Alexis Annes

The careful balance of gender and sexuality: rural gay men, the heterosexual matrix, and "effeminophobia".

Based on life narratives, this article explores rural gay mens subjectivity in France and the United States. After growing up in rural cultures, these gay men tend to adopt similar hetero-centered ideas about masculinity. We show that these “conventional” ideas impact their sense of self as they express feelings of “effeminophobia.” They differentiate themselves from effeminate gay men and emphasize their similarities with straight men. These ideas are both coercive and disciplinary as they homogenize rural gay mens discourse and masculine identities.

L'Amour est dans le pré: cultural representations and social hierarchisation of farmers

Abstract In this article, the authors analyse socio-cultural representations of farmers conveyed by a popular French reality TV programme called L’Amour est dans le pré, which features ‘real’ farmers and is filmed in the countryside. Their objective is to determine the place and role assigned to farmers within contemporary French society. To study L’Amour est dans le pré’s televisual representation of farmers, they use Blanchard and Bancel’s articulation of the concept of ‘human zoos’ and, more specifically, its implications regarding reality TV. Based on content and discourse analyses of the Portraits episodes of season 7, the authors intend to engage competing representations and ideological appropriation of farmers in a French context, and, more broadly, to identify how this reality television programme illuminates tensions in reconfigurations of nationhood in contemporary France. They show that on the one hand, the programme challenges generic, geographical and social conventions with its carefully choreographed on-site interview, strategic post-production editing and, finally, its interactive weaving of subjectivity and objectivity, representation and observation that generates a sense of proximity and immediacy between farmers and viewers. On the other hand, they demonstrate that the programme reinforces and perpetuates a dichotomised national identity with its visual and discursive idealisation and marginalisation of farmers.