Complex representations and complex theory: Les Revenants

Representation and Les Revenants 

Les Revenants is a fascinating show in the sense that so many of it's representations are so complex and challenging, while other groups, most notably POC, are omitted entirely, perhaps relegated to an allegorical level

Representation refers to how producers re-present reality, using media language, to ultimately reflect their own ideology. Representations are constructed by those in power, and are used to distort meaning and to manipulate audiences. Hall was a Marxist, and therefore believed that the media was a site of manipulation and exploitation. One excellent example of this manipulation comes through stereotypes. Hegemonically ‘abnormal’ and different people are far more easy to stereotype, while those in power, for example hegemonically dominant groups of white people, are more difficult to stereotype. This suggests an enormous imbalance of power. Les Revenants is produced by French media conglomerate Canal +, and therefore represents a powerful ideological perspective.

Stuart Hall argues that representations can shift our ideologies, and are constructed through wealthy and powerful people. Les Revs was produced by Canal +, an enormous French media conglomerate, which demonstrates a large degree of control; went into the production. The sole purpose of every media product is to make money through a manipulative system of control and production practices. Media products shape our ideology. Stuart Hall was broadly a Marxist, and was fascinated by the idea of manipulation and how we are controlled and structured by the media.

Feminist theory

Feminism refers to an ideology that seeks equality for all genders. Feminism is an important ideology, as it seeks to challenge the inequality of power that exists through unbalanced representations of gender in popular media products

1 - Liesbet Van Zoonen - feminist theory

• Gender is constructed through media language, and this demonstrates an imbalance of power
• Women have historically been used in media products as a site of spectacle for a perceived heterosexual male audience

How is gender constructed through media language in the scene where Simon meets Lena in The Lake Pub?

• Both Lena and Simon order the same drink: a beer. Hegemonically masculine, it is notable, and perhaps atypical that Lena orders one. Lena is noticeably drunk, which again is a somewhat subversive representation, and simultaneously completely conventional. There are two broad representations of teenage girls in mainstream television: of a funtime party girl, or a hopeless nerd. Lena is clearly more aligned to the former. 
• Gesture code: Simon looks around the room with an excess of energy symbolising that he is actively looking for someone. This is a highly typical representation of masculinity, as it suggests his status as protagonist
• Simon is sober, alert and active, darting through the pub. However, Lena functions as a perfect binary opposition to this agency, as she sits passively on the chair, waiting to drink more and to meet men for sexual encounters.However, Lena is also confident and assertive in her actions. 
• Lena looks at Simon confidently and seductively, never averting her gaze from him. However Simon constantly looks away from her, around the room, at anything else. The intradiegetic gaze in this sequence is highly complex, and reflects their feelings for one another. Lena is sexually interested in Simon, however, Simon has no interest, sexual or otherwise in Lena. This subverts hegemonic expectations of male/female power dynamics. It also reflects modern ideas and ideals of gender. 
• Lena’s costume codes of her flannel shirt and slightly messy hair, anchored through the MES of her beer construct a subversive representation of gender that will nevertheless be relatable to the secondary target audience of the show (younger audiences)
• Simon is wearing a well-fitting and fashionable suit, functioning not only as an hermeneutic code, but also a stereotypical masculine signifer. However, his shirt is unbuttoned, which connotes a relaxed attitude, and this also exposes his chest. Played by Pierre Perrier, Simon has a pronounced jaw, has curly long hair, is tall and has dark brooding features; he is a very hegemonically attractive and stereotypically French looking man. Clearly cast to appeal to a heterosexual female audience, Simon is subtly sexualised through his costume codes. This also subtly subverts Van Zoonen’s perspective of a heterosexual male gaze, as clearly, here a man is being sexualised

Simon and Lena meet and walk home - how is gender constructed in these sequences?

• Simon’s costume is black, which has connotations of masculinity. His costume codes are smart, sophisticated and stereotypically masculine. This representation constructs an ideological perspective that men are more socially adept and are more hierarchically powerful. It also constructs a very clear binary opposition between the sophisticated Simon and the more casual Lena
• Simon is wearing a suit not through a fashion choice, but instead it symbolically reflects his love and passion for Adelle. This is a potentially unconventional representation of masculinity as loving, passionate and vulnerable. Therefore, a highly polysemic address
• Simon’s gesture codes are confident, and he enters the pub with a blunt swagger. He is confident and powerful in this situation, which suggests that this is his local pub, and this masculine and stereotypical situation is one he is familiar with
• Lena is drinking beer and and is clearly drunk. Another man comes to her and patronisingly asks her if shes had enough. Lena not only disagrees with this, but laughs at him, which is unkind, rude and dismissive. This subverts gender norms, as Lena has rejected the protection of a man, and instead has chosen to drink more, and flirt with the handsome simon
• Lena is wearing a short red dress that emphasises her hegemonically attractive body. Given the context, it is clear that Lena has dressed to appeal to men, which supports Van Zoonen’s idea of women as spectacle. However, diegetically and within the context of the narrative, Lena has chosen to dress like this, which indicates that she is open about her sexuality. A common feature of horror films is that sexally promiscuous women die first, and the naive virgin will be the ‘last girl’ to survive to the end. Lena subverts this expectation as she does not die
• Lena chooses to go home with a random man who she finds sexually attractive. The POV tracking shot following the couple moving through the underpass has symbolic connotations of threat and violence. This is an intertextual reference to the french crime drama Irreversible, and the sense of threat is clear for the audience. However, Lena is not punished or hurt by this situation, and instead shouts an obscenity at Simon and walks home alone. 
• Lena calls Simon a ‘connard’, an obscene word that roughly translates to ‘motherfucker’. This subverts stereotypical assumptions about women, and suggests that Lena is far more assertive
• In addition to her very short dress, Lena also wears a flannel shirt and a short leather jacket. This objects have masculine symbolic connotations, and therefore constructs a mixed and complex representation of gender
• Simon is wearing an unbuttoned white shirt with no tie, which demonstrates his relaxed and metrosexual representation of gender. Additionally, this open shirt functions by sexualising simon for a heterosexual female audience. Simon is very hegemonically attractive, with his relaxed curly hair and his pronounced facial features. He represents a stereotypical french vision of male attractiveness, and will particularly appeal to French audience, while also seeming exotic and appealing to international audience
• Simon completely ignores Lena as a woman, and instead only uses her to find Adele. Simon’s representation is therefore complex and confusing. In the context of the horror and drama genres, Simon is subversive, as he contradicts expectations of men as sexually promiscuous. However, in the context of the romance genre, Simon;s intentions are clear: he has one true love 
• Simon is extremely rude throughout this sequence performatively sighing when Lena says Adele has been tutoring her. However, Simon’s rudeness is explained and contextualised when we realise just how confusing this situation is. Simon is both helpless and vulnerable, and reacts to his situation through passively reacting to the situation. By suppressing his emotions, Simon is both highly conventional and yet also subverts conventional representations of power and masculinity. 
• The representations of gender in Les Revs are therefore highly complicated 

2 - bell hooks - feminist theory

• Feminism is for everybody. The subjugation of women in media products also perpetuates the subjugation of other genders
• Feminism is political. We must reject patriarchal ideological perspectives
• Feminism is intersectional. What it means to be a woman is complex, and not just based on chromosomes or genitalia. Our experience of the world is constructed through a complex set of identities

How does the scene where Lena and Simon walk back construct complex representations of gender?

• Both Simon and Lena are white, hegemonically attractive, able-bodied and middle class (Lena is clearly upper middle class). However, there are a number of factors which complicate their representation of gender. 
• Lena is wearing a very short dress in combination wit a cropped leather work jacket. Taking a performatively female and significantly masculine costume code and combining them simultaneously presents a complex representation of gender. Furthermore, the gesture code of Lena’s walk is slouched and relaxed, which once more subverts hegemonic expectations of female beauty and grace
• Simon and Lena are the same height. Wearing Doc Martins which are stereotypically masculine, their similarity in height that they are equal
• Lena is still grieving over Camille’s death, and is drinking lots and taking potentially risky behaviour. In traditional and stereotypical horrors, the sexually promiscuous girl is usually murdered first, and the Final Girl is often a quiet virgin. Clearly, Les Revs completely subverts this 
• Lena calls Simon a ‘connard’ (motherfucker), which suggests that she is strong willed, and not hegemonically feminine

Gender situated theory and theories surrounding ethnicity

1 - Judith Butler - gender performance and gender performativity

• Our gender is performed and constructed through ritualistic acts that we complete, perhaps every day
• How performance of gender has an affect on the world around us. This is called gender performativity (“are you a lesbian?”)

2 - Paul Gilroy - postcolonial theory

While colonialism has collapsed, colonial racist ideologies are still built in to our society

Racist, prejudiced ideological perspectives are encoded in to media products and in to everyday discourse

The following statement seems particularly unproblematic. In fact, it is a fact that the vast majority of people will nod along sadly in agreement. However, situated within this statement is an enormous problem. Can you spot it? And what are the implications of this problem?

“Black people in America were segregated because of the colour of their skin”

The issue with this statement is that it assumes that the reason that black people were racially segregated in America was due to the colour of their skin, or because they are different. In actuality, black people were segregated because of racist attitudes and processes. Even innocuous statements like this place the blame on the victim for being victimised rather than on the system and the individuals carrying out the victimisation. For Gilroy, this statement is drenched in postcolonial discourse, as it subtly erases the guilt and culpability of the white people who implemented segregation. 

So what has this got to do with Les Revenants? 

Instead of engaging with postcolonial ideological discourse, the producers of Les Revenants have chosen to adopt what Manuel Alvarado refers to as a ‘symbolic annihilation’, in this case an almost total refusal to represent any people of colour. A facile reading of Les Revenants is that it functions as an allegory, with the ‘returned’ or zombies taking the symbolically situated role of immigrants in a tight knit town that simply does not want them. Such a straightforward reading not only misses the heavily class situated nuances of the representations and the utilisation of well practiced genre conventions, but it functions as an excuse as sorts for the lack of ethnic diversity. If anything, this reading serves to other ethnic minorities even more, by contextualising these groups solely as an outcast. It continues to make immigrants a problem, as opposed to the vast number of sociopolitical contexts that surround immigration itself as the problem. It also just seems unnecessarily basic, when the main themes of Les Revenants, being sex, death, grief and depression are so well explored through the careful subversion of the horror genre. 

But clearly, Les Revenants has an issue with race.