my last paper for my first bachelors: Who is Bu Savé?
Hooks, de Lauretis and Gaines:
Who is Bu Savé?
The Girl(2000) is a film that is trying to appeal to those who do not appreciate Hollywood cinema. With a noir sensibility, the film tells the of the romance of two women who are looking for nothing but finid eachother. The main character—simply named ‘the Narrator’ in the credits (played by Agathe De La Boulaye)—plays this noir’s lonely protagonist against the vivacious ‘the Girl’, a night club singer in Paris. A relationship grows as the narrator converts this woman who doesn’t usually take women to bed, into someone who is refusing the attention of her male lovers. Conflict arises as male jealously comes into the picture and the Narrator turns to her pervious lover/friend for help. There is a complex play here that fits into traditional noir, but also blatantly displays a butch/femme lesbian romance.
In the post-World War II world there was an influx of American films into the European market. Within this group of films were those that we think of today as film noir. Named by the French critics that experienced them all at once, this genre—or style, as there is no consensus—is one that has heavily influenced American cinema. Films that are reminiscent of noir are termed neo noir. Taking camera angles, editing style, camera movements, and some plots elements these neo noir productions often are comical parodies of noir or are using this past genre for a specific reason. In Sande Zeig’s 2000 production, The Girl, the choice of using noir elements brings in another layer to the message she is sending with her film.
As a lesbian drama the main intention of the film is to show a normalized lesbian relationship, with an attempt to avoid using the male gaze in the position of the camera. This is partially accomplished through the neo noir style. In traditional noir there is often a triangle relationship that defines most of the action of the film. The three characters that are in the points of the triangle are the hero, the femme fatale and the femme fatale’s husband or lover. This triangle can be described in terms of Freud's Oedipal complex with the hero as the son, the femme fatale as the mother and the husband/lover as the father, as described by Joan Copjec in her article “The Phenomenal Nonphenomenal” (SoN, 193-194). In the start of a classic noir the husband/lover controls the femme fatale and the hero enters on the scene and attracted to this dangerous woman, desires to save her. So here is the competition between the son and the father for the attention of the mother. What makes this more complicated is that the mother, the femme fatale, does not actually desire either of these men, she only desires power. Ironically this is what she represents to them, power or rather the phallus as Lacan defines it. Therefore the film is shot from the son’s perspective and through the male gaze of this character, as Mulvey defines in “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (FFT, 63).
In The Girl there are these three roles and they are fulfilled by characters that fit with the standard film noir. The hero—named only ‘the Narrator’ in the credits—is a loner who is separate from the world, damaged, as the painter who cannot find inspiration. She narrates the story and dominates the film. The audience identifies from her perspective. We see the femme fatale through her desire for her. The femme fatale is the Girl. She is sexy, has no past and is selfish. Her concern is for her own career and having power over the men that she sleeps with. She is the object of desire for the Narrator, the husband /lover and the audience. The husband/lover is simply named ‘the Man’ in the credits; he is the owner of the night club where the Girl works, he has control over both the Narrator and the Girl as he is a man of wealth and means. His jealously is what drives the action of the film. For what I would like to focus on the character that is most significant is Bu Savé (played by Sandra Nkake). This black lesbian woman fits into the noir formula as the safe, non-sexed woman, who’s role is to protect the hero and guide him away from the temptations of the femme fatale—whether the femme fatale is simply a woman or the phallus as it can be both sex and power.
In the casting of the film we have a traditionally beautiful delicate woman playing the Girl. The Narrator is also a beautiful woman, but with her hair and clothing she is signaled to be butch. This gives the relationship a different dynamic than if it was simply two lesbians in a relationship. Because the Girl is so feminine her exploration into lesbianism is all the more taboo to the straight world; added to this is the butch/femme dynamic that is not entirely positive in the lesbian world, as de Lauretis writes about in her article. Their relationship is obviously one that is not acceptable, especially to ‘the Man’. Counter to this is the connection between the Narrator and Bu Savé. Not only do they both encounter each other in the lesbian world, at a coffee shop, they are both butch and do not venture into the straight world. Their relationship is commutative, they are both artists—Bu Savé writes music—and their sexual relationship is not displayed on screen, therefore not what their relationship is about. They are equals, while the Girl and the Narrator are trying to be something that is just not true, to act as a straight couple as the Girl desires. The Girl is fascinated by the Narrator as a “beautiful young man” and as a new protector once her boss tells her the she can no longer see the Narrator, not as someone she plans on keeping around.
Bu Savé exemplifies de Lauretis’ quote from Audre Lorde’s Zami, “To be Black, female, gay, and out of the closet in a white environment”…”was to be considered by many Black lesbians to be simply suicide. And if you were fool enough to do it, you’d better come on so tough that nobody messed with you” (de Lauretis, 148). Bu Savé is the woman with access to a gun; in the Narrator and Bu Savé’s brawl on the street, Bu Savé is quick to join in the attack and is very aggressive as she uses her belt as a weapon. She is a strong character that also fulfills the butch stereotype. The fact that she is a black woman in this role fits with what Gains says about the Black woman in film, “[she] is either all woman tinted black, or mostly black and scarcely woman” (Gaines, 297). Bu Savé’s butch look detracts from her status as a woman. In comparison with the Girl, the Narrator’s other lover, Bu Savé is hardly a woman. She is relegated to being the aggressive support for the Narrator, not the sexy counterpart to the Girl. Bu Savé is only woman when the Narrator is drawing her, she is only desirable through the Narrator’s eyes at that moment. Looking to another Black role, Gaines description of Tracy in Mahogany is very similar to Bu Savé (299). Bu Savé plays the same supportive role. She is there for the Narrator’s successful relationship, not her own. She steps aside for the Narrator’s happiness, Bu Savé’s own happiness is not part of her consideration in the film. Recasting this film with a white woman playing the same butch role I do not believe would have the same affect. The fact that she is a black woman exaggerates all the characteristics of the role.
The intention of the authors of this film were to break boundaries and force the audience to look at a traditional cinematic formula with a lesbian relationship replacing a normally straight relationship. Challenging stereotypes and what is acceptable in film takes place with the explicit sex scenes and in the choice of a butch/femme relationship. With the casting of Bu Savé as a black woman their could have been a much greater stretch of ideas but The Girl falls short. Bell Hooks describes the limitations of feminist criticism as it almost always ignores race (FFT, 312-319). This binary of criticism—male/female, gay/straight— holds true even in this film that is trying to break down traditional Hollywood cinema. Bu Savé’s role could have potentially been one that also developed into something beyond a standard balck-female role, but she is limited to a supportive function that does not include her as part of the desirable lesbians of the film. In her few scenes of pre- or post-sex there is nothing to bring the audience into the Narrator’s desire for this beautiful woman. Only the Girl is shown entirely in the nude—clearly a signal that she is where our eye should go—and Bu Savé is there only to make the Narrator/Girl relationship work. Hooks’ ambivalence towards black representations, “our bodies and being were there to serve—to enhance an maintain white womanhood as the the object of the phallocentric gaze” (FFT, 310), is supported as this is the only reason for Bu Savé in the film.
The Girl, with noir camera angles, colors and characters, displays a lesbian relationship that is blatant in its non apologetic characters and sexual explicit relationships. It fulfills the expectations of what a neo noir should be, even ending with betrayal and death. The efforts of the filmmakers I don’t believe was entirely met. The relationship on screen is hopeless, as a noir fling should be, but it also does not truly stretch any boundaries. The typical role of Bu Savé limits what the film as a whole can do, and brings into question much of what is being said about lesbian cinema. The perspective of Gaines, Hooks, and de Lauretis does not bode well for The Girl.
Sources:
•Thornham, Sue, ed. Feminist Film Theory. Washington Square, New York: New York University Press, 1999. pg, 58-69, 293-320.
•de Lauretis, Teresa. The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. “Sexual Indifference and Lesbian Representation”. New York, London: Routledge, 1988. pg. 141-158.
•Copjec, Joan, ed. Shades of Noir. London, New York: Verso, 1993. pg, 167-197.
•The Girl. Dir. Sande Zeig. Perfs. Claire Keim, Agathe De La Boulaye. DVD, 2000.
Who is Bu Savé?
The Girl(2000) is a film that is trying to appeal to those who do not appreciate Hollywood cinema. With a noir sensibility, the film tells the of the romance of two women who are looking for nothing but finid eachother. The main character—simply named ‘the Narrator’ in the credits (played by Agathe De La Boulaye)—plays this noir’s lonely protagonist against the vivacious ‘the Girl’, a night club singer in Paris. A relationship grows as the narrator converts this woman who doesn’t usually take women to bed, into someone who is refusing the attention of her male lovers. Conflict arises as male jealously comes into the picture and the Narrator turns to her pervious lover/friend for help. There is a complex play here that fits into traditional noir, but also blatantly displays a butch/femme lesbian romance.
In the post-World War II world there was an influx of American films into the European market. Within this group of films were those that we think of today as film noir. Named by the French critics that experienced them all at once, this genre—or style, as there is no consensus—is one that has heavily influenced American cinema. Films that are reminiscent of noir are termed neo noir. Taking camera angles, editing style, camera movements, and some plots elements these neo noir productions often are comical parodies of noir or are using this past genre for a specific reason. In Sande Zeig’s 2000 production, The Girl, the choice of using noir elements brings in another layer to the message she is sending with her film.
As a lesbian drama the main intention of the film is to show a normalized lesbian relationship, with an attempt to avoid using the male gaze in the position of the camera. This is partially accomplished through the neo noir style. In traditional noir there is often a triangle relationship that defines most of the action of the film. The three characters that are in the points of the triangle are the hero, the femme fatale and the femme fatale’s husband or lover. This triangle can be described in terms of Freud's Oedipal complex with the hero as the son, the femme fatale as the mother and the husband/lover as the father, as described by Joan Copjec in her article “The Phenomenal Nonphenomenal” (SoN, 193-194). In the start of a classic noir the husband/lover controls the femme fatale and the hero enters on the scene and attracted to this dangerous woman, desires to save her. So here is the competition between the son and the father for the attention of the mother. What makes this more complicated is that the mother, the femme fatale, does not actually desire either of these men, she only desires power. Ironically this is what she represents to them, power or rather the phallus as Lacan defines it. Therefore the film is shot from the son’s perspective and through the male gaze of this character, as Mulvey defines in “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (FFT, 63).
In The Girl there are these three roles and they are fulfilled by characters that fit with the standard film noir. The hero—named only ‘the Narrator’ in the credits—is a loner who is separate from the world, damaged, as the painter who cannot find inspiration. She narrates the story and dominates the film. The audience identifies from her perspective. We see the femme fatale through her desire for her. The femme fatale is the Girl. She is sexy, has no past and is selfish. Her concern is for her own career and having power over the men that she sleeps with. She is the object of desire for the Narrator, the husband /lover and the audience. The husband/lover is simply named ‘the Man’ in the credits; he is the owner of the night club where the Girl works, he has control over both the Narrator and the Girl as he is a man of wealth and means. His jealously is what drives the action of the film. For what I would like to focus on the character that is most significant is Bu Savé (played by Sandra Nkake). This black lesbian woman fits into the noir formula as the safe, non-sexed woman, who’s role is to protect the hero and guide him away from the temptations of the femme fatale—whether the femme fatale is simply a woman or the phallus as it can be both sex and power.
In the casting of the film we have a traditionally beautiful delicate woman playing the Girl. The Narrator is also a beautiful woman, but with her hair and clothing she is signaled to be butch. This gives the relationship a different dynamic than if it was simply two lesbians in a relationship. Because the Girl is so feminine her exploration into lesbianism is all the more taboo to the straight world; added to this is the butch/femme dynamic that is not entirely positive in the lesbian world, as de Lauretis writes about in her article. Their relationship is obviously one that is not acceptable, especially to ‘the Man’. Counter to this is the connection between the Narrator and Bu Savé. Not only do they both encounter each other in the lesbian world, at a coffee shop, they are both butch and do not venture into the straight world. Their relationship is commutative, they are both artists—Bu Savé writes music—and their sexual relationship is not displayed on screen, therefore not what their relationship is about. They are equals, while the Girl and the Narrator are trying to be something that is just not true, to act as a straight couple as the Girl desires. The Girl is fascinated by the Narrator as a “beautiful young man” and as a new protector once her boss tells her the she can no longer see the Narrator, not as someone she plans on keeping around.
Bu Savé exemplifies de Lauretis’ quote from Audre Lorde’s Zami, “To be Black, female, gay, and out of the closet in a white environment”…”was to be considered by many Black lesbians to be simply suicide. And if you were fool enough to do it, you’d better come on so tough that nobody messed with you” (de Lauretis, 148). Bu Savé is the woman with access to a gun; in the Narrator and Bu Savé’s brawl on the street, Bu Savé is quick to join in the attack and is very aggressive as she uses her belt as a weapon. She is a strong character that also fulfills the butch stereotype. The fact that she is a black woman in this role fits with what Gains says about the Black woman in film, “[she] is either all woman tinted black, or mostly black and scarcely woman” (Gaines, 297). Bu Savé’s butch look detracts from her status as a woman. In comparison with the Girl, the Narrator’s other lover, Bu Savé is hardly a woman. She is relegated to being the aggressive support for the Narrator, not the sexy counterpart to the Girl. Bu Savé is only woman when the Narrator is drawing her, she is only desirable through the Narrator’s eyes at that moment. Looking to another Black role, Gaines description of Tracy in Mahogany is very similar to Bu Savé (299). Bu Savé plays the same supportive role. She is there for the Narrator’s successful relationship, not her own. She steps aside for the Narrator’s happiness, Bu Savé’s own happiness is not part of her consideration in the film. Recasting this film with a white woman playing the same butch role I do not believe would have the same affect. The fact that she is a black woman exaggerates all the characteristics of the role.
The intention of the authors of this film were to break boundaries and force the audience to look at a traditional cinematic formula with a lesbian relationship replacing a normally straight relationship. Challenging stereotypes and what is acceptable in film takes place with the explicit sex scenes and in the choice of a butch/femme relationship. With the casting of Bu Savé as a black woman their could have been a much greater stretch of ideas but The Girl falls short. Bell Hooks describes the limitations of feminist criticism as it almost always ignores race (FFT, 312-319). This binary of criticism—male/female, gay/straight— holds true even in this film that is trying to break down traditional Hollywood cinema. Bu Savé’s role could have potentially been one that also developed into something beyond a standard balck-female role, but she is limited to a supportive function that does not include her as part of the desirable lesbians of the film. In her few scenes of pre- or post-sex there is nothing to bring the audience into the Narrator’s desire for this beautiful woman. Only the Girl is shown entirely in the nude—clearly a signal that she is where our eye should go—and Bu Savé is there only to make the Narrator/Girl relationship work. Hooks’ ambivalence towards black representations, “our bodies and being were there to serve—to enhance an maintain white womanhood as the the object of the phallocentric gaze” (FFT, 310), is supported as this is the only reason for Bu Savé in the film.
The Girl, with noir camera angles, colors and characters, displays a lesbian relationship that is blatant in its non apologetic characters and sexual explicit relationships. It fulfills the expectations of what a neo noir should be, even ending with betrayal and death. The efforts of the filmmakers I don’t believe was entirely met. The relationship on screen is hopeless, as a noir fling should be, but it also does not truly stretch any boundaries. The typical role of Bu Savé limits what the film as a whole can do, and brings into question much of what is being said about lesbian cinema. The perspective of Gaines, Hooks, and de Lauretis does not bode well for The Girl.
Sources:
•Thornham, Sue, ed. Feminist Film Theory. Washington Square, New York: New York University Press, 1999. pg, 58-69, 293-320.
•de Lauretis, Teresa. The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. “Sexual Indifference and Lesbian Representation”. New York, London: Routledge, 1988. pg. 141-158.
•Copjec, Joan, ed. Shades of Noir. London, New York: Verso, 1993. pg, 167-197.
•The Girl. Dir. Sande Zeig. Perfs. Claire Keim, Agathe De La Boulaye. DVD, 2000.
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