One of Us? From Bad Taste to Empathy, Otherness in Contemporary Hollywood Movies

Adrienne Boutang (1)

1 CRIT - Centre de recherches interdisciplinaires et transculturelles - UFC (UR 3224)

One of the essential principles of “care” is to admit the fact that vulnerability, and thereby dependency, is not an exception to the rule, but is a universal characteristic of manhood. It also implies an ability to empathize with alterity, and consider other people’s pain and emotions, however different, as deserving attention and comprehension. Very recently, in American mainstream cinema, a new stream of light comedies – the “gross out” comedies, more famous for their use of vulgar humor and general bad taste – has precisely tried to tackle the problem of alterity, and to question the distinction between normality and monstrosity. How is mainstream cinema supposed to “deal” with the subject of alterity, and especially, physical deformity?

Mots clés: gross out; comedy; vulgarity; care; disability

Domaines: Sciences de l'Homme et Société; Art et histoire de l'art

Adrienne Boutang. One of Us? From Bad Taste to Empathy, Otherness in Contemporary Hollywood Movies. Recherches Semiotiques Semiotic Inquiry, 2013, Care et cinéma, 30 (1-2-3), ⟨10.7202/1025923ar⟩. ⟨hal-03561784⟩