The cinematic destiny of the French beauf : National shame or hero?

Abstract

Stupid, loud, racist, illiterate, vulgar and deprived of good taste: the stereotype of the french beauf seems to portray every defect. Derived from the word ‘beau-frère’, the slang term originally appeared in the 1970s in the caricatures of French cartoonist Cabu to designate a contradictory figure, marked by his conformity and his chauvinistic ideology. For decades, the beauf served as an outlet for Cabu who used the trope to pinpoint France’s inner contradictions and misguided ways. This article offers to historicise the term ‘beauf’ to clarify its inscription into French culture and analyse its various incarnations in French cinema. The recent success of real TV shows such as Les Marseillais (2012) goes on to reveal the French public’s fascination for a wider beauf culture understood as spectacle. First created as a countermodel, the beauf has come to incarnate an ambiguous figure: loveable inasmuch as he represents an idealised authenticity associated with the classes populaires.