Carole Roussopoulos
Le F.H.A.R (Front Homosexuel d’Action Révolutionnaire), 1971
N°30
1 Maggio 1971, Parigi. Il Front Homosexuel d’Action Révolutionnaire (F.H.A.R.) partecipa alla tradizionale manifestazione sindacale per denunciare l’omofobia istituzionalizzata. Le immagini registrate durante il corteo mostrano estratti di un incontro pubblico nel quale vengono discusse le questioni sollevate dal movimento francese: essendo l’eterosessualità normativa il riflesso della società borghese, l’omosessualità consapevole rappresenta una forza rivoluzionaria. Il F.H.A.R. diventa così la forma movimentista del progetto omosessuale rivoluzionario di liberazione, rompendo con la linea “moderata” predicata da Arcadie, un movimento “omofilo” lanciato da André Baudry nel 1954. Tra il 1971 e il 1973, le assemblee settimanali del F.H.A.R. alle Belle Arti di Parigi diventano il punto di incontro e di passaggio del testimone di una nuova generazione di attivismo gay e lesbico.
Girato pochi anni prima della depenalizzazione dell’omosessualità in Francia, il documentario di Carole Roussopoulos immortala le rivendicazioni di F.H.A.R., garantendo un’importante visibilità alle lotte omosessuali radicali. Sebbene siano principalmente gli uomini a prendere la parola, Carole Roussopoulos coglie, nel trambusto delle discussioni, il monologo di un’attivista lesbica che critica le oppressioni di una società etero-normativa e borghese:
“Siamo una sorta di contraddizione interna alla società, come altri nasciamo nella famiglia eterosessuale borghese, con il suo sistema di educazione: le donne vengono cresciute per procreare e gli uomini per essere maschi inseminatori fallocratici. Ma comunque, non ci riproduciamo, quindi non perpetuiamo la proprietà della borghesia. L’eredità con noi è finita, non c’è più nulla (…). Questa morale non si adatta alla struttura di base della società, la famiglia, non si adatta alla società; quindi, non si adatta più a noi. Di conseguenza, l’unica posizione politica possibile è una posizione rivoluzionaria.”
Carole Roussopoulos (Lausanne, Switzerland, 1945-2009) moved to Paris in 1967 where she founded the militant video collective Vidéo Out two years later. Throughout her career, she was actively involved in feminist struggles. She founded the Simone de Beauvoir Audiovisual Center and the feminist video collective Les Insoumuses with Ioana Wieder and Delphine Seyrig. With the latter, she co-directed Maso e Miso vanno in barca (1975) and S.C.U.M. Manifesto (1976) based on the eponymous treatise by Valerie Solanas. Between 1973 and 1976, Roussopoulos taught at the University of Vincennes. In 1999, she directed Debout!, a documentary about the women's liberation movement from 1970 to 1980. In 2001, she was awarded the title of Knight of the Legion of Honor in France for her thirty-two years of cinematic service.
1st May 1971, Paris. The Front Homosexuel d’Action Révolutionnaire (F.H.A.R) participates in the traditional trade union demonstration to denounce institutionalized homophobia. The images recorded during the march show extracts from a public meeting in which the issues raised by the French movement are discussed: normative heterosexuality being the reflection of bourgeois society, conscious homosexuality represents a revolutionary force. The F.H.A.R. thus becomes the movementist form of the revolutionary homosexual project of liberation, breaking with the discretion and respectability preached by Arcadie, a “homophile” movement launched by André Baudry in 1954. Between 1971 and 1973, the weekly assemblies of the F.H.A.R at the Fine Arts of Paris became the meeting and transit point of a new generation of gay and lesbian activism.
Made a few years before the decriminalization of homosexuality in France, Carole Roussopoulos’ documentary immortalizes F.H.A.R.’s demands, bringing important visibility to radical homosexual struggles. Although speaking is more present among men, Carole Roussopoulos captures, in the hustle and bustle of the discussions, the monologue of a lesbian activist who criticizes the oppressions of a hetero-normative and bourgeois society:
“We are a sort of internal contradiction of society, like others we are born into the bourgeois heterosexual family, with its education system: women are raised to procreate and men to be phallocratic male inseminators. But anyway, we do not reproduce ourselves, therefore we do not perpetuate the property of the bourgeoisie. The legacy with us is over, there is nothing left (…). This morality does not fit into the basic structure of society, the family, it does not fit into society; therefore, it no longer suits us. Consequently, the only possible political position is a revolutionary position.”
Carole Roussopoulos (Lausanne, Switzerland, 1945-2009) moved to Paris in 1967 where she founded two years later the militant video collective Vidéo Out. Throughout her career she was committed and actively involved in feminist struggles. She founded the Center Audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir, with Ioana Wieder and Delphine Seyrig. With the latter, she co-directed Maso and Miso go boating (1975) and S.C.U.M. Manifesto, based on the homonymous pamphlet by Valerie Solanas. Between 1973 and 1976, Carole Roussopoulos was a professor at Vincennes University. In 1999 she directed Debout!, a documentary on the women’s liberation movement from 1970 to 1980. In 2001 she received the recognition of Knight of the Legion of Honor in France.