The second film in my analysis of
The Films of Julia Ducournau is the genre-bending body horror thriller, Titane.
Ducournau’s sophomore feature seems to crystalize and extend both the themes
and the visuals she is interested in as a storyteller into a specified shape.
The gendering of women and the patriarchal attempt to tame them, aging
masculinity and the sense of identity loss that accompanies it, are present in
this Palm d’Or winning wild wretched tale whose production was halted by the COVID
Lockdown. This brief paper is a deconstruction of Ducournau’s second film as a
cultural product; questioning the historical parallels of the anti-trans
legislation at the time, with the films own complicated take on Trans issues
and gender messaging; while examining the production and the overall craft of
the film with the filmmaker’s desire to have this film be received as a story
about unconditional love and acceptance.
PLOT
After
young Alexia survives a car accident as a child, she develops mechaphilia and a
penchant for murder. After committing a series of murders and a “one-night
stand” with a Cadillac, Alexia flees. She alters her appearance to look like a
lost boy and assumes his identity and is reunited with his father, Vincent.
This ruse proves difficult to sustain as Alexia finds that she is rapidly progressing
in pregnancy with an amalgamated mutant of her erotic dalliance with a car. As
her new relationships are tested, both Vincent and Alexia must trust one another
and decide if the lies between them matter less than the familial love they
found between them.
HISTORICAL
CONTEXT
Both Titane, and Ducournau as
a writer/director, were met with great acclaim while simultaneously bogged down
by the challenges of an industry shut down due to a global pandemic.
Additionally, a particular reading of the film correlates to trans
discrimination bills and anti-trans rhetoric going on at the center of 2021
when the film was in production. This section intends to analyze these events
and the perceived effect on the film. By placing it in a particular historical
context, a richer understanding of the film as a cultural product can be
achieved.
Production
One of the points of inception for Titane’s
plot came to director Julia Ducournau in a dream. She would have a recurring
nightmare about giving birth to engine parts. This recursion caused Ducournau
to formulate the film’s ending and work backward from there. In the process of
reverse engineering a story from the surreality of vehicular excision from the
body, Ducournau took on an existential approach thinking about the metaphor of transformations
and metamorphoses to get to the next stage of hybridization. Ducournau’s dream
laid the foundation for this duality that she eventually would want to explore
further: the warmth of giving birth and bringing life with the contrast of the
metal representing lifelessness; cold and dark.
In 2018, as the script was beginning
to take shape, Ducournau had dinner with actor Vincent Lindon and mentioned to
him that she had a part she was writing for him. In interviews, Lindon recalls
not knowing if this was a pleasantry or an actual offer. Vincent waited for
secondary confirmation before committing and then waited another two years
before getting the script.
Titane marks the feature film debut of Agathe Rousselle (Alexia) who got a message on
Instagram that she should audition for the film’s main protagonist. The film
was so technical that there could be no space for improvisation. The role was also
physically demanding, with both nudity, action and the willingness to
masculinely present as a guy. These demands
that would have shaken a seasoned actor let alone a novice. And yet, Rousselle
took it in stride and great care in crafting the role.
Titane was set to begin production in
April 2020. Because of the lockdown orders that spanned the globe, the film
began filming in September of that year, following all of the protocols and
procedures of film production at a time when there were no vaccines on the horizon.
Luckily, much of the film is centralized around the interplay between two
characters, and they do not interact with too many more people outside of
themselves. While it is easy to frame Titane as “a pandemic film” because it:
·
Was
shot in a single or multiple isolated locations.
·
Involved
few actors
·
Blocked
scenes with three or fewer people interacting at a time
·
Had
a limited crew
·
Included
camera techniques to try to make up for the production difficulties
By looking
deeper, the text of Titane also speaks to its position as “a pandemic
film” because the themes of the film speak to the fragility of the human body
and the thin veneer of health and wellness which we learned through the
pandemic we hold in a tenuous slipping grasp. Even though this film is not
about a global pandemic, the body horror aspects of the film remind us of the same
vulnerability during COVID.
A
consistent influence and paragogic mentor for Ducournau has always been David
Cronenberg. While there are homages to his early body horror work in Raw,
Titane draws heavily from Cronenberg’s much maligned film Crash, a
relatively obscure movie about a group of car accident survivors that
start to develop mechaphilia and a kink for car crashes. The way that
Cronenberg shoots both the human body and the body of the car, echoes in Titane’s
opening as the camera moves from underneath the car, looking at its different
parts, before we go inside the cabin. This detail is mirrored by the camera as
it follows Alexia through the showroom at the beginning of the film, revealing
both Alexia and the glossy polish of engine parts of a car being sold. Alexia
and the car begin as separate beings, but throughout the film, they start to
merge. In Cronenberg’s Crash, that merging happens at the onset of the
vehicular accidents caused during coitus; the survivors growing more machine-like
with every collision. Titane takes this merging to be metaphysical, as
the amalgamation is triggered by vehicular coitus and represented by the child
of that union.
As
the film was released on the festival circuit it garnered early buzz given its
provocative premise and enigmatically shocking sequences. As the film was set to
premiere at Cannes, it ended up taking the
prestigious Palm d’Or.
Infamously, this revelation was spoiled early by Spike Lee, who mistook first
prize for first place, confusing Titane to be the runner up, rather than
the winner. Regardless of the flub, Ducournau’s spirits did not dampen as she
was, at the time, only the second woman to win the
award and the first to win it alone.
In that, Ducournau and Titane break both genre boundaries and glass
ceilings in equal measure. Yet, the win was not unanimous, many on the Jury
finding the film too avant-garde, often leaning into the anti-horror bias that
is common in prestigious film festivals (Ben-hadj, 2021). The genre being once again marred by derogatory
labels of shlocky, popcorn, pedestrian, campy etc. Ironically, the rise and
embrace of “elevated horror” as a concept redraws the boundaries of class
culture within the genre. There are certain stories, because of its material or
the auteur status of its director, that have been accepted by the elite class
at regulating agencies, like festivals, which instead of balancing the genre
scales, put their finger on it; making sure to gate keep horror, keeping it in
its place. Ducournau winning the Palm d’Or, especially with a film as wild as Titane,
is hopefully a turning point in allowing the eclectic messiness often found
in horror to permeate the prestigious parts of the industry, causing a shift in
both how horror is perceived, and the talent of those who create it.
The LGBTQAI Community in Crisis
Sexuality outside of the white
heteronormative cisgendered ableist capitalist patriarchy has always been
marginalized (hooks 2000). The problem arises not in their existence, which has
been a constant state in human civilizations (and documented in non-human
animal species), but in a ridged latticework that is overlayed atop the
naturally created universal spectrum of human diversity and identity. The
mechanisms of control that create this caustically hostile system has its roots
in historical institutional structures and cultural power dynamics that make it
difficult to unearth, and whenever there is an attempt, those roots entangle
themselves; knotting into a convoluted network that sinks deep into psyches,
that is then lightly reinforced at dinner tables or behind closed doors, in
court room decisions, in jury boxes, and store “etiquette”. It is hiding in
plain sight, (not so) difficult to detect, more likely ignored, until those discriminatory
branches decide to sprout.
Most marginalized groups that have
been othered by this wealthy white supremacist heteronormative ageist cisgendered
ableist patriarchy have gone through periods of oppression with glimpses of
social justice. Whether by race, gender, social class, or disability, all have
experienced some amounts of recurrent and worsening oppression with tiny
moments of equality and equity through civil rights and social justice
movements;[1] only to have it possibly
ripped away.
The 2000’s in the US, long after Stonewall, the scapegoating of LGBTQAI for the
AIDS epidemic, and
the consistency of media tropes that liked to murder
gays and lesbians to punish them for their sexuality, non-heterosexual individuals
started to be more prominently present in media portrayals and with their
sexuality not being their defining characteristic. By 2010, homonormativity was
becoming a consistent relationship structure in many media portrayals. Similarly,
In the US Court System, cases were heard and laws changed that brought the
LGBTQAI community more equity: Lawrence v. Texas in 2003 struct down
sodomy laws (of which 29 states and 5 territories at the time had already
repealed their laws), 2011 saw the repeal of the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy
for non-heterosexuals in the military, in 2015, with Obergfell v Hodges,
the Supreme Court ruled that states must license and recognize same sex
marriage in the entire country by ruling that Section three of the Defense of
Marriage Act was considered unconstitutional. The most recent civil rights decision
by the Supreme Court for the LGBTQAI community came in 2020 with Bostock v.
Clayton where the court held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
which protects people from workplace discrimination, applied to sexual
orientation and gender identity.
In France at the time, gay marriage
was legal, same sex adoption was possible, and lesbians had access to
reproductive technology. The country had relatively strong discrimination
protections, school support, and hate crime legislation. However, since 2018,
there has been a rise in attacks and rhetoric against Trans individuals. Similarly, just as Titane was entering
the festival circuit, the newest version of The Equity Act was
introduced to US Congress. This bill had the intention of prohibiting
discrimination based on sex, gender identity and sexual orientation. The bill
passed the House by a narrow margin and went to the Senate; but could not
overcome the filibuster. This loss then became a Harbinger of policies and ordinances
that have sprouted up to put a strangle hold onto the equity by orientation. In
the US, 79 measures and bills were
introduced in 2021 alone that restricted or revoked Trans rights or access to trans care; including
medical care and a ban on sports participation.
This
culminated at the beginning of 2025 when the second Trump administration handed
down executive orders that were exclusively transphobic.
On
January 20, 2025, Upon returning to office, Donald Trump labeled Trans people “Gender Identity Extremism” and therefore Determined:
·
“Sex”
shall refer to an immutable biological classification as either male or female
all people should be classified through that lens
·
The
term sex should be used in place of gender
·
Gender
identity is a falsehood and disconnected from reality
·
Ended
federal funding for any K-12 schools that promotes “gender ideology” (loosely defined)
·
Defunding
and removal of Diversity Equity and Inclusion Courses
·
Denying
access to Transition medication and Procedures
This cultural shift of Anti-LGBTQAI
rhetoric and policies has begun to cascade over the shores of each country. Both
Argentina and Hungry have followed the United States lead in becoming more
conservative; banning femicide, blaming feminism, banning Pride, and using
facial recognition software to round up those that attended. According to
Brechenmacher (2025), this is a part of a new global wave of ANTI-LGBTQAI policies.
But unlike previous movements, this new heteronormative resistance is organized
and transnational. Social media and the internet allow for the mobilization and
unification of desperate and fringe groups, amplifying alienated attitudes and minority
opinions. Still, the Pew Research Center shows that over the last few
decades, attitudes and behaviors have become more exclusive for trans people.
Since 2022, more inclusive attitudes have soured into alignment with the
policies that Donald Trump has enacted when he took office for his second term.
Brechenmacher
(2025) states:
“[These] new oppositional movements treat
gender equality, feminism, and LGBTQ rights as existential threats to cultural
and national integrity linked to globalization, Western liberalism, and the
erosion of traditional authority. This shared worldview allows diverse
actors—from right-wing populists in Europe to nationalist autocrats in Russia
and China to conservative religious groups in Latin America and Africa—to
coalesce around a common enemy. (3)”
Like many
backlashes to progressive social movements, much of the resistance to these
progressive policies is a resistance to change and the acquisition of power by
women and non-heterosexual groups.
In the US, the reasoning is twofold: Firstly,
a lot of these conservative [read as narrow minded] beliefs do not have the
strength of personal convictions. The only way that their policies can exist is
if there is no opposition. They crumble at the first sight of criticism. Sure,
they may deflect, produce scapegoats and be in denial, but the sanctity of
their ideology cannot exist in a multicultural system that accepts and allows
the fruition of equity and equality for all. The happiness, wellness and
success of the LGBTQAI +community is abhorrent to the acutely religious
conservatives that derive a sense of self from their God’s wrathful righteousness
against those that He’d deem wicked. And, if the LGBTQAI+ community is allowed
to be happy, healthy, successful and prosperous, that challenges their
worldview and their religious identity to the core. This challenge is so
visceral that they feel personally insulted by it. Therefore, the dehumanization
of nonbinary, trans and everyone else on the gender and sexuality spectrum becomes
a moral crusade. Conservatives often obfuscate their intentions by publicly
stating that they are protecting children or girls.[2] Secondarily, considering that the gay hook-up app
“Grindr” crashed due to overuse in Milwaukee during the Republican National
Convention giving credence
to the notion that many Religious conservative republicans are gay, but are
closeted, illuminates their ire for the LGBTQAI+ community even further. Under
this framing, the openness and joy with which non closeted members of the
gender and sexuality spectrum live their lives as fully themselves, fosters a
sense of resentment in the closeted conservative Christians. They are angry
that they feel they cannot be as free as them. Thus, it’s the religious and
sexual fragility of (typically) conservative Christian men which motivates
anti-trans policies and the eradication of anything that isn’t within the
gender binary.
SOCIAL
ANALYSIS
As
a self-identified Feminist, most of Ducournau’s work intertwines themes of
gender, sexuality, and representation. In Titane she cloaks those themes
in the embodiment of a character that is difficult to empathize with. Without a
sympathetic protagonist, it is difficult for the audience to invest in that
character’s story. Thus, as Ducournau emphasizes a lot of feminist and gender
related concepts presented through characters that audiences aren’t invested in,
it causes those gender and feminist ideologies to be misinterpreted as the
source of the character’s toxic traits (Bogutskaya 2023). By delivering these
gendered themes in an unlikable package, Ducournau stretches the audience’s cinematic
latitude of acceptance, challenging them not to project positive personality
traits onto characters that embrace, embody, or express socio-political
ideologies that they might agree with, while simultaneously punishing those
characters for their rejection of patriarchal structure.
The gendering and punishment of a
subversive woman
The basic gender socialization of girls and women into
a white heterosexist capitalist ableist patriarchy of the United States revolves
around the value of their body and its importance to men [collectively, structurally].
The bifurcated message that girls learn, and women often internalize, is that they
need to be an object of male sexual adulation and a vessel for the next
generation through the process of reproduction. Succinctly, it is important for
girls and women to perform duties we have associated with being a wife and
mother in this misogynistic patriarchy.
Historically,
these messages have shifted slightly. Our misogynistic culture has had to get
creative to make sure that it consistently continues to produce women who will
be support staff for men. Initially, we framed sex and sexuality through the
lens of morality. Men were the only ones with the moral fortitude to engage in
conversations of sex or be able to look at pornography without corruption.
Meanwhile, any female interest in the subject and she was brandished a harlot. These
are part of the sexual scripts of the patriarchy to limit female sexual agency
and maintain a sense of control. “Good girls” were innocent, pure, virginal;
while “bad girls” were the ones who were interested in sex or engaged in any
kind of sexual behavior. Firstly, the paternalistic infantilism that was/is
used when referring to women speaks to this overbearing misogyny that permeates
the culture. Secondly, this Madonna/whore complex became the framing of women’s
caged sexuality for generations, only to be unearthed by the Second wave Feminist movement’s push for contraception and the
promotion of guilt free sex for women. The patriarchy had to pivot. The Madonna/Whore
messaging changed from being either/or, to both. Essentially, girls and women
need to exude both innocence and oversexed debauchery simultaneously, the only
delineation being between public vs. private spaces. To the front facing
public, women are to be the innocent, obedient moralist. But in private, they
are encouraged to be sexually adventurous. To use a descriptive popular
parlance: “A lady in the streets, but a freak in the sheets.” Granted, there
may be a subculture or two (based in specific religious interpretations) that
still engage in the Madonna/whore script in the traditional way: creating “purity
tests” and making fathers be the gatekeepers of their daughters’ virginity, objectively
giving it to a man he sees as worthy on their wedding day (Valenti 2009). But
it is the amalgamated redux of the system that is currently the most prevalent gatekeeper
of women’s sexuality.
Whether
women are either supposed to be innocent completely, or only in the presence of
others to project patriarchal passivity, it is still control through the lack
of female agency. Women in either the original or “New Coke” version of the Madonna/whore
complex are still engaging in sex for the purpose and pleasure of men. Sex,
especially in the patriarchy is framed as a masculine event. This contributes to the orgasm gap between cisgendered
men and women and
frames women’s sexuality as relational and performative (Harvey, Jones and
Copulsky 2023). This is the misogynistic framing of women’s sexuality as
emotional labor for men, which women are compensated for through the power and
autonomy they glean from their patriarchal bargain.
Women
who perform these “wifely duties” of lover, then mother, can extract the
illusion of agency, autonomy and independence they desire. This is what I deem
as “Have-it-all Sexism.”
As I explain in a previous essay from 2013:
"Have it all"
Sexism is a term that refers to a new type of sexist female representation in
the media that requires female characters that are shown to have careers (with
varying degrees of power, agency and autonomy), or who are being portrayed as
physically strong (or strong willed), must also identify (or in some cases
learn to identify) with traditional female gender norms and scripts. The message is that it is OK for girls to
have agency and social power in our society so long as they don't forget that
they also must be wives and mothers (i.e. sex objects and reproductive
vessels.) This maintains the value of women to be in their body, and their
representation as full and complete human beings is a distant second.”
In a
misogynistic patriarchy, the only acceptable way to achieve independence and identity
outside of the gendered roles women have been shackled to, is to fulfill those
roles first and if there is any time, money, energy and effort left, then women
can have a personality. A woman’s individuality and uniqueness is an ancillary addition
that is not a part of their systemic patriarchal function. Any portrayal
outside of this is summarily punished.
Entertainment media is one mechanism
by which women are both presented and policed. Socialized gender messages are taught
and the consequences of not following or rejecting those messages are
illustrated through a variety of stories. Here, the Madonna/whore binary (both
original recipe and “extra misogyny”) is used as both paragon and criteria for
punishment against those who resist. According
to Anna Bogutskaya (2023) this misogyny limits female representation, framing
any character that isn’t promoting the patriarchy as “unlikeable”. They may be
painted as too angry, too direct, too mean, too sexual, too disorganized, too
unhinged, too aloof, or just too odd. These criticisms of character traits are
then slyly and erroneously connected to left-leaning political ideologies and
notions of liberation to reinforce patriarchal dominance. Characters that spout clear feminist rhetoric
about agency and equal treatment are deemed “crazy”.
““Crazy” is often the
default insult for women who exist in ways that upset the status quo; women who
have been hurt, women who are tired and overwhelmed, and women who suffer from
any form of mental illness are lumped into this one big bag of “crazy””(Bogutskava 2023: 226).
These
portrayals are commodifications of women by the patriarchy to sell to men as:
·
Cautionary
tales to create and maintain the heterosexist family unit fidelity
·
Sexually
desirable; a respite from the masculinely insecure emotional vacuum the
Patriarchy traps men in.
·
A
project they can fix.
Because the politics and ideals of feminism are patriarchally misinterpreted through the lens of unlikability, women’s independence, autonomy and individuality are perceived as a threat. Therefore, there is this misogynistic motivation in fiction and reality to take a single, successful, career-focused independent women and shackle them to the gender roles assigned to them as a form of punishment. (Bates 2020). While there have been several celebrities that this can be applied to; in fiction, this punishment is illustrated through a series of pregnancy tropes.
There are several media tropes that
revolve around pregnancy, and all of them are designed to punish women. The most
common trope is the mystical pregnancy. This is where a female character is
either supernaturally inseminated by gods, spirits, or other mystical beings,
or conceives naturally only to find that the pregnancy is otherworldly. Often
this pregnancy is used as punishment for women’s transgressive independence.
But through their loss of agency and experiencing the terror and humiliation of
this natural body horror, their behavior can be corrected.[3] In Titane, Alexia is an unlikeable
character and therefore she gets punished with a mystical pregnancy that eventually
kills her.
The audience first meets Alexia
(Agathe Rousselle) when she is a child, just before she is in a car accident
with her father. It is heavily implied, though never stated, that the injuries
that she sustained in the wreck motivated her psychopathy. When we meet up with
her as an adult after the title sequence, we bear witness to her performative
sexuality and a penchant for murder (the news reports indicating that she is a
serial killer). These traits seemingly would place Alexia into the classical
trope of “The Psycho” (Bogutskava 2023). Her violence is not generated by revenge
or retribution for an assault (sexual or otherwise) and there is no inherent empathy
we are supposed to have for the character. She is also charming, intelligent
and easily offended (all traits of psychosis). According to Bogutskava (2023)
this offense has a polymorphic trigger that is different for each media “Psycho”.
For Hannibal Lecter it was rudeness. For Amy Dunne it was mediocrity. For
Alexia, it is her vulnerability. Anytime that she feels like she gets close to
any real emotion, she lashes out. Yet, the violence she commits is not without
explanation. It can easily be traced back to the trauma of the car accident and
the titanium plate in her head that is overly sensitive, and the source of her
emotional detachment. So, it is difficult to say if Alexia fits Bogutskava’s
(2023) trope of “The Psycho” completely, as she does not seem to fit all the
criteria while embodying the impulsive messiness of the caricature. Still,
Ducournau can’t help but punish Alexia with a mystical pregnancy, brought on by
the mechaphilia Alexia developed after the accident.
Mechaphilia is an intense sexual
arousal or attraction to machines. Alexia’s particular fixation is on cars. Therefore,
the source of the mystical pregnancy punishment trope is her sex with a car. In an elegantly lit, cinematically graceful,
albeit protracted sequence; the audience witnesses a naked Alexia get inside a Cadillac
and proceed to have sex with the car. It should be noted that Alexia, even
though she freely enters the car, is a passive participant in the sexual
encounter; wrapping the seat belts around her forearms as the car uses its hydraulics
to create the motion of penetrative sex. Thankfully, we are spared any actual pornographic
images of mechaphilic penetration, though Ducournau makes sure that we see the consequences
of the act (bruising on Alexia’s thighs and a motor oil like secretion from her
vagina that simulates car semen). This is the first level of punishment.
Sexual humiliation of women is a popular form
of mainstream pornography that depicts women being punched, slapped, spanked,
made to cry, gag and brutalized through violent and extreme penetration;
usually coupled with humiliating language designed to dehumanize and “other”
the female participants (Lust 2010, Bates 2020). While there is legitimacy in a
humiliation kink, the kind of humiliation described above is not about and does
not involve consent nor depicting equal power for the pleasure of all parties.
Instead, it is a way for men to re-establish dominance through the violent
sexual humiliation of women, a toxically masculine reformation of male identity.
In Titane, that toxic masculinity is represented by the Cadillac, and the
ensuing violence brought upon Alexia through the sexual act is her penance for
existing outside of the bounds of societal gender roles.
The second punishment is the mystical pregnancy itself. Ducournau revels in depicting the “womb horror” castigation of pregnancy. Given the mechaphillic conception, it is quickly apparent that Alexia is carrying a half human hybrid. The camera seems to revel in Alexia’s pain as it fixates on her transforming body: the growth of her titanium womb, the tearing of her skin, her lactation of oil and the agony she goes through trying to hide it from others. At the end of the film, Alexia is absolved for all of her “unlikeable” anti-masculine transgressions by succumbing to a violent death while giving birth; making sure that the final emotion she felt before death was an unending void of fear. Through this lens, by using such tropes, regardless of her intention, Ducournau contributes to the misogyny of patriarchy through the punishment of women that fail to follow or contribute to traditional societal gender norms.
The Humiliation of Aging Masculinity
The first act of violence
that patriarchy demands of males is not violence towards women. Instead,
patriarchy demands of all males that they engage in acts of psychic self-mutilation.,
that they kill off the emotional parts of themselves (bell hooks 2004: 66)
As girls and women are socialized to
be wives and mothers, boys are socialized to be providers and protectors. They
are socialized as rational, stoically emotionless and singularly focused beings.
This masculinity is extremely fragile. A mannerism, improper word choice or drink
selection, and the masculine gender identity built on sexual objectification of
women, violence and emotional and physical durability, crumbles to dust. Its
form and reformation need to be established within every social situation. Therefore,
men are effectively chasing after masculinity, their own form of patriarchal
cage unique to men (Walker 2020)[4]. Much of this masculinity
is wrapped up in validation and valorizing of youthfulness. The desirable
traits of masculinity are always framed through the lens of those in the symbolic
springtime of age. Rarely do we get an image of aged masculinity that isn’t a
preternatural, Uber masculine hyperbole of the already established traits of
strength and power. We do not get an acceptable form of aged masculinity that
isn’t melancholically pining for their lost virility, either in strength or
sexual prowess. Aging for men, then becomes its own form of humiliation. The
slow desiccation of abilities and mental acuity until their value and worth is
atomized.
Ducournau epitomizes the relationship between age and masculinity through Vincent’s narrative journey. An aging firefighter, Vincent struggles with his weaning strength and compounding PTSD brought on by decades of combating fire, and the grief over his lost son. His fear and loss of identity results in him becoming overbearingly authoritarian with other firefighters under his command (comparing himself to God and Adrian/Alexia as Jesus) and contributes to developing an addiction to steroids. Throughout the film, Vincent’s physical and emotional shortcomings are laid bare. It is through these failures that we understand and recognize why he is willing to actively delude himself into believing that Alexia is his long-lost son Adrien. With the loss of his perceived masculinity, and his failure to get it back through synthetic means, the only way for him to reclaim any semblance of masculinity is by holding onto his ability to be a protective father. Therefore, regardless of Alexia’s identity, the lie allows him to piece together the bits of his former masculinity that have withered away by age and inability. This is why he both lashes out whenever that lie is questioned, culminating in his line to Alexia: “I do not care who you are. To me, you will always be my son.” At the end of the film, that paternalistic purpose is refocused and realized as he commits to the protection of Alexia’s hybrid baby; by simply stating “I’m here.”
A Trans story of acceptance or a Symbolically
anti-trans narrative?
“Horror is a genre
that encapsulated a lot of social anxieties. A lot of the things that we as a
society are stressed about or uncertain about or titillated and tantalized by
the transgressiveness of. Sexuality and gender nonconformity are common themes
in horror. What are the images we are producing of these communities and what
stereotypes are we using?” (Dr. Jaime Hartless on “Episode
18: Queer Representations of Horror” of The Sociologist’s Dojo Podcast
Horror has always been a bifurcated
place for the LGBTQAI+ community. It has reproduced harmful stereotypes and
subverted them, reinforced violence against the marginalized group and provided
thoughtful critiques about the harm it causes. Horror has perpetuated and subverted
all expectations. “Positive portrayals coexist with more potentially regressive
ones that continue to associate queerness with evil.” (Hartless 2021: 5). Trans
people especially have been underrepresented in horror and are often
misrepresented when they are. From Sleepaway Camp, Psycho and Dress
to Kill, to The Crying Game and The Silence of the Lambs trans
people have historically portrayed the villain; but more nefariously, their villainous
motivations were often framed as being derived from their gender and sexual
“otherness”. However, as we have taken the slowest of baby steps toward a
culture of trans acceptance (from which our current
administration is taking strides away from), recently, more positive trans visibility has been
seen. Even in the horror genre, there are several trans actors that are redefining their presence in the
Horror landscape onscreen.
Thus, as horror seems to have a history of being an exploitative carnival where
cisgendered people can gawk, laugh and be terrified of the existence of those
outside the binary, simultaneously, it has been at the forefront of trans
representation, the conventions of the horror genre allowing for gender bending
and boundary breaking behavior that can culminate into acceptance.
A lot has been written about Titane as a trans narrative that swings the pendulum between elation and revulsion. The film has been heralded by
some as a wonderful transmasc love story of acceptance that provides a hopeful
allegory for those still terrified to come out to their parents. While those
more critical of the film see the inclusion of the trans identity as a plot device,
the protagonist using gender deceit as a cover to avoid accountability. The
copout is to say that this is a perfect example of why art is subjective; that
it can mean anything to everyone, even the opposite. Yet sociologically it can
be understood that two things can exist at the same time. These conflicting pro/Anti
trans ideas run parallel with each other throughout the film. Ducournau gives
just enough to allow for a dual reading of the film that both meets and
subverts expectations. There are linear through lines that audience members can
follow that will present a person coming into their own sense of self through a
transmasc transformation from which the character finds unconditional love and
acceptance for the first time. Conversely, there is also a complete throughline
of a serial killer who is using a trans narrative as a method of escape and
their frustration with having to hide their identity. However, there is also
considerable evidence that suggests that Ducournau, understanding the way that
the film could be interpreted, decided to first present the Trans identity as
false, only becoming real through the love and acceptance Vincint gives to
Alexia. In this sense, Alexia can’t fully embrace and accept their identity as
Adrien until they felt safe to do so. Vincint gave them that space. The new
identity is solidified when Adrien calls Vincint “Papa”. While this is undercut
during the birthing scene where Adrien deadnames himself and re-identifies as
Alexia, it still points to the social construction of sexuality and the gender
fluidity of sexuality on screen.
The Redeeming Power of
Unconditional Love
Through the process of traditional,
binary focused gender socialization, love is an emotion that is taught to be
embraced by girls and women and barred by boys and men. Boys and men are taught
to relinquish their love at adulthood and to calcify their emotional selves. Girls
and women are taught to embrace love, as both their primary criteria when searching
for a partner, and the abundant emotional commodity they sell through
relationships. This again, is the way that a heterosexist capitalist patriarchy
conditions cisgendered men and women into gender specific servitude; with
neither being satisfied.
Within a general social order, love
and affection are valorized through domestication. Sexuality gets refined into
sublimation of love and the social order constructs it as only acceptable in
private spaces, relegating and controlling sexual expression and legitimating
it through love (Marcuse 1966). This focus on love is then translated to labor,
and we then learn to love and enjoy work (often time as a representation of our
identity) which helps to maintain social institutions and the order of a civilization
(Marcuse 1966). Love then, especially for men, is weaponized and used to shore
up the economy. Men start to see love as a type of satisfaction from work and
the economic success that comes with it. bell hooks (2001) recognizes this as greed,
a lust for money. This lust for money overtakes the love of others, as we are
willing to put our lives in precarious positions, even those that are life
threatening, for money. We cannot even escape the love of money when we seek
love through partnerships. Capitalism has permeated every aspect of our
culture, and so, when we are looking for companionship, we often view it through
a capitalistic lens.
According to hooks (2001)
After the accident, Alexia, through
the function of her trauma, brain damage or both, looks at relationships as
transactional. Faced with new experiences, she is unclear of how to act or how
she is to respond. She does not know what she likes or what she wants. This
lack of understanding of her body and her own desires causes her to lash out
violently rather than deal with any kind of emotional complexity. Each sexual
encounter is followed by violent murder. Yet, as she alters her identity to
escape, she faces Vincent who gives her unconditional love and support
regardless of her behavior. This is anathematic to Alexia’s transactional
understanding, and she lashes out. Afterword, Vincent is still there, with
comfort, stern safety, and sometimes tough love.
When asked in interviews about the
core message of the film, Ducournau consistently stated that it was
unconditional love. The love between two broken people that heals them. Indeed,
love has the power to change everything. The way that we see the past and live
with it in a new way (hooks 2001). Alexia and Vincent find in each other a
healing communion of love. Alexia finds the love and acceptance she has never
experienced. Vincent finds a chance to end his heartache and fulfill his
paternalistic drive. First to Alexia in the persona of Adrien, and then to her
baby. All they needed to receive was
love, and that is the only thing Vincent had left to give.
CONCLUSION
Julia Ducournau’s second film is not for the faint of
heart, though heart it does have, deep in its viscera. Behind all of the serial
killing mechaphillic feminine punishing, and possibly transphobic muddled
messages, beats a story about acceptance and compassion. While all the themes
that it presents aren’t equally fleshed out or serviced in equal measure, the
amalgamated space of body and horror in which it lives allows the film to run
on vibes, fuel and chrome. Thereby complicating our relationship with gender,
ourselves and each other.
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[1]
And thanks to the Warren Court- The 8 year Supreme Court make up responsible
for the most landmark pieces of legislation
[2] This
is double speak because, like mental Illness and Gun Control, these
conservative groups only seem to care about girls and children when they are
using it to fight against something else.
[3] Meta
textually, the misogyny of Joss Whedon can be measured by his use of the
mystical pregnancy trope twice on the character of Cordiella Chase in the Buffy spin off show Angel twice after Chase’s
actor Charisma Carpenter rejected his
sexual advances.
[4] Through the establishment and reinforcement of stoicism at a very young age, boys are emotionally stunted causing arrested development and a reliance on women for their emotion work. Women, particularly sexual partners, then become the primary source of men fulfillment of intimacy. Unfortunately, because sex and intimacy are inextricably linked for men there is a fundamental misunderstanding that takes place. Women being socialized to have an easier accessibility of diverse emotions like empathy and compassion; see them as separate from sexual attraction whereas men do not. Therefore, when women provide emotional support for men based on basic human decency, men misinterpret this as emotional intimacy and a sign of attraction (Walker 2020). This again maintains a reliance of men on women to meet all their emotional needs