Disrupting Representations of Bodies, Intimacies, and Desire: A Coming-of-Age Story

Abstract

This research aims to enter the discourse on gaze structures in cinema by investigating the interventions that five contemporary films have made into how specific identities have been represented in dominant coming-of-age films. The films selected for this research are three French films, namely: Tomboy (2011), Girlhood (2014), and Portrait of Lady on Fire (2019) all of which were directed by Céline Sciamma; and two Southern African films, namely, Inxeba (2017) by John Trengove and Moffie (2019) by Oliver Hermanus. My preliminary investigation of the films suggests that there are different iterations of identities, intimacies, and desire within the films that are influenced by the tensions that the characters undergo during the coming-of-age process. I will employ feminist film theory, and its diversity of branches and approaches, to analyse and understand the power structures of heteropatriarchal societies on traditional gendered and sexed representations of bodies, intimacies, and desire in the coming-of-age process. This research will yield a comparative investigation into, and across, specifically selected contemporary films from France and South Africa. I suggest that by using coming-of-age films, the larger project will make a crucial contribution to the global multi-layered experience and knowledge of the gaze in film and cinema studies.