Kitsch, classes sociales et multiculturalisme dans My Beautiful Laundrette (Stephen Frears, 1985)

• Main Author: Lionel Souquet
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Maison de la Recherche en Sciences Humaines 2017-09-01
• Series: Revue LISA
• Subjects: British cinema; Frears Stephen; social classes; homosexuality; kitsch
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/lisa/9054

In 1985, My Beautiful Laundrette was the movie which earned Stephen Frears full recognition as a filmmaker. Despite a low budget he brought his trademark boldness to Anglo-Pakistani writer Hanif Kureishi’s screenplay. My Beautiful Laundrette is an original and iconoclastic portrait of the Thatcher era in Britain: Omar (Gordon Warnecke), a young Anglo-Pakistani from the intellectual and commercial bourgeoisie, decides to set up a laundry with the help of Johnny (Daniel Day-Lewis), a young marginalized member of a band of skinhead and punk racists who becomes his lover. Combining socio-cultural, ethnic and feminist issues to the question of homosexuality, Frears and Kureishi question the capacity of a society in crisis to accept or simply tolerate all forms of differences. Innovative in a positive and militant representation of homosexuality, My Beautiful Laundrette is emblematic of the renaissance of the British film industry of the 1980s. Finally, the typically postmodern aesthetics of kitsch (or camp) which characterizes the film invites to reflect on the links between taste and social status.