Relevance and its discontents: teaching Sophia Coppola's Marie Antoinette

Wygant, A. (2011) Relevance and its discontents: teaching Sophia Coppola's Marie Antoinette. In: Conroy, D. and Clarke, D. (eds.) Teaching the Early Modern Period. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 251-262. ISBN 9780230284517

Abstract

Relevance is generally considered to be a good thing. It puts bums on seats, it creates a cozy sense of comfort, it certainly seems to inspire students. But the word, ‘relevant’ is etymologically not, as we might assume, a cousin of ‘relate’, but instead belongs to the same family as ‘relieve’, as in ‘to set free from a burden, obligation, grievance, etc.’. When we sense that spirit that we call ‘relevance’, the idea is not that it reduplicates us or connects to us, but instead that it cures our pain and sets us free. Coppola’s 2006 film biography of the doomed French queen was, as was widely acknowledged, relevant. Its MP3 soundtrack of Bow Wow Wow and Adam Ant, its portrayal of the fierce fashion strategies of the court of Versailles, and its incorporation of twenty-first century French luxury goods (macaroons from La Durée, Veuve Cliquot) spoke to twin mass-cultural obsessions with fame and dazzle. So how, exactly, should it be incorporated into a university seminar whose concern is with historical criticism? I included the film in my ‘Court of Versailles’ honours seminar in the 2007-8 session, and this chapter describes the dilemmas I faced in trying to encourage the students to develop a resistance to relevance. Further, this effort occurred in the context of an academic department which, in 2003, itself successfully resisted a collapse of the teaching of history in the French curriculum. It became crucial at that time to insist that early modern texts be taught, but without resorting to easy notions of ‘relevance’. So, in teaching the film, I presented myself and the students with a case study. On the one hand was the boring abyss of historical facticity (‘The film shows this; but what really happened was this.’); on the other, was the overly easy assimilation of the historical other (‘Marie-Antoinette was the Scarlet Johannson of her day.’). The only way beyond this dilemma is an awareness of what, exactly, is so painful that a cure is needed; of what, exactly, is so confining that freedom from it must be sought. The implication is that a strategy of pedagogy taking full account of the psychoanalytic scenario is required, and it is with a consideration of the implications of this that I conclude.

• Item Type: Book Sections
• Status: Published
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Wygant, Dr Amy
• Authors: Wygant, A.
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Modern Languages and Cultures > French
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• ISBN: 9780230284517