Today’s discussion about “Ma Vie En Rose” in class brought up several interesting points. One of the most profound aspects of the film came when Zoe, Ludo’s sister, told him that he was a boy because he had XY chromosomes. I thought Zoe’s explanation of what was a “boy” directly related to an example in Anne Fausto-Sterling’s “Dueling Dualisms” in the story of Maria Patiño. A member of the Spanish Olympic team, Patiño was tested for her chromosomal sex for the 1988 Olympics. Instead of two X chromosomes, Patiño´s test resulted in XY chromosomes. According to the standards of the Olympic committee, Patiño was a male, even though she had lived her entire life as a female.
Patiño’s story and “Ma Vie en Rose” prove that there is more to sex and gender than tests—or strict societal expectations—can show. This week, we have discussed how sex and gender are two different things, although there exists great variety within each category. Our social understandings of what makes someone a “man” or a “woman” are changing also and I think that “Ma Vie en Rose” had a good portrayal of one family’s struggle to understand how to find one’s sexual identity. I am still perplexed by the nature vs. nurture aspect of how a child is raised affecting their sexuality and sexual identity. Such questions of sexual identity and sexuality are still difficult to answer even with recent studies on the topics.
Concerning another topic that we brought up last week, female genital mutilation, I read an article on the front homepage of the New York Times website about female genital mutilation in
Here is the link to the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/20/world/middleeast/20girls.html?ex=1347940800&en=f8bd9b6fbf5cf6eb&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
1 comment:
Your distinction between sexual identity and sexual orientation is a good one, and I think it's one that is often overlooked. While it may seem obvious that sexual identity merely involves what gender one believes themselves to be and sexual orientation involves what gender one finds themselves sexually attracted to, not everyone understands this contrast. Indeed, if popular culture did not automatically associate sexual identity with sexuality, I do not believe this movie would have been rated R. There are no instances of sexual encounter (other than a vague locker room scene and some womens' dresses being zipped), no violence, and no language associated with an R rating. Critic Alan A. Stone of the Boston Review wrote, "Yet in a world that genuinely prized and did not just tolerate difference, this film would have been made by Disney. It marks a new, truthful departure in cinematic understanding of...gender identity in children..." While America might congratulate itself on "celebrating diversity," in reality, we give some of the most stringent movie ratings on any film daring to challenge the norm.
If you want to read more about the reaction to the R rating of this movie, you can visit http://www.thirdtablet.com/WhyIsMaVieEnRoseRatedR/
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