Fashioning the Body: Versions of the Citizen, the Self, and the Subject

Kathleen Montesano

Concept Rhyming Paper #2

Beau Travail and Judith Butler

The film Beau Travail shows complicated gender roles materializing in a reiterated system that operates from power constructs. The film explores the genders of the characters Sergeant Galoup and his soldier Sentain. Their genders are shown in the context of the military institution they are a part of. Using Butler’s concept of gender performativity we see gender materialize by the reiteration of norms within the military system they live under in the film.  The institution is depicted as regulating the social norms of their genders at the same time as supporting both characters that are shown to have differences in their gender representations.

From the first narration by the lead character in the beginning of the film the viewer is meant to understand that he is a product of an institution he has made his life of dedicating himself to. “Chief Master Sergeant Galoup, that’s me, unfit for life, unfit for civil life (Denis, Beau).” It is important that this quote is placed near the start of the film. It sets up the context for understanding and observing the character.  He is putting his whole being into a title that is made and honored by the military institution. This gives the impression that he abides by a militaristic way of living, thought of as being both physically and mentally demanding and regimented.  Then he goes on to announce he is unfit for life and more specifically unfit for “civil life”. He is showing his investment in his military identity by denying his identity outside of its structures.  I see a “civil life” as being a way of stating a lifestyle in opposition to the military lifestyle he is depicted as living in through most of the film.

                For Galoup his military identify becomes a part of his gender materialization. I am using Butler’s idea of materialization as being the manifestation of the reiteration of regulatory social norms that become the construct of “sex”.  “It is not a simple fact or static condition of a body, but a process whereby regulatory norms materialize “sex” and achieve this materialization through forcible reiteration of these norms (Butler,  62). “ here Butler is explaining her notion of gender materialization through reiteration.  By saying “sex” is not a “static condition of a body” I see butler stating sex and gender to be more than your physical makeup, which is something solid and unchanging.  Instead she calls it a process, something that changes as it develops. When she talks about this process she states it is “regulatory norms” that “sex” materializes from. This is important because the word “norms” implies working under a greater societal or institutional construct. Describing the norms as regulatory shows the strength of societal normality, because the word regulatory implies a sense of power or hierarchy. This sense is insured by her going on to say that this materialization is achieved through the norms “forcible reiteration” once again implying a greater construct and power by the “forcible reiteration “of its “norms”.  It could be said that the military institution depicted in the film would be concerted a reiterational institution of gender materialization for Gauloup. The reiterated acts he performs in the film make up and sustain his identity within the military institution.

The film depicts visual acts of masculinity that pertain to Butler’s idea of gender performitivity.  The all-male soldiers perform their masculinity through the way they look, and the way they move. These acts are citational and reiterative, because they are continually performed and stabilized. They are citational in the way that they both come from and reinstate the institutional system and the gender system they function under. These ways of being are linked and cannot be separated from the military institution they live under and subscribe to.  In the film we see the physical manifestation of reiterative acts of performativity. We see the daily drills and training, they are physically demanding and requiring conformitivity of movements. Everyone’s movements are synchronized and precise. We see the gender performitivity in their grooming techniques. The way Galoup combs his hair back precisely and how the soldiers are shown often ironing so their clothes have deliberate creases. These routines are all a part of gendered norms. The viewer sees them in the context of the military institution that Galoup and his soldiers are shown operating under. This is significant because this the construct shown in the film that supports the norms that are being performed, as well as Galoup's identity, as stated in the beginning of the film. Such routines are shown throughout the film lending to the notion of these acts being normative continual practices.

The importance of abiding under the uniformed masculine guidelines of this societal structure are for Galoup are shown by his dislike for Sentain. He describes him as being different  from the others “Thin, distant,” these adjectives can be seen as hinting at the femininity of the character that sets him apart from Galoup and the others. One way he is different is his shy and gentle demiurge. He generally talks quietly and sais little. The close ups of his face in the film show him to be more boyish and wide eyed then the other men. This difference in his expression helps the audience connect with him on an emotional level. Another feminine quality about him is he is more nurturing then the other men. He gives his fellow soldier that is being unjustly punished water, and he is kind to a fellow soldier by teaching him French. Sentain also he gets has to get rescued by others, the other soldiers help him when his foot is hurt and he gets rescued at the end of the movie by Africans. This is another characteristic that could be considered feminine. Another way he is set apart from the other soldiers is in his interactions with the women in the night club depicted in the opening scene. He is one of the only soldiers that seem to not be interested in the women dancing. These observations are significant because they set him apart from Galoup and the other soldiers by showing Sentain's gender as something complex and different.

The character Sentain threatens the symbolic masculinity that for most of the movie we see Galoup prescribe by. He defies the gender norms in the film by showing more feminine characteristics than the men as well as some distinctive traditional masculine characteristics. He is shown as being heroic by saving the life of another soldier. He also can be authoritative by standing up to and challenging Galoup with physical violence. This notion of challenges and physical violence are traditionally masculine. Sentain operates somewhere between stereotypical gender roles. These differences between him and the other men are the reason he is despised by Galoup. Galoup’s desire to destroy Sentain comes from his need for his materialized system of preformitivity to not become disabled. He is a product of a system made up of acts that he reiterates all the time. He sees Setain as a threat to him because of the difference in his materialization of gender.

The film shows system of military culture that promotes and exudes the materialization of traditional masculinity. It also makes spaces for gender performative aberrations from the typical masculinity that Galoup is show to attain to while in the military. The other soldiers like and accept Setain despite his differences and dislike by Sergeant Galoup. A way that this dichotomy is shown in the film is in the scenes of their training drills. Each one performs the same task, running over things running under things, climbing structures, ect., but I am unable to not be struck by the differences between each soldiers movement. They all are shown moving with strength and form, but each one does it with slight variation. This is important because these drills are part of the physical reiteration that materializes into gender. There is room for slight differences in the performance of the drills as there is slight room for difference in the performance of gender shown by Sentain.

The last couple scenes are of Galoup after he is dismissed from the army for possibly destroying Setain, he is lying in a bed with a gun and there is a voice over narration. His own narration reads the tattoo on his chest as the camera zooms in on it. It says “fight for the good cause and die” then the camera moves to the distinguishable pulse in his bicep, which becomes a part of the 90’s dance jam song that starts playing. This leads into the last scene of Galoup in an elaborate dance scene that ends the movie. The two scenes work together by playing off of each other in an unexpected way. The first part is important for the film, because we see Galoup in a way that is familiar and uncomfortable. He is his usual serious and ominous self, continuing the tone of doom that has been constructed in the film by a combination of loud and uneasy music and narrations from Galoup hinting about a downfall he constructs from his hate and jealousy for Setain.  The downfall has come because he has been kicked out of the military and essentially the life that supports him. The set up with the gun is able to increase this unease that has been created. The tattoo is read and builds upon the viewer’s unease then the scene transition starts by focusing on his pulse. This pulse represents the opposite of death. The music and Galoup’s dance are able to show a great change in the way he presents himself. Juxtaposition with the scene before makes the final scene shocking to the viewer.

The end marks a change in Galoup's gender preformativity. This kind of elaborate dancing is an aberration from the strict structures of masculinity he is shown reiterating throughout the film. It also brings about a reflection of Galoup’s dislike towards Sentain for embodying a different materialization of gender then the one Galoup previously took on. The viewer sees that an aberration from typically masculine norms is something that Galoup proves completely capable of. This shows his distain to be linked to his own self-repression. Sentain was able to successfully show a difference in gender materialization while being a part the military, whereas Galoup could only change his gender performativity once completely out of the military. The dance scene shows this difference that Galoup is now capable of. This demonstrates Butler’s notion that through the reiterative aspect of gender preformativity there is a possibility for rematerialization. His materialization was created by keeping up the regimented masculine reiteration that came to define and materialize Galoup in the context of the institution that he was a part of as well as produced. In the final scene he changes the reiteration that reinforces his gender performance in the way that, through Butler, we can see as the rematerialization of gender.

Works Cited

Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive limits of “sex”. New York: Routledge, 1993

Beau Travail. Dir. Denis, Claire. France: New York Films. 1999.