Revision: Les Revenants representation - Judith Butler gender performativity

 Judith Butler argues that gender is a spectrum - we perform our gender everyday 
gender performativity is how our gender performance affects the world around us 



Lena is hegemonically attractive and rebellious in terms of the MES of her costume. In being sexually active and not being ashamed of this, she subverts stereotypical patriarchal hegemony. No consequences for pursuing her desire to have sex. However, Lucy is murdered for walking home by herself. 

Camille is presented as a younger, naive and innocent teenage girl, and this is subverted as the series goes on. Camille also forms a binary opposition with Lena. 

These representations allows it to appeal to a broader audience 




Explore how Les Revenants represents issues and events

Issue - Death and grief - one of the key themes represented in Les Revenants is that of death and grief, and how we react to death.

Key Scene - An excellent example of this can be found in the scene where Lena comes home drunk at night to be confronted by her long dead little sister. The use of extreme low key lighting has symbolic connotations of death, and is reminiscent of a graveyard. This is further anchored through the setting itself. Throughout the show, Les Revenants is set in deep rural France, which has connotations of isolation and death. 

Furthermore, a binary opposition is formed between the tall and grown up Lena and the short and childish Camille. Additionally, the appearance of a spooky small girl is highly typical of the horror genre, although Les Revenant uses this convention in a highly atypical and even confusing way. The big theme being addressed here is death itself. Death here is represented as something deeply uncomfortable, but also something natural, inevitable and necessary. This concept is highly complex, and clearly will resonate with a niche audience. 

Another key theme is feminism 
- Lena and Simon. bell hooks, feminism is for everyone. Lena is a confident, sex positive, strong and rebellious, she is a complicated character with a complicated backstory.



Theme - refugees and immigration

key scene - Camille is a symbolic refugee. She is stranded in the middle of nowhere, and must walk home through the bleak, desolate MES of a motorway. Additionally, Camille is not welcomed with open arms. Claire reacts to Camille's return with utter horror, and this horror is later repeated by her father, step father and older sister. Camille quickly realises that she does not belong, and has become a refugee in her own home. I would argue that Les Revenants is not a convincing allegory for immigration, as the themes of death, sex and feminism demonstrated throughout are far more pressing. This is further underlined by the glaring fact that almost every character in the show is white, while of course refugees can come from a number of countries and situations, it is clear to me that the ideologies of this show sit elsewhere.