Du monstre à la femme, du livre à l'écran : La question féministe dans Poor Things d'Alasdair Gray et son adaptation cinématographique réalisée par Yórgos Lánthimos

Details

Supervisors

Sábado Novau, Marta

Faculty

Faculté de philosophie, arts et lettres

Degree label

Master [120] en langues et lettres françaises et romanes, orientation générale, à finalité approfondie

Abstract

enIn 2023, the movie Poor Thigs, directed by Yórgos Lánthimos, left a lasting impression by presenting the extraordinary story of Bella, a “poor thing” brought back to life by the doctor Godwin Baxter who, from the body of a young pregnant woman who had committed suicide, transplanted her the brain of her unborn child. The movie tells how this child-woman, monstrous because of her “birth”, evolves and grows socially, spiritually but also sexually in a society inspired by the Victorian era and its puritanical values. This movie, which is actually an adaptation from the novel of the same name, published in 1992 by the Scottish writer Alasdair Gray, was promoted as a deep feminist work, with a strong protagonist, who stands against the other male characters claiming her freedom. However, some people consider it as a fake feminist movie, a product of feminism-washing, which hides an intense male gaze focused on one of the greatest male fantasies: a woman sexually mature with the pure mind of a child. Through the analysis of Alasdair Gray’s Poor Things and its film adaptation directed by Yórgos Lánthimos, this thesis aims to investigate how the paradoxical situation of the main character, Bella Baxter, caught between processes of emancipation and domination, allows us to question the feminist scope of these works.