Kitsch, classes sociales et multiculturalisme dans My Beautiful Laundrette (Stephen Frears, 1985)

In 1985, My Beautiful Laundrette was the movie which earned Stephen Frears full recognition as a filmmaker. Despite a low budget he brought his trademark boldness to Anglo-Pakistani writer Hanif Kureishi’s screenplay. My Beautiful Laundrette is an original and iconoclastic portrait of the Thatcher e...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Lionel Souquet
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Presses universitaires de Rennes 2017-09-01
Series:Revue LISA
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Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/lisa/9054
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Summary:In 1985, My Beautiful Laundrette was the movie which earned Stephen Frears full recognition as a filmmaker. Despite a low budget he brought his trademark boldness to Anglo-Pakistani writer Hanif Kureishi’s screenplay. My Beautiful Laundrette is an original and iconoclastic portrait of the Thatcher era in Britain: Omar (Gordon Warnecke), a young Anglo-Pakistani from the intellectual and commercial bourgeoisie, decides to set up a laundry with the help of Johnny (Daniel Day-Lewis), a young marginalized member of a band of skinhead and punk racists who becomes his lover. Combining socio-cultural, ethnic and feminist issues to the question of homosexuality, Frears and Kureishi question the capacity of a society in crisis to accept or simply tolerate all forms of differences. Innovative in a positive and militant representation of homosexuality, My Beautiful Laundrette is emblematic of the renaissance of the British film industry of the 1980s. Finally, the typically postmodern aesthetics of kitsch (or camp) which characterizes the film invites to reflect on the links between taste and social status.
ISSN:1762-6153