1. ASSIGNED READINGS1) Critical Essay on the Film The Class2) The Intouchables racist - French people don't think so and here's why - Slate3) Untouchable- How did a French comedy about disability beco

Contrary to what some social scientists might suggest, the departure point of this change is arguably the outburst of minority groups in the French public sphere. Demands for the representation of ethnoracial minorities in French t e l e v i s i o n a n d c i n e m a h a v e b e e n s p r i n g i n g u p a m o n g t h e s e p o p u l a t i o n s s i n c e the late 1990s. The pioneering action, which dates back to a decade ago, is perhaps best credited to Collectif Égalité, an organization founded in 1998 by Cameroon ­born novelist Calixthe Beyala. Other important figures in Col ­ lectif Égalité have included stand ­up comedian and actor Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, actor and director Jacques Martial (of Martinican descent), and Gua ­ deloupean playwright and film director Luc Saint ­Eloi.

Collectif Égalité received a great deal of press coverage when Beyala fi l e d c h a r g e s a g a i n s t t h e F r e n c h s t a t e f o r t h e “d e a r t h o f i m a g e s a n d n e g a t i v e representation of blacks in television,” thus publicly challenging the French television establishment. The group threatened civil disobedience by invit ­ ing the black population to refuse to pay the tax on television broadcasts, and to boycott the cellular phone brand commercialized by the Bouygues Company—the major shareholder of the first French Terrestrial Digital Television channel, TF1. In the same breath, they called upon African governments to eschew business contracts with the Bouygues, and they accused the Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel (the French national board that oversees broadcasting programs) of discrimination. Later, in 2002, Collectif Égalité disrupted the French movie industry’s Cérémonie des Césars (similar to the Golden Globes in the United States) with related activities.

Much to the surprise of the audience, members of the group burst on the stage and proceeded to read a protest message against the exclusion of black French people by French media. This content downloaded from 35.8.11.3 on Fri, 28 Sep 2018 20:58:41 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Gueye • The Color of Unwor thiness159 The multiple interventions of Collectif Égalité in the French public sphere triggered awareness among media producers and managers of the problematic—disproportionately low—representation of racial and ethnic groups by the audiovisual industry. In direct response, black actors began to be featured. The made­for ­TV film Fatou la malienne initiated this new wave. Other television series, including P.J.; Commissaire Moulin ; Les Cordier:

juge et flic ; Julie Lescaut ; and films such as L’un reste, l’autre part ; Prête-moi ta main; Astérix et Obélix: mission Cléopâtre; Une famille parfaite, etc., followed suit, by also featuring non ­white actors. Many recent television broadcasts and movies have continued this trend. The Class (the English translation of the original title, Entre les murs) is one of the most recent French cinematographic productions to respond to Collectif Égalité’s concern. Unlike most of the movies screened during the first decade of the twenty ­first century, The Class features an ethnically diverse cast, including a high proportion of blacks, without purporting—as did the 1986 film Black Mic Mac, for instance—to be a movie about black France or Africa. Instead, The Class is simply about France.

•  •  • T h e Cl a s s i s an adaptation of the best ­selling autobiographical novel Entre les murs, by François Bégaudau, in which a former teacher (played by Bégaudau himself ) shares his view of the school universe in which he was enmeshed. In 2008, the film won the most coveted prize in the French movie industry, the Palme d’Or, at the annual Cannes International Film Entre les murs [The Class ] (20 08), directed by Laurent Cantet This content downloaded from 35.8.11.3 on Fri, 28 Sep 2018 20:58:41 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 160Transition 102 Festival. At the February 28, 2009, Cérémonie des Césars, the second most important meeting of the French cinematographic industry, The Class received the best adaptation prize. The Class d i d n o t g a r n e r t h e “ b e s t f o r e i g n movie award,” for which it had been nominated at the Oscar (Academy Awards) ceremony, but, in the wake of its successful harvest at Cannes, the film drew a reported 1,039,096 moviegoers during its first three weeks of s c r e e n i n g i n F r a n c e . A f t e r s e v e n w e e k s o f s c r e e n i n g , o v e r 1. 5 m i l l i o n p e o p l e were reported to have seen the movie. Such a level of attraction was unex ­ pected, given that the movie departs from the usual genres that achieve the symbolic number of 1 million viewings, including popular comedy movies such as the Astérix trilog y (the last installment of which was viewed by 3 million moviegoers in its first week) or Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis [Welcome to the Sticks] (which attracted 9 million viewers in the first two weeks of projection).

The Class mixes document a r y a nd fict ion genres, a nd feat ures a ca st t hat is not racia l ly homogeneous, a s is t he nor m i n ma i nst rea m mov ies. T he fi l m thus shakes up a disturbing yet commonplace belief among audiovisual media managers, that blacks are a non ­market ­worthy population, and their presence on screen will even drive viewers away. Because in contemporary Western civiliza ­ tion popular attention is often regarded as evi­ dence of accuracy, the wide public acclaim of The Class wou ld s e em t o r e fle c t t he fi l m’s i mp or ­ tance, essentially certifying the degree of conver ­ gence between its representation and the reality as society sees it. For many viewers, The Class i s a c o m p r e h e n s i v e p o r t r a y a l o f a system and the people it incorporates. The attribution of awards by an influential and prestigious institutional body such as the jury of the Cannes International Film Festival, vested with the power to credit a creation with “legitimacy” (as Bourdieu puts it in his 1996 On Television), contributes as well to popular perceptions of the credibility of the work. But distinction is a double­edged act, for it not only legitimates the method of creation, it also validates—if not promotes, at least tacitly—a specific representation of the object/subject of the narrative. The censorship of cultural œuvres by many modern governments, including Western liberal ones, is based on this idea, that such works pur ­ port to describe the world or a portion of it—if they are not prescribing how the world should be. Cultural œuvres thus compete with official or socially shared representations of the world; they may influence people’s perceptions by convincing them of the accuracy of their own representations. This concern has been raised with regard to The Class, for example, in an internet chat in which one participant expresses opposition to the awards won by The film shakes up a disturbing yet commonplace belief among audiovisual media managers, that blacks are a non-market-worthy population, and their presence on screen will even drive viewers away. This content downloaded from 35.8.11.3 on Fri, 28 Sep 2018 20:58:41 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Gueye • The Color of Unwor thiness161 The Class, arguing that it will legitimate the behaviors of the students depicted in the film. Critics have been quick to underscore the realism of The Class, for example Kansas City Star journalist Robert Butler, who writes that “the film oozes near ­documentary realism.” Artists’ own claims to be depicting real ­ ity in their works may reinforce this connection, and the director of The Class made such a claim in his award reception speech at Cannes: The film we wanted to make had to be a reflection of the French society—multiple, many ­faceted, complex.

Somet imes also wit h frict ions t hat t he film does not t r y to cover up. To underscore its realism is not to diminish or downplay the aesthetic dimensions of The Class, nor to deny that viewers may enjoy a movie solely for its entertainment value, without subscribing to or even consciously reflecting upon its moral or ideological assumptions. But it is the film’s real ­ ism which explains why social scientists are drawn to The Class .

•  •  • D i r e c t o r l A u r e n t c A n t e t strives in The Class to depict a microcosm of society, specifically, the inside of a school. The school is—by definition and design—a smaller ­scale reproduction of the larger society in which it is embedded, in all of its heterogeneity (professional, sexual, socioeconomic, ethnoracial, etc.). These diverse and overlapping contexts produce forms of compartmentalization, which can be conveyed through rites and rituals, attitudes, the mode of occupation of the space, the forms of interaction Entre les murs [ The Class ] (20 08), directed by Laurent Cantet This content downloaded from 35.8.11.3 on Fri, 28 Sep 2018 20:58:41 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 162Transition 102 between the people within the space, etc. The Class offers an interesting illustration of this compartmentalization, as the camera covers to various (diminishing) extents, first the classroom, then the staff meeting room, and, finally, the school playground. In modern society, hierarchy and competition are theoretically based on acquired (extrinsic) characteristics and status, for example, professional degree and social class. But they can also be shaped by intrinsic character ­ istics such as race, sex, and age. As a whole, and through its different compartments, the school portrayed in The Class is a space of hierarchy and competition. As in society more generally, two of the hierarchical fac ­ tors are education level and socioeconomic class. R u l e s t h a t a r e s u p p o s e d t o p r e v a i l i n t h e c l a s s r o o m — s u c h a s d e f e r e n c e a n d the ritual distance to be preserved between students and teachers—are con ­ veyed in the French language through forms such as the one ­way vouvoiement (the formal form of “you”) or the use of Monsieur [ M r.] b y s t u d e n t s i n a d d r e s s ­ ing their teachers, versus the use of first names and tutoiement (t h e i n f o r m a l o r familiar form of “you”) by teachers in communicating with students. But these rules are not consistently observed and enforced by the teaching staff of The Class a nd even seem t o be a n odd it y, rat her t ha n t he nor m.

The first action shot in the classroom exemplifies the competition for preeminence between two different clusters of linguistic properties and skills. The distinction between the language of the youth from the HLM ( habitation à loyer modéré or housing projects) and that of classical French leads to an argument between the teacher, François Marin, the central protagonist, and his students. The lack or appropriation of certain linguistic Entre les murs [ The Class ] (2008), directed by Laurent Cantet This content downloaded from 35.8.11.3 on Fri, 28 Sep 2018 20:58:41 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Gueye • The Color of Unwor thiness163 and behavioral codes valorized by the dominant class becomes a motif of contempt and mockery between the students and their professor. So, when introduced to the French tense l’imparfait du subjonctif (the subjunctive, polite past tense) students react mockingly to their professor’s lesson. A group of the students—Boubacar, K houmba, Henriette, and Esmeralda— succeed in provoking their teacher to the point where he responds defen ­ sively. According to the students, “normal people do not talk like this, they do not use the imparfait du subjonctif .” Race and ethnicity are the most salient factors of hierarchy in The Class, which the inner world of the school staff blatantly reveals. Whereas the classroom and the school playground are undeniably heterogeneous loci, in which black, Arab, white, and Asian students cohabit and enjoy a pretty equal status, ethnoracial diversity and equality fade as the camera moves away from these places. The strict space of the school staff, which concen ­ trates the power, prestige, and authority of the institution, appears in The Class as predominantly white and non ­immigrant. The role that crystallizes prestige and/or authority—the teacher’s—is monopolized by people of Euro ­ pean descent, so much so that whiteness appears to be the embodiment and benchmark of power and worthiness. The teaching staff is exclusively white, and the highest rank within this profession, the school head, is held by a white male.

The racial homogeneity of the teaching staff is revealed near the begin ­ ning of the film, when viewers are led into the very intimate staff room as the school employees hold their first meeting of the academic year. While persons of non ­European descent make up the demographic majority in the classroom and on the playground, nearly everyone in the staff meeting room is white.

As the camera unveils the racial composition of the staff, the viewer does see two black employees, and another who appears to be of Arab descent. But the pres ­ ence of these characters is downplayed—the camera does not dwell on them—and so they become accessory or ancillary participants, which is further reinforced through their mute presence at the staff meeting. The different characters enjoying the “privilege” or “power” to offer their per­ sonal opinions are all white. As the camera pans the room, white faces fill the lens, while at the same time disclosing their names and, in most of the cases, their teaching specialization. Nine staff persons at the meeting room introduce themselves, sharing their names and the subject that they teach.

All of these teachers are white. The few non ­European ­descended employees do not speak at all during t h e fi l m e d e x c e r p t o f t h e m e e t i n g , u n d e r s c o r i n g t h e i r m a r g i n a l s t a t u s . Ev e n the most basic component of their identity, their names, is kept veiled.

“Nobody knows [their] name,” to paraphrase James Baldwin’s description of the condition of the Negro in pre ­civil rights America. The only Whiteness appears to be the embodiment and benchmark of power and worthiness. This content downloaded from 35.8.11.3 on Fri, 28 Sep 2018 20:58:41 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 164Transition 102 acknowledgement of their existence as part of the school staff is conveyed through the faint smile that relaxes the outline of their mouth, or the mobil­ i t y o f t h e i r g a z e . A n o t h e r s c e n e i n w h i c h t h e s t a t u s o f n o n­w h i t e s t a f f p e r s o n s is addressed takes place in the school playground during recess. Two black employees are perceptible in this scene, but they are, again, voiceless.

One speaks out in order to be seen and have one’s existence acknowl ­ edged. Baldwin put it indirectly when he uttered, addressing his white fellow­citizens, that “I have been here for 350 years, but you haven’t seen me,” thus implying that the silence of black Americans has prevented them from being acknowledged as equals by white Americans. Voice suggests social visibility, representing an underlying hierarchy within a specific space. By silencing the ethnic and racial minorities among the school employees, The Class intimates that they are unequals within what is sup ­ posed to be a democratic sphere; they are a dominated or marginalized group in an environment in which the dominant protagonist is the white teacher. The silence of the non ­white employees thus reflects the hierarchi ­ cal organization of the school staff.

•  •  • A s t h e c A m e r A turns from the very tiny universe of the school staff to the classroom, blacks become almost spontaneously endowed with a voice.

Representing about one ­quarter of the classroom, they enjoy a significant share of the dialogue in that space, more than any other ethnoracial group, proportionately. This striking difference, between blacks’ silence when they are in the exclusive space of the school staff and their ability to articulate themselves in the classroom, warrants examination. That blacks are given voice in the classroom may be interpreted as an acknowledgment of the existence of blacks in France, and their treatment as equals and fellows in some areas of society. However, if the black voice Entre les murs [ The Class ] (2008), directed by Laurent Cantet This content downloaded from 35.8.11.3 on Fri, 28 Sep 2018 20:58:41 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Gueye • The Color of Unwor thiness165 is to be considered evidence of blacks’ existence and the exercise of their right of expression, it is nonetheless a relatively anomic voice, more so than the other voices articulated in the classroom. The black voice does not comply with the standardized norms govern­ i n g c o m m u n i c a t i o n w i t h o t h e r s , a n d t h e s h a r ­ i n g o f o n e’s o p i n i o n i n a f r i e n d l y a n d c i v i l i z e d environment. By ignoring the basic rules of civility, the black voice situates itself at the peripheries of society, if not outside its proper bounds. The Class m a k e s c l e a r t h a t s u c h r u l e s are to be taught to the whole classroom but reveals nonetheless a subtle h i e r a r c h y o f e n d e a v o r s m a d e b y t h e t e a c h e r d e p e n d i n g u p o n t h e e t h n o r a c i a l group he is dealing with. In this classroom, the black group is the one toward which most effort is devoted, precisely because the black students are the most disruptive of the class.

Souleymane and Carl, both black males, epitomize incivility through their use of verbal—and even physical—violence in the classroom. K houmba, a black female, displays another form of disrespect: arrogance toward and contempt of the teacher and his authority. She challenges Mr. Marin’s deci ­ sions and methods, nags him, and talks back, refusing to read out loud when called upon to do so. Boubacar might be perceived as a model student: he lays on the charm, but is crafty enough to hide his mischief. Yet he, too, manages to disrupt the class. Boubacar is the first student to be asked to remove the hood of his sweater upon entering the classroom. He is characterized by Mr. Marin a s a “s p e c i a l i s t i n i n s o l e n c e” w h e n t h e c l a s s i s a s k e d t o c h a r a c t e r i z e K h o u m ­ ba’s disrespectful attitude. In fact, Souleymane’s presence in class might have gone totally unnoticed, if not for Boubacar, who regularly teases him and sets him up for mischief.

•  •  • T h e Cl a s s i s in many ways a realistic movie. From multiple perspectives, it is consistent with the economies of race in the French public sector. The marginal representation of blacks among the teaching staff, despite the significant, vocal presence of this population in the student body, reflects the racial hierarchy of French society more generally. Without having access to official data on the ethnic and racial distribution of the French teaching staff (at the different rungs of the education system), empirical observations nonetheless suggest that the representation of non ­whites is disproportion ­ ately low, relative to the racial composition of the general population. The Class thus mirrors a shared impression within French society, namely, that there is a dearth of knowledgeable or educated blacks. Two distinct By ignoring the basic rules of civility, the black voice situates itself at the peripheries of society, if not outside its proper bounds. This content downloaded from 35.8.11.3 on Fri, 28 Sep 2018 20:58:41 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 166Transition 102 narratives convey this impression: the interactions of the staff among them­ selves, and the students within the classroom. Through the disproportionately low representation of blacks in the upper echelons of the power hierarchy of the school (among the teachers) and their much higher representation at the lower end of the ladder, The Class conveys and reinforces the enduring representation of blacks as more of a physical than a skilled or educated force. At one point, a black woman employed at the school is briefly captured by the camera as she awaits in the locker room, with another female character of presumably Arab descent, the late suspension of the teachers’ staff meeting. The woman is obviously a janitor, given her manner of dress and the bucket she carries. Two black male adults, who are never seen in a classroom, are guards on the playground. This proctor team, which is a specific category of aux ­ iliaries that has been burgeoning in the last two decades throughout the French school system alongside the teaching staff, has as its main task to maintain order and discipline on the playground. These black male guards, even more so than the female ethnic minority cleaning staff, embody the very negative and dominant view of blackness in the French society. As guards, they are guarantors of security and order, but their physical bodies are the means by which they maintain the order. Their function is to protect a target from its aggressor’s harmful action by interposing themselves physi ­ cally between the two. The relegation of this function to the black male in the job market is not exclusive to the French school system, nor was it there first instituted.

A well ­known and wide ­ranging assignment of security duties to black males occurs also in retail stores, night clubs, large corporations, the urban transportation system, airports, etc. The significance of this role assignment t o b l a c k m a l e s , e s p e c i a l l y i n t h e F r e n c h e d u c a t i o n a l s y s t e m , l i e s i n i t s a b i l i t y to reveal the ambiguity of French society toward racial diversity. While France, through its republican traditions, has long taken pride in its official policies of colorblindness, French society remains, nonetheless, a theater of color ­consciousness endorsed through such racial role assignments by the state itself. The representation of racial minorities as menacing has itself led to the belief that members of their own group are more likely to possess Entre les murs [The Class ] (20 08), directed by Laurent Cantet This content downloaded from 35.8.11.3 on Fri, 28 Sep 2018 20:58:41 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Gueye • The Color of Unwor thiness167 the inherent resources needed to defuse the danger posed by other members of their group. Hence the creation of a new profession called “médiation [mediation],” of which the black school guards featured in The Class are examples. The creation of this profession harks back by analog y to the one shouldered by the colonial indigenous bourgeoisie, so aptly depicted by Frantz Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth (1961). Its agents are believed to share cultural or biological features with the inhabitants of their own envi ­ ronment that they must keep under control. This proximity makes them a perfect buffer between the racialized youth and the predominantly white establishment.

•  •  • A s t h e m o v i e focuses on the classroom, and its narrative unfolds further, the impression of a dearth of knowledgeable blacks continues to be rein ­ forced. The Class points even to the gruesome prospect of an irreversible, inevitable black underachievement within the school system. The practice of scholarly learning is presented as antagonistic to an undefined culture, shared much more by the black students than by their non ­black counter ­ parts. There is a sense in which the film denies that black people might acquire intellectual skills, since the upcoming generation of black adults— which these students are bound to become—does not crave, and in fact shuns, scholarly knowledge. To be sure, the school depicted in the movie is an institution of low academic achievement. Still, it does include a handful of successful students who, whether self ­motivated or mentored by their parents or siblings, aspire t o k n o w l e d g e . L o u i s e , a w h i t e F r e n c h g i r l , i s c o n g r a t u l a t e d b y t h e c o m m i t t e e Entre les murs [ The Class ] (20 08), directed by Laurent Cantet This content downloaded from 35.8.11.3 on Fri, 28 Sep 2018 20:58:41 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 168Transition 102 on her good grades, although she is told that she could have done better than she did and warned not to rest on her laurels. But among the success­ ful students are also representatives of ethnoracial minorities. A young Turkish­French student, Burak, aims to matriculate at the highly rated Henri IV high school in order to prepare for the national competition granting access to the grandes écoles (similar in renown to the United States’ Ivy L ea g ue). A member of another ethnic minority, Wei, a Chinese student whose mother is arrested during the course of the film for illegal immigra ­ tion, performs superlatively, as Mr. Marin indicates during a parent­teacher conference: “We are very pleased with Wei. All the professors.” Later, a teacher who has just announced to her colleagues her pregnancy expresses her hope over a toast of champagne glasses that her future child will be “as intelligent as Wei.” In contrast to these examples of good students—whether of French or ethnoracial minority descent—with regard to the black students, no hint is given that they might foresee bright futures for themselves. None of the black students is singled out for excellence in scholarly performance. Fur ­ thermore, their interest in scholarly endeavors pales in comparison to their evident interest in physical activities. Carl’s definition of himself as someone primarily interested in sports exemplifies a widely shared assumption that Entre les murs [The Class ] (2008), directed by Laurent Cantet This content downloaded from 35.8.11.3 on Fri, 28 Sep 2018 20:58:41 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Gueye • The Color of Unwor thiness169 blacks are anti­intellectual and oriented toward hedonistic pleasures. This troublemaker and uncooperative student reports that he dislikes mathemat ­ ics, loves to play soccer, to go out with girls, to hang out in his project [cité], to go out to restaurants, to get drunk, etc. School is nowhere referred to in Carl’s self ­portrait, and seems to be a foreign, unattractive, even alienating environment to him, a sort of prison—along the lines of the film’s original French language title, Entre les murs [between the walls]. The two cases of expulsion and a third case of direct reprimand by Mr.

Marin all involve black teenagers. Carl was sent to his current school after having been expelled from his previous one, most likely for misbehavior, judging by his interaction with Mr. Marin upon arriving in the classroom.

Souleymane has been sent to the school principal for his aggressive behavior toward some of his classmates and his teacher, and eventually, after his bloody reaction during Mr. Marin’s class, he is forced to leave the school.

Finally, K houmba (the direct victim of Souleymane’s act) has been previ ­ ously reprimanded by Mr. Marin and compelled to apologize to him for her unruly behavior and disrespectful attitude. Entre les murs [ The Class ] (20 08), directed by Laurent Cantet This content downloaded from 35.8.11.3 on Fri, 28 Sep 2018 20:58:41 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 170Transition 102 •  •  • th r o u g h r e v eAl i n g t h e especially negative attitude of black students toward school, and featuring black adults in low ­skilled jobs, The Class appears to confirm the popular view according to which blackness is anti ­ thetical to the quest for knowledge. In reality, some recent studies have shown that, on the contrary, educa­ tion is in fact valued by a significant proportion of black youths of African (sub­Saharan) origin, and their inter ­ est is at least equal to that of the youth of other ethnic and racial back ­ grounds. A 2005 INSEE annual survey (“ Les projets d’avenir des enfants d’immigrés”) on the highest secondary school diploma expected by French young people reveals that 85.8 percent of students of sub ­Saharan African origin intend to receive the baccalauréat (equivalent to the high school d i p l o m a i n t h e Un i t e d S t a t e s , a l b e i t a r g u a b l y m o r e d i f fi c u l t t o a c h i e v e , s i n c e students must pass a final, comprehensive exam in order to succeed). This percentage compares quite favorably with the similar intentions of 85.4 percent of students of North African descent; 82 percent of students of Portuguese extraction; 71 percent of those with Turkish origins; and 84 percent of students not of recent immigrant origins. .In the light of such data, The Class would seem to be much more a reflection of the stereotypes of French society about blacks and their effects on this group than an attempt to offer a true picture of the black population’s attitudes toward knowledge and intellectual pursuits.

The contribution of the visual media to the production of negative ste ­ reotypes and its incapacity to deconstruct or dispel them has been chal ­ lenged by black French activists. Since the late 1990s, Collectif Égalité has sought not only to increase the proportion of black characters featured on television, but also to awaken media producers to the effects that the dis ­ torted depiction of blacks may have on the black population itself. Collectif Égalité has aimed to see blacks appointed as prime­time newscasters, and cast in roles important to society, for example, those of physicians and surgeons, teachers, etc., in French television series and movies, with the aim of correctly portraying the complexity and heterogeneity of black people’s attitudes toward education in France. In the context of race ­talk that pervades French society, The Class is worthy of attention, offering, as it does, a dichotomist view of the French school microcosm, in which there are those who respect the rules of civility and sociability, and those who do not. Unfortunately, according to the film, the latter are not people of European descent. The Class also perpetuates Education is in fact valued by a significant proportion of black youths of African (sub-Saharan) origin, and their interest is at least equal to that of the youth of other ethnic and racial backgrounds. This content downloaded from 35.8.11.3 on Fri, 28 Sep 2018 20:58:41 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Gueye • The Color of Unwor thiness171 the stereotype of the problematic black male. It subtly insinuates in the viewer’s mind a portrait of the anarchic black male, who appears unable to abide by the rules and to accept responsibility.

Carl is a tough adolescent, and his brother (whom we learn about but do not see in the movie) seems to be no better. The latter is serving time in jail—for reasons left to the viewer to fathom—and Carl appears to be walking down the same path. No information is provided about Carl’s father and mother—does he have parents? What kinds of lives do they lead? Bour ­ dieu’s theory of reproduction would suggest that the anomic behavior of the two youths may flow directly from dysfunctions within their family.

Souleymane’s father is clearly mentioned, but he is simply portrayed as an authoritarian male figure whose involvement in the education and the future of his children is primarily negative. He appears as the punisher whose unique answer to his children’s mischief is to remand them to Mali, his country of origin. He is not an affectionate father sympathetic to the psychological and social troubles that his children may experience. In this regard, The Class thus mirrors the depiction of a black African family by historian Hélène Carrère d’Encausse in the wake of the 2005 riots in the Paris suburbs: the polygamist household in which the irresponsible and hyperfertile father abides by his African village way of life, multiplying the number of children that he unleashes in the streets and lets live according to their own rules . Entre les murs [ The Class ] (20 08), directed by Laurent Cantet This content downloaded from 35.8.11.3 on Fri, 28 Sep 2018 20:58:41 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms