Transnational Cultural Transactions: Distributing American Teen-girl films in France, 1986-2006

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes the cultural translation performed by French film distributors - whom I call transcultural intermediaries - in the process of marketing Hollywood teen-girl films, perceived in France as a uniquely American product. This visual brokering alters the representation of teenage girls so as for the construction of the French audience for teen-girl films to be possible. In the process of translating promotional artifacts, the teen-girl is inscribed within the French antiamericanism discourse, an unwitting act of resistance to the cultural hegemony Hollywood represents abroad. My analysis contributes to conversations in cultural and media studies as well as in transnational feminism by showing how young women's bodies bear the brunt of commercial and national feuds across borders through advertisement. This project challenges the assumption among teen-film scholars that there are universal teenage values; questions the disciplinary separation between film and marketing of films; elaborates on the works of scholars who see transnational exchanges on various levels as leading to hybridizations of cultures without defining the meanings emerging from this hybridization; finally, helps better understand the mechanism of gender identity construction using translation as the bridge between decoding and re-encoding, thereby critiquing the stereotyping of teen-girls as they are reinvented to fit local cultural imaginaries.