in its turn,” (130). This essentially states that racism toward immigrants is built into French nationalism, and will be a very challenging obstacle to overcome.

Sexism and racism are still prevalent throughout French culture and nationalism today, these issues span all social, economic, national and racial backgrounds. The movie, Chaos, shows three independent women who feel empowered to fight back or escape from their oppressors. Sexism, however, is still an issue in France that the government is trying to quell by limiting the ‘oppressive nature’ of immigrants. This attitude, held by many French people, has gone so far as to create a ban on the hijab. Many French people have a strong sense of nationalism and do not want the French identity to change by the addition of immigrants.

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