University of Florida Thesis Or Dissertation Formatting

DRESS, UNDRESS, DISGUISE, AND DRAG! EXPLORING THE COSTUMES OF THE GENDARME SERIES STARRING LOUIS DE FUNÈS

ALEXANDRA TYLER CHERRY

A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

2016

To the Ross Geller of my Joey Tribbiani

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to my thesis chair and committee for your enthusiasm, support, and guidance. Thanks to my best friend and parents who keep me focused. But most of all, thanks to Louis de Funès for his life, work, and laughter.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

page

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... 4

ABSTRACT ...... 7

CHAPTER

1 INTRODUCTION - « REGARDEZ-MOI LÀ, VOUS ! » ...... 9

2 CAST, CREW AND PUBLIC RECEPTION ...... 13

3 MYSELF AS OTHERS SEE ME: UNIFORM ...... 16

Men Controlling Men ...... 18 Women Controlling Men ...... 20 Men Controlling Women ...... 26 Imagination Altering Appearances ...... 27 Altering The Uniform ...... 28 Foil Provided By Classically Dressed Women ...... 30 Relaxed In Uniform ...... 31 Men Out Of Uniform ...... 32

4 HIDING MYSELF: DISGUISE ...... 37

To Escape Shame ...... 37 To Pursue Suspects ...... 39 To Infiltrate ...... 40 To Assist Others ...... 41

5 EXPLORING MYSELF: CROSS-DRESSING ...... 42

Cross-Dressing In Mythology and Modern Film ...... 42 To Hide ...... 43 As a Means of Rescue ...... 44

6 SHOWING MYSELF: NUDITY ...... 46

Voluntary Nudity ...... 46 Forced Nudity ...... 49 Shedding Clothes To Regain Power ...... 53

7 CONCLUSION ...... 55

APPENDIX PRECIS ...... 57

LIST OF REFERENCES ...... 59

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 61

Abstract of Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Master of Arts

DRESS, UNDRESS, DISGUISE, AND DRAG! EXPLORING THE COSTUMES OF THE GENDARME SERIES STARRING LOUIS DE FUNÈS

Alexandra Tyler Cherry

May 2016

Chair: Dr. Sylvie Blum-Reid Major: French and Francophone Studies

Costumes in film signify more than the physical appearance of a given character.

A costume permits a silent conversation between the costume designer and the viewer.

In The Gendarme French, comedic saga, featuring six films spanning from 1964 to 1982 and starring Louis de Funès and Michel Galabru, costumes are utilized by the director

Jean Girault in order to create or support gags in this farce of police authority, as well as to aid in character development of the principal gendarmes, their wives and children.

This essay will examine four specific types of costumes- uniform, disguise, cross- dressing, and nudity- in order to analyze the purpose of the director, scriptwriter, and costume designer for their employment in this comedic saga. The beige gendarme uniform used in all six films represents the consistency and authority of the gendarmes, contrasting their often-childlike behavior. While pursuing criminals, or avoiding getting into trouble, the gendarmes don disguises that conceal or reveal their selfish motivations: pride when pursuing criminals, and shame when avoiding chastisement.

Furthermore, cross-dressing, a long-standing tradition in the comedic genre and antiquity, is employed to question not the sexuality, but the authority of a given

character, since a burlesque clown in drag appears less authoritative. Finally, a gendarme out of uniform possesses less clout, and nudity thus represents a gendarme at his most vulnerable and powerless. In altering the uniform or appearance of a gendarme, their identity is altered, which director Jean Girault exploits to encourage audience laughter.

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION - « REGARDEZ-MOI LÀ, VOUS ! »

Costumes permit a wordless conversation between the director and the spectator. They serve to define a character in a context, or set him apart. By interlacing everyday apparel with out-of-the-ordinary costumes, a grandiose character wearing a larger-than-life outfit can be made to stand out. According to costume designer Richard

La Motte, “almost every film contains some kind of ‘Gag Outfit’…with the special purpose of setting a character apart, in something other than regular clothes” (La Motte

87). Consequently, a ‘Gag’ character is distinguished not only by their exaggerated personality, but also is set apart by their costume that differs from other characters in color, fabric, styling, embellishment, or theming. A comedy can contain several ‘Gag’ characters, and “any characters who stand out are in ‘Gag’ outfits, and this might go for their clothes, their manner of wearing the clothes, or the condition of the clothes.” (La

Motte 89).

So how can the moviegoer define one gag character when each character appears more ridiculous than the next? The costume designers of The Gendarme series Jacques Cottin – for Le gendarme se marie (1968), Le gendarme en balade

(1970), and Le gendarme et les extra-terrestres (1979)- and Ritta Laffarque (Se Marie) accomplish this in two ways. One, a gendarme’s uniform sets him or her apart from a civilian. Only an active-duty gendarme can wear such a uniform, which signals the authority that the gendarme holds over the average citizen while working. Two, costumes emerge in the films that serve a specific joke or gag. For example, Cruchot wears a nun’s habit in Extra-Terrestres, but he does not remain in this same costume throughout the series.

The Gendarme comedic series includes six films: Le gendarme de Saint-Tropez

(1964), Le gendarme à New York (1965), Le gendarme se marie (1968), Le gendarme en balade (1970), Le gendarme et les extra-terrestres (1979), and Le gendarme et les gendarmettes (1982). This essay will explore how the director (all six films) and screenwriter (New York, Se Marie and En Balade) of Le Gendarme series Jean Girault and the screenwriters Richard Balducci (Saint-Tropez) and Jacques Vilfrid (New York,

Se Marie, En Balade, Extra-Terrestres, and Gendarmettes) utilize uniforms, disguise, cross-dressing and nakedness to create situational gags for their comedic characters by means of often-clownish costumes in the entire The Gendarme series that spans 18 years and three decades.

As mentioned above, the costumes of The Gendarme series starring Louis de

Funès were created by French costume designer Jacques Cottin, who also crafted the costumes for Jacques Tati in Jour de fête (1949), Mon Oncle (1958), and Playtime

(1967), among other French and British (Me and the Colonel) films. The gendarme uniform in the films of The Gendarme series includes a beige jacket, shirt, pants, and kepi with black trim, a belt, a white or black holster, and formal black dress shoes. The official dark blue and black uniforms of French gendarmes, present in the French public consciousness, thus act as a foil that exaggerates the comedy of the costumes in the movies. The ‘Gendarmerie Nationale’ or “the French Gendarmerie was formed as a national military police force in 1791, replacing the Constabulary of the previous old regime. The National Gendarmerie has continued its existence until the present day, acting as both a national police force and as provost police for the armed forces” (Kidd

187-188). These “gendarmes normally operate in uniform. They may operate in

plainclothes only for specific missions and with their supervisors’ authorization” (Kidd

180-181) thus the costume designer includes civilian clothes for the films’ gendarmes.

The Gendarme series was inspired by an incident that occurred to Saint-Tropez screenwriter Richard Balducci involving a stolen camera and an obstinate real-life gendarme:

La naissance du gendarme de Saint-Tropez…vient d’un gendarme à Saint-Tropez. Attaché de presse de cinéma mais dévoré par le gourmand démon de l’écriture, Richard Balducci travaillait à un scénario à propos de Saint-Tropez…Un jour, il gare sa décapotable non loin d’une villa qui lui paraît convenir pour un décor. A son retour, la caméra qu’il avait laissée sur un siège a disparu. Aussitôt, il fonce à la gendarmerie, place Blanqui. Là un gendarme en bras de chemise s’étonne qu’il veuille porter plainte à l’heure du déjeuner. Et lui déclare qu’il sait bien qui est le voleur de la caméra, que les gendarmes ont raté de peu quelques jours plus tôt, mais qu’on ne peut rien faire dans l’immédiat. Richard Balducci s’énerve et promet au gendarme qu’il rendra célèbre une brigade aussi je-m’en- foutiste. (Dicale 145)

Richard Balducci decided to write a film about his negative experience and went on to write the script for the first film of the series, incorporating the gendarmes that give the series its name. In an interview with cast and crew in the Extra Features of The

Gendarme series DVDs, entitled “La Saga des Gendarmes,” Balducci states that the three necessary elements for the film were “d’abord de Funès, et ensuite l’uniforme de

Gendarme, et ensuite Saint-Tropez” without which the series could never have been such a success. He expands on this in an interview about The Gendarme series in

2000, where the Saint-Tropez screenwriter Richard Balducci discusses the first film of the series:

Question: “À quoi attribuez-vous le succès des ‘Gendarmes’?”

Answer: “À la magie de l’uniforme.”

Filmed mostly using exteriors, the location of Saint-Tropez is as much a star of

The Gendarme series as feisty de Funès or the famous gendarme uniforms. With the exception of New York, each film of The Gendarme saga takes place in Saint-Tropez.

CHAPTER 2 CAST, CREW AND PUBLIC RECEPTION

While all may not know The Gendarme series, Louis de Funès and Michel

Galabru are inseparable from the thought of French comedy. Louis de Funès plays the often sycophantic and always domineering Ludovic Cruchot. Michel Galabru takes on the role of Jérôme Gerber, the direct supervisor of Cruchot, allowing De Funès to simultaneously flatter his supervisor while chastising his subordinates. Soft-spoken director and screenwriter Jean Girault directed all six films, but during filming of

Gendarmettes died suddenly as a result of tuberculosis. His co-director Tony Aboyantz thus completed the final installment. Gendarmettes was also the last film of Louis de

Funès, who passed away a few months after the release of the 1982 film due to complications following a heart attack. Jean Girault was applauded as being able to follow the rapid movements of De Funès in his fits of energy. On August 25, 1965

Variety described The Gendarme success:

This simple situation comedy has turned out to be one of the top grossers of the season here…It also made a star of middle-aged comedian Louis de Funès…De Funès is the main asset with his cannily timed and conceived slow burns, harmless maliciousness and disarming selfishness. In short, he sums up the slightly distrustful French everyman, with an evident lack of spite. (Djemaa 303)

While de Funès playing Cruchot is credited as the star, the films also feature four lovable subordinates to Ludovic Cruchot’s mania: Gaston Tricart played by Guy Grosso,

Jules Berlicot acted by Michel Modo, Lucien Fougasse interpreted by Jean Lefebvre, and Albert Merlot embodied by Christian Marin. Characters Fougasse and Merlot were present only for the first four films, to be replaced in films five and six by the trio of characters Beaupied, Taupin, and Perlin interpreted by Maurice Risch (Extra-Terrestres and Gendarmettes), Jean-Pierre Rambal (Extra-Terrestres) and Patrick Préjean

(Gendarmettes), respectively as to maintain the expected number of four subordinates in any given film. Memorable characters ornament the six gendarmes, including zany road hazard Soeur Clotilde (played by France Rumilly in all six films, often driving

Cruchot to his near death as a car falls to pieces), Ludovic’s stylish teenage daughter

Nicole Cruchot (played by Geneviève Grad in the first three films and mentioned as

“married” in En Balade), in addition to the rich widow Josépha who becomes Josépha

Cruchot in the same film she is introduced (played by Claude Gensac in Se Marie, En

Balade, Gendarmettes, and played by Maria Mauban in Extra-Terrestres) and wide- eyed Mme. Gerber (played by Nicole Vervil in the first four films, and by Micheline

Bourday in Extra-Terrestres and Gendarmettes). To add to the mayhem, Jérôme

Gerber’s intimidating superior Le Colonel is added in Se Marie to be played by Yves

Vincent (Se Marie and En Balade) and Jacques François (Extra-Terrestres and

Gendarmettes). In the sixth and final film, four new gendarmettes are introduced:

Christine Rencourt, Marianne Bennet, Isabelle Leroy, and Yo Macumba. Played by

Catherine Serre, Babeth Étienne, Sophie Michaud and Nicaise Jean-Louise, the gendarmettes represented an important introduction of uniformed female authority figures (in addition to the power figures of the civilian wives) into the male-dominated series.

Furthermore, the comedic genre is one of France’s favorite genres of spectacle

(Maindron 14). France’s long-standing love for comedy paved the way for the success of The Gendarme comedic saga. The first appearance of a comedy featuring a gendarme occurred in Lyon in the children’s comedic puppet show Guignol that began in 1797. The Guignol puppet show features a gendarme character named Flageolet

who foils the heroes Guignol and the drunken cobbler Gnafron. Following “la marche triomphale des marionnettes à travers les siècles” (Maindron 1), children of all ages have witnessed the defeat of a gendarme-based character Flageolet by an ordinary citizen Guignol.

Gendarmes – the star element of The Gendarme saga - also appeared in Victor

Hugo’s dramatic 19th century novel Les Misérables, in which the protagonist Jean

Valjean shares several interactions with gendarmes. By means of example, “le lendemain de sa libération à Grasse…pendant qu’il travaillait, un gendarme passa, le remarqua, et lui demanda ses papiers. Il fallut montrer le passeport jaune. Cela fait,

Jean Valjean reprit son travail” (Hugo 36). In this serious portrayal of a gendarme, protocol was followed without cruelty, and Jean Valjean, the citizen, was able to return to his work after being questioned. Other cruel gendarmes appear in the novel, but it suffices to say that the French are accustomed to the serious image of the gendarme, which The Gendarme saga embraces and alters through satire. In the sixties and seventies, the popular films of Louis de Funès, such as Saint-Tropez of 1964 and the

1973 Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob by Gérard Oury featured gendarmes and topped box offices.

CHAPTER 3 MYSELF AS OTHERS SEE ME: UNIFORM

In these six films starring Louis de Funès, the director Jean Girault and screenwriters Richard Balducci and Jacques Vilfrid use costume design to augment the characterization of the comedic brigade through symbolism. The gendarme uniforms provide one of these symbols. Uniforms represent the power of the gendarmes, and thus their uniforms are often subverted in order to render the gendarmes ridiculous and to remove their power. This subversion occurs by altering the uniforms or by removing the uniforms altogether. The burlesque behavior of the characters –a key ingredient in the success of The Gendarme series- also contrasts the serious uniforms with exaggerated acting and situational misunderstandings.

Furthermore, the role of uniforms differs according to the gender of the person in uniform. In The Gendarme series, men’s uniforms function as power tools and women’s uniforms serve to attract men. Thus the film presents stereotyped relations between men and women: women are delicate and feminine while men are strong and masculine. To underline this dynamic, the uniforms of either sex differ in appearance.

As previously mentioned, the traditional male gendarme uniform in the films consists of a beige jacket, pants, a matching kepi with black formal shoes, and a gun holster. It is important to clarify that although the gendarmes have guns, they are never fired nor used to threaten throughout the series. In The Gendarme saga, only the criminals use guns. Contrasting the male uniform, the female gendarmette uniform is royal blue, includes a knee-length skirt and matching blue high heels, black berets and no gun nor holster is present. Thus by wearing more feminine uniforms, the women are rendered

more vulnerable and in need of assistance from the masculine and debonair gendarmes, who gladly take up this responsibility.

These uniforms become a tool in the comic device of repetition, since according to Freud, “repetition makes [a] story comic” (Freud 287). In The Gendarme sequels,

Louis de Funès reprises his role as Cruchot, the second in command of the

Gendarmerie of Saint-Tropez. In this role, he adulates his irascible “adjudant,” or sergeant major, and berates his perfectly capable subordinates as imbeciles while wearing the same uniform in each film. The attire defines Cruchot by his role as a policeman. Thus the uniforms create a power dynamic amongst gendarme superiors and gendarme subordinates, and also between gendarmes and civilians, which the audience can expect to be repeated in each film.

Uniforms function as power tools in the real world as well as in the movies. A study by Leonard Bickman, “investigating how the type of dress of individuals directing pedestrians to carry out simple tasks affects the degree of compliance to simple commands” (Levesque 87) discovered that due to the “social power of the uniform…the average citizen will find it difficult to avoid responding to a police officer” (Levesque 87).

The gendarme uniforms in the series are beige, which differs from traditional French gendarme uniforms, which are dark blue and black. Society associates certain colors with certain meanings, and “lightness tends to be associated with goodness, purity and innocence while darkness suggests evil and death’ (Nickels, 2008: 79)” (De Camargo

4). Thus light-colored uniforms give a more innocent air, which permits the gendarmes of the series who wear beige colored uniforms to be taken less seriously by the audience than a gendarme in a dark uniform. Dark colored uniforms, however, are also

practical, as stated in a 2012 Journal of Criminology, due to a dark color’s “ease in cleaning, stain concealment and concealment in dangerous situations, and night-time coverage when seeking and apprehending criminals” (De Camargo 4). Therefore, while

The Gendarme series uniforms convey innocence, they might be less practical when pursuing a suspect.

Men Controlling Men

The gendarme uniform plays an important role in the power dynamic between

Cruchot and Gerber, as well as between Cruchot and the subordinate gendarmes.

Cruchot, the dedicated and raucous gendarme newly transferred to Saint-Tropez, arrives in Saint-Tropez in uniform and immediately takes control of his subordinates who he calls to attention by yelling “garde-à-vous!” Gerber, Cruchot’s direct superior, puts Cruchot in his place by calling Cruchot to attention in the same manner, leading

Cruchot to bluster apologies. This exchange represents the comedic power dynamic that runs through all six films, where Cruchot is in charge of the gendarmes, but only to the extent that he does not step on the authority of kindly-until-aroused Gerber. The screenwriters use the uniforms to highlight the exaggerated authority of Gerber and

Cruchot over their subordinates.

Often, the costumes are discussed by others characters as fodder for jokes, such as when Cruchot yells at his subordinates regarding their uniforms in Saint-Tropez.

Although the superior Cruchot yells at his subordinates for wearing sloppy uniforms, it is apparent to the audience that the uniforms are in perfect condition. The audience is thus led to believe that Cruchot is overstressing his power given to him by his own uniform to make a problem out of nothing. The subordinate gendarmes paradoxically are not rebuffed by Cruchot’s assault of their dress, shown later in the series in New York when

after being separated from Cruchot (who has gone temporarily insane thinking that he is seeing visions of his daughter in New York City who is supposed to be in Saint-Tropez, although she is in fact in NYC) the gendarmes state that they miss this authority, requesting and rejoicing in being yelled at for their uniforms when he returns.

The uniform represents authority and control possessed by the wearer, and this uniform must always be flawless. For example, in New York, this costume is used to highlight the imperious characterization of Cruchot, while he critiques the uniforms of his

French troops to ensure they would be superior and without fault in comparison to the other gendarmes present at a gendarme conference in New York City. In New York, the gendarmes from Saint-Tropez find their uniforms compared on an international scale by fellow gendarmes attending this international assembly of gendarmes, and also by the audience. In this film, the audience is permitted to see many different gendarme uniforms on the ferry to NYC and in NYC, allowing them as well to judge the uniforms of the Saint-Tropez gendarmes by contrast. The variety of the uniforms shows the diversity of the wearers, and permits the audience to contextualize the Saint-Tropez gendarmes on a global scale with the behavior of other gendarmes. The zany and competitive

Saint-Tropez gendarmes stand out as comedic by comparison to the foil provided by the international gendarmes. The uniforms represent the tropézien gendarmes’ authority as

French gendarmes while pitting themselves against all other gendarmes, in particular the Italian gendarmes. The uniform of the Italian gendarmes in New York differs from

French gendarme uniform, made of black material –showing, according to Levesque, their authority due to the dark color that portrays seriousness and force- with red and

gold-detailed on their heavily padded shoulders that emphasize their masculine strength.

Occasionally in New York all gendarmes wear the same clothes that are not their gendarme uniforms, such as when they dress in matching baseball attire. In doing so, the international gendarmes are put on equal ground with their distinct uniforms set aside. However in abandoning their military uniforms and donning baseball uniforms to experience the classic American pastime, the personalities of the gendarmes remain unchanged. This is shown as Cruchot plays the baseball game with a hyperbolic desire to beat the Italians, much like his yearning to capture the nudists in Saint-Tropez. By changing the costumes that are the same in every film, that is, the gendarme uniform, the audience’s perception of the six gendarmes is permitted to change while thinking of the characters outside of the definition of “gendarme.” Nonetheless, the power dynamic of the gendarmes remains unaffected regardless of the new costumes, as shown by their rivalry with the handsome Italian gendarmes, and the audience maintains their perception of the buffoonish Saint-Tropez gendarmes.

Women Controlling Men

Women in uniform have their place in the series as well when the female equivalent of a gendarme is introduced in Gendarmettes, the sixth and final film of The

Gendarme series. However, the depiction of female gendarmes in the film encourages stereotypes of societal roles centered on gender, since the women are only hired as police auxiliaries in training, and not as true police officers. Furthermore, as mentioned above the uniform of the gendarmettes emphasizes their femininity, as defined by their womanly physical appearance and personality traits traditionally ascribed to women such as coyness. Their uniform includes many of the same elements as the gendarme

uniform – a hat, long-sleeved coat, and official insignia – but with deliberate feminine touches – royal blue in the place of the beige uniform, knee-length skirts instead of pants, and matching blue heels en lieu of formal black dress shoes. In modern day

France, Parisian female gendarmes are occasionally mockingly called “bleuettes,” referring to the blue color of their uniforms, “bleu,” to which the diminutive “-ette” is added, which lessens their authority by making them smaller, thus making the expression derogatory. Furthermore, in French-speaking Canada, “bleuet” or “bluet” refers to a blueberry, coming from the French word “bleu” for blue, suggesting the color of the berry. The fruit might not represent a root of the insult, however, because in the

French of France the word “myrtille” is used to signify blueberries, and not the word

“bleuet.”

In Gendarmettes, the lady gendarmes control men through their appearances, and often unintentionally, since the men of the movie are controlled by their sexual impulses. This is seen when the gendarmettes arrive. The camera pans to where the gendarmettes are waiting, and the audience has a view of their crossed legs that re- cross before their faces are shown, which are hidden behind fashion magazines. Thus the gendarmettes are presented in a sexist portrait as women first, before they are presented as officers. Furthermore, in The Gendarme films, the gendarmettes attract men with their feminine appearance, and not with their power given by the uniform.

Cruchot is seen to be under their spell, because while Gerber introduces himself and removes his kepi in respect upon meeting the women, Cruchot only stares wide-eyed until Gerber calls his name. Following their introduction to Cruchot and Gerber, the four subordinate gendarmes Tricart, Berlicot, Beaupied, and Perlin clamor to help the new

arrivals. In clamoring, Cruchot even spills a cup of coffee on Gerber’s lap, who was holding the knees of two gendarmettes with a pleased expression on his face. This act brings the audience’s attention to Gerber’s lap and thus his genitalia, which highlights the dynamic of men and women’s relationships in the work place. That is, even though the women are professionals and wearing uniforms, their fellow uniformed gendarmes treat them as sexual objects, as exemplified by Gerber touching their legs. The women are aware of their effect on the men, shown when a gendarmette dangles keys in front of a subordinate gendarme, saying that they need someone to drive them, and they watch as the men fight for the keys.

In Se Marie of The Gendarme saga, Madame Gerber dons a uniform to train her husband in his preparation for the placement examination. Gerber’s wife wears a kaki outfit resembling the gendarme uniform, including a hat and a whistle to lead his physical training. This is a representation of mimicry, which Freud proposed in 1921 as an important aspect of empathy, “as a means of knowing another’s inner state or as a means of communicating understanding and acceptance” (Philippot et al. 214). Thus

Madame Gerber is empathizing with her husband by mimicking his training behavior and style of dress. Similar training scenes occur with men in Saint-Tropez when Cruchot prepares his troops to defeat the nudists by catching them “in the act,” and also in New

York, when the troops, homesick and missing Cruchot’s dictatorial presence, ask to be yelled at by him as they perform training exercises seen in Saint-Tropez, such as crawling on the ground as if under barbed wire. The entirety of The Gendarme series is mimicry of the French Gendarmerie in the sense that it follows Freud’s definition of mimicry since it, “gives quite extraordinary pleasure to the hearer” and “makes its object

comic even if it is still far from the exaggeration of a caricature” (Freud 248). The saga mocks the gendarmerie’s authority as the object that it has made comic, which was stated by the series creator as his goal in making Saint-Tropez: “Richard Balducci s’énerve et promet au gendarme qu’il rendra célèbre une brigade aussi je-m’en-foutiste”

(Dicale 145). The fact that Madame Gerber does not wear an actual uniform shows her coded femininity which sets her apart from a man in uniform, and displays that the outfit represents a satire of the gendarme training scenes from other films, such as Saint-

Tropez and New York. Furthermore, Gerber’s wife in Se Marie wears the uniform to comically show the repetition of events that occurred in a training sequence in Saint-

Tropez, this time not with an ostentatious Cruchot, but instead with a brazen wife. Thus in this comedy of repetition, the director employs an “artful manipulation of repetition” by changing some of the elements in the repeated sequence – here being the wife in uniform – to avoid “boring the audience,” which is the result of a failed attempt at comedic repetition (Sharrock 165). Sharrock further explains that repetition “has to do with the unnecessariness of comedy” as it entertains the audience due to its childlike

“delight in redundancy and irrelevance” (Sharrock 166-167). Freud also notes that, “our delight in repetition derives from a pleasure in recognition and remembering” resulting in

“laughter, namely the yield of pleasure that is gained from a saving of psychic energy”

(Hutchinson 225). Thus the audience prides itself on noticing this scene in Se Marie from Saint-Tropez, and laughs in response.

The father-daughter relationship between Cruchot and Nicole presents an opportunity for women to control men in The Gendarme films. In an encounter with a group of rich tropézien teenagers, Nicole uses a lie to gain confidence, which later

motivates her to control her father by involving him in her lie. The lie begins due to the way Nicole is dressed, because her clothes are bought by her father, and thus show their economic status, in demonstrating his financial prowess or weakness. When, in

Saint-Tropez, her friends mock her modest attire that makes her appear to be a prude, she lies and defends the clothes, herself and her father by saying that the garments are actually the latest Parisian trend. She lies in order to save her reputation as a chic and intriguing outsider, and not just as a new country girl and daughter of a gendarme. Thus changing their perception of her clothing gives her power, even though her outfit has not actually changed. The result is that her friends copy her look, demonstrating that she is hip and capable of starting trends. The success of her falsehood gives her the desire and confidence to continue it by convincing her father to dress as a rich man. Since

Cruchot was out of his uniform and not in a position to say no when she asked, his lack of refusal underlines his submission to his daughter’s wishes in front of her friend and the friend’s rich parents. This is further explored in Se Marie when the gender roles of

Nicole and Cruchot are momentarily reversed during a scene in their apartment. In uniform in the kitchen, Cruchot wears a feminine apron and Nicole wears a tuxedo apron. The gender-role swap demonstrates the authority that Nicole has in their relationship, and that Cruchot adopts both the role of mother and father since he wears a uniform and a girly apron.

The wives are often shown to control their husbands in the series, even when the husbands are wearing their uniforms. Lovingly referred to by Cruchot as “ma biche” and often with an apologetic tone (a pet name meaning literally “my doe” or figuratively

“darling” or “honey”), Josépha loves her husband, but as a rich widow she controls the

family purse strings and thus the power in their relationship. In En Balade, Cruchot tries to steal from his wife’s safe to fund the rescue of amnesia-inflicted Fougasse; at that moment her photograph covering the safe changes to look shocked until he takes a smaller sum of money. This scene is unrealistic because a picture in reality cannot change and react, but through the photograph the director Jean Girault amusingly demonstrates Josépha’s control over his finances, even when she is not present.

Women also control what men wear. In Se Marie, Josépha orders Cruchot to try on a sweater that she bought for him, representing her authority over him despite his uniform that he was wearing. Likewise, Gerber’s wife leads him upstairs to change his pants in

Gendarmettes after a cup of coffee was poured on him by Cruchot while both men were gawking at the newly arrived gendarmettes.

Women act individually to control their men, but also team up with other women to do so in the series. In Gendarmettes, to escape their kidnappers, the gendarmettes together use their sexuality to take down their kidnappers while being half-naked, without (most of) their uniforms. The gendarmettes lure the men in this scene with a false desire for one last night with a man before they are killed, and they defeat these men by physically overpowering them, even though they are scantily dressed. Early in the series in Se Marie, Nicole and her future stepmother Josépha become best friends, often excluding Cruchot from situations. The two women watch a film together, and although Cruchot is in uniform and the women are not, they both shush him. They buy matching dresses to show the solidification of this bond, while Cruchot continues to suffer in the form of enduring the healthy food that the women prepare, and the shocking wallpaper of which he does not approve. Thus women in The Gendarme

series take control of situations even though they do not wear uniforms, despite being in the societally subservient positions of wife and child.

Men Controlling Women

Kidnapping occurs twice in The Gendarme series, and represents men’s control over women. Josépha is kidnapped in Se Marie, but since she is a civilian, her capture was not connected with the wearing of a uniform. She was abducted to lure the gendarme Cruchot, the enemy of the kidnapper. In Gendarmettes, the newly arrived gendarmettes are kidnapped as direct result of their uniforms. The colonel states that the gendarmette uniforms make them targets, and thus they should not have been publically exposed. Receiving this information too late, Cruchot and Gerber have already made the women visible by allowing them to shadow the subordinate gendarmes in their duties like traffic control. The uniforms in Gendarmettes make the women targets as the colonel predicted, because a crime lord is snatching anyone wearing their uniforms as a means of obtaining their bracelets, which together contain the code to hack a super computer containing the plans of the French XZ missile. Thus it is not the novelty and the allure of the feminine uniforms that make the women targets, but the accessories they were wearing, undermining the male prediction.

The father-daughter relationship of single father Cruchot and teenager Nicole exemplifies the power of men over women in The Gendarme series. Cruchot’s control stems from his desire to protect Nicole from men’s sexual gazes. Beginning in the first film of the series Saint-Tropez, a scantily clad Nicole is showing off her purchase of a dark off-the-shoulder blue chiffon romper with long sleeves and exposed legs outside the gendarmerie on their arrival in Saint-Tropez, when Cruchot in uniform perceives this and makes her change. In this scene, she becomes the object of male gaze as the

gendarme subordinates watch and whistle from the windows before Cruchot shoos her inside.

Cruchot’s daughter normally dresses her age as the young teenager that she is.

Furthermore, in New York, Nicole appears in the American papers as the love interest of a handsome Italian gendarme and is given a pastel pink dress (a stereotypically feminine color) in order to look in love for a photograph, even though the two are actually not romantically involved. Thus, Cruchot protects her from onlookers in Saint-

Tropez by making her change, and the daughter is protected by her own lack of romantic interest in NYC when her father is not present. Later in Se Marie, Nicole is seen as a sexual rival to the father’s girlfriend Josépha only due to a misunderstanding

– accordingly she is repeatedly prevented from “remaining” a sexual object, and the audience is reminded that she is just a child, although the sexual possibilities were evoked.

Imagination Altering Appearances

In the series, the gendarmes daydream to imagine a different world, in which their costumes are different. During Gendarmettes, in uniform and ordering bikers to leave a restaurant, a gendarme imagines himself suddenly dressed as a cowboy, and the biker is likewise transformed by his imagination into a dark cowboy. Thus in his uniform, a gendarme feels powerful with a need to defend others, a dominance demonstrated by his imagining himself as a hero of the Old West. This motif of

America’s Old West appeared earlier in New York when the gendarmes dress up as cowboys and Native Americans in a costume store and act like crazy children in a play- fight reflecting the power dynamic of Native Americans dominated by English settlers.

Cruchot and Gerber are dressed as cowboys – retaining their superiority despite these

child-like costumes – shooting at their subordinates who are dressed as Native

Americans.

Later in the saga, upon meeting Macumba in Gendarmettes, Cruchot imagines her transformed into an exotic Joséphine Baker-like native, wearing a grass skirt, bikini top, and bones in her hair. Cruchot is enamored with Macumba, so in his imagination she is dancing for him, like a performer instead of a colleague. This transformation suggests the exoticism Africa held in the French imagination in the 1920s, and that apparently was still present in the French consciousness of the 1980s during filming of

Gendarmettes. Thus the imaginary alterations can have racist implications, since

Cruchot conceives a daydream of Macumba in this way because she is African, despite the fact that she is wearing a gendarmette uniform.

Altering The Uniform

Changing the uniform increases or decreases power of the wearer. When

Cruchot is promoted in Se Marie, his uniform has stripes added to it. In Extra-

Terrestres, Cruchot tears off these same stripes of Gerber’s hat while dressed as a nun so that his superior will think that the found hat belongs to Gerber and not to Cruchot.

This is because a nun had confessed that a man’s uniform was found inside the laundry room, and thus the uniform had the potential to give away Cruchot’s disguise and plan.

In Se Marie, it is Josépha who presents Cruchot with his newly altered uniform reflecting his promotion, showing that she is giving him the uniform that gives him his power.

Thus, the power by extension comes from her, but also fulfills traditional gender roles where she the woman would alter his clothing. Despite Josépha’s dominance, Nicole remains submissive, and following his promotion, Cruchot’s daughter opens the door for him in pretend respect.

When these stripes are taken away resulting from a mistake in the appointment, it leads to comedy. In this scene, the gendarmes trade their beige uniforms for orange skin-tight scuba suits with white bulbous helmets for a special mission. This new

“uniform” creates physical comedy due to the ridiculous appearance of the gendarmes in suits that encumber their movements and reveal their bodies. Furthermore, since

Cruchot himself does not wear the scuba suit, he contrasts their appearance with his normal gendarme uniform. When the mistake involving Cruchot’s promotion is corrected, the gendarmes are in their scuba suits. Cruchot suddenly shrinks to a comedic size and is looked down on by Gerber, foreshadowing future revenge and representing the altered power dynamic. Cruchot is then forced to wear the scuba suit as a punishment from Gerber, who pushes Cruchot underwater with an oar. The altered uniform (the scuba suit) is undesirable to Cruchot, shown by his protest to diving in the suit, which contrasts his adoration for his normal uniform put on display in his home shown in En Balade.

In Extra-Terrestres, the gendarme uniform is altered to exaggerate the desperation of the gendarmes. When it is hot on their march from the seashore, the gendarmes add towels to their kepis, in a burlesque portrayal by the actors of trudging through a desert. Later in Extra-Terrestres, the gendarmes distinguish themselves from the aliens by wearing their kepis backwards. The colonel who does not approve of improper uniforms criticizes this act, but Cruchot insists that these times are desperate and the colonel should not waste his time yelling at them over their hats. Thus, the kepi provides Cruchot and Gerber an opportunity to comically defy their superior.

Foil Provided By Classically Dressed Women

Nicole, the daughter of explosive Cruchot, is young and fashionable. Her clothes reflect the time period of the movie, and only become a target of comedy while being controlled by her father, or while trying to disguise herself to assist him (her Chinese disguise in New York, or her baby outfit in Se Marie). In the series she is first and foremost a daughter, not a sexual object, and her clothing reflects her innocence of a stereotypical submissive child. For example, in New York, the pink pastel dress worn by

Nicole - at the beginning of the film while illegally boarding a ship to New York, and later while pretending to be Nicole “the French orphan” for a newspaperman - projects the image of a harmless young girl who disobeys her father, and later as clichéd, innocent girl in love for the newspapers. Moreover, the film’s costume designer Jacques Cottin dresses Nicole in white clothing at the wedding of Cruchot and Josépha in Se Marie to demonstrate her purity to the audience as a normal child figure. Although her father is domineering and absurd, Nicole’s constancy and innocence of appearance contrast

Cruchot’s farcical disguises.

The wardrobes of the wives are simple and not alluring. The clothing is of good quality, but not flashy, as befitting sensible women who are taken care of by their husbands, as expected by society in 1960s France. The women are proper, and dress up when they go out. Cruchot’s wife, Josépha is a rich widow and she dresses more extravagantly than the other wives. For example, in Se Marie, Josépha wears an elaborate gold evening gown to celebrate Cruchot’s promotion. Wealthy and elegant, her costumes display a cool confidence and sophistication that Cruchot cannot help emulating, leading to farce from his character changing into a gentleman. For instance, in Se Marie Cruchot politely removes his uniform’s hat and gloves when entering

Josépha’s home for their first date, but he awkwardly holds the gloves in the air during the entire scene because his is too captivated by her to think of lowing his arm.

Additionally, Josépha’s demure nature and clothing when the two characters meet in Se

Marie makes his obscene behavior appear more outrageous when he catches her for speeding, and as he then celebrates his victory over a “lawbreaker.”

The fashion choices made by French costume designer Jacques Cottin purposefully add the sense of decorum possessed by Josépha. By way of example, her wedding clothes are explicitly tasteful and not white, but sea foam green, appropriate since she has already been married. Gerber’s wife dresses in demure clothing that reflects their family’s moderate income, which Cottin provides as a contrast. Thus, the women’s costumes are normal, and serve as a foil to emphasize the men’s shenanigans and outrageous disguises.

Relaxed In Uniform

Occasionally the characters of The Gendarme series act lazy or childish in uniform. In Gendarmettes, receiving a call about a kidnapping, Berlicot was lounging in the office late at night in uniform. Berlicot jumps to attention, but his body language did not look very competent when the audience first sees him. Thus the uniform provides a critique of gendarmes and authority figures in general who do not take their job seriously.

Conversely, the uniforms are used to highlight Cruchot and Gerber’s infantile behavior as well as their dominance. In Se Marie while taking their exams to decide the power dynamic of the gendarmerie, Cruchot and Gerber don sophisticated black uniforms en lieu of their beige gendarme uniforms, but their behavior becomes more childlike than ever as they emulate the behavior of school children. For example, even

though Gerber is in uniform, he is continually caught standing on a desk peeking as

Cruchot takes his exam. Thus the uniforms create a comedic and paradoxical situation, because the sophistication of their dress symbolizes their authority, but they are acting like children. The men have the power of an adult given by the uniform, but the incompetency of a child by acting like one.

Men Out Of Uniform

In The Gendarme series, the gendarmes do not wear uniforms at all times, but their power dynamic remains the same. Is this realistic? Can a “police personality” be possible without a police uniform? According to a 2012 Journal of Criminology the answer is “yes”:

The uniform is a symbol of the police’s work. It has been discussed that the police uniform, badge and weapons of control are universal symbols of authority and power. When they put on their uniform it seems that they adopt the authority that goes with it, contributing to what is known as the ‘police personality’. Although stringent efforts may be made to leave this persona ‘on the job’ some officers may continue to carry it with them, everywhere, at all times; it can potentially become an aspect of self as the lines between home and work become blurred. (De Camargo 8)

Therefore, a gendarme is still a gendarme even when he is not wearing his uniform, and dynamics between gendarmes that exist when the uniforms are on persist when the uniforms come off. However, in a vulnerable state of civilian dress and lacking the power of his uniform as explored earlier, Cruchot is unable to refuse the plot forced upon him by his daughter to pretend to be a rich millionaire in Saint-Tropez. In this scene, Nicole exploits his informal clothing to falsely demonstrate to the wealthy family - that she wants to impress- that Cruchot is in fact rich, but likes to feel ordinary by wearing such clothes to do his own shopping. Cruchot does not object to the falsehood, because out of the power of his uniform he was taken unaware.

For the gendarmes in En Balade, civilian clothes also represent the boredom of retirement. Forced into retirement and forbidden to wear their uniforms, the gendarmes miss their role as police officers. Retired, the uniforms take on a new role to serve nostalgia instead of power. This is shown when Cruchot places their uniforms on display in his mansion at the beginning of the film. Cruchot then proceeds to present the display to Gerber in order to revere the uniform and to reminisce on their lives as gendarmes.

Additionally, the overwhelming dejection and boredom of the gendarmes while forced to retire and give up their control is compounded by the comedy of their being unable to resist wearing the uniform. In doing so, they exploit their past roles as police officers on this occasion to dress in uniform and command oblivious citizens. The simple joy when wearing the uniforms becomes comedic, like a child who does what he pleases despite being told “no.” Their delight comes to a climax at the end of the film when the gendarmes are reinstated and permitted to wear their uniforms once more, causing them to beam with joy.

The troops periodically dress as civilians in order to act as undercover cops, and catch lawbreakers who do not realize that they are police officers. For example, in Se

Marie, Cruchot wears his orange sweater and black cap to drive in a car at a purposefully slow speed to encourage unaware drivers to illegally change lanes to pass him. Driving this slowly, Cruchot creates a large amount of traffic, and causes several car accidents, and unexpectedly allows the one speeder he was after (his future love interest Josépha) to get away. Thus his use of civilian clothes is not a success to the capture of lawbreakers since he himself causes traffic problems, and his failed effort becomes comedic. Furthermore, de Funès in Saint-Tropez wore this same costume

while grocery shopping in town. Reusing the same costume from the previous movie renders Cruchot realistic, since an average man of a reasonable salary (e.g. a police officer) would be expected to recycle the same outfits

Civilian clothes are worn to go undercover to catch lawbreakers, but also for casual nights on the town. For example, when Cruchot goes to a club with Josépha in

Se Marie, he wears a suit with a tie that Nicole ties for him. In this scene Nicole fulfills the roll of a female who takes care of a husband, or in this case her father. Nicole serves as a transitional character that ‘mothers’ Cruchot until Cruchot marries Josépha in Se Marie, who takes on the mothering role from Nicole. This is evidenced by the fact that Nicole does not appear in any further films of the series after Se Marie, since

Josépha now completes her role of traditional domesticity.

Pajamas in The Gendarme series humanize the farcical characters. According to

Rachel Moseley in her book Fashioning Film Stars: Dress, Culture, Identity, pajamas show innocence and a lack of sexuality. In the chapter entitled ‘Gregory Peck: Anti-

Fashion Icon,’ Moseley discusses on-screen meanings of nightwear that can denote sexuality or innocence, depending on the choice of the costume designer. She asserts, regarding Peck’s emotionally traumatized character John Ballantyne in Alfred

Hitchcock’s 1945 film Spellbound, that “his sexual ‘innocence’ is mirrored by and articulated through Peck’s appearance” referring to “his tousled hair” and “the incredibly sensible and totally un-sensuous duo of pale pajamas and dark dressing gown”

(Moseley 42). Pajamas also emphasize the vulnerability of a character that is not expecting to be disturbed, and not in uniform with the ultimate power the uniform brings.

In Se Marie, Nicole quizzes Cruchot before bed for his test while they both wear

pajamas. Cruchot is preparing around the clock for his exam, which includes right before bedtime. The pajamas emphasize the innocence of their father-daughter relationship. Referring again to the example of Gregory Peck’s pajamas provided by

Moseley, she also states that “Peck’s pajamas … can be likened, in their effect, to those worn by Meg Ryan in modern romantic comedies; they suggest purity and friendship rather than sex” (Moseley 42). In France during World War I, “The common sight of working-class women wearing divided garments while engaged in war work set in motion the legitimization of women in trousers,” followed by a popularization of pajamas as upper-class women’s “elegant lounging-pajama sets they wore at home or at beach resorts in the 1920s later became acceptable street wear” (Fields 40). Thus since the beginning of the 20th century, pajamas for women have been viewed in France as serious for women’s leisure pursuits unassociated with sex, emphasized by “the great popularizing impact of the stage and screen” where such garments were worn (Fields

40).

Similarly in Se Marie, Gerber’s wife quizzes him for a test in bed while they both wear pajamas. In this scene, she is sitting up to show dominance, while he is laying flat tucked under the covers to show submission. This moment between a husband and wife in bed is desexualized because of the presence of pajamas, along with their preparation for an exam. Later in Se Marie, Cruchot appears sick in bed in pajamas after being forced underwater by newly reappointed Gerber in a scuba suit. His illness and his pajamas make him vulnerable, and Nicole and Josépha take care of him.

However, in Extra Terrestres, Gerber, who is also in his pajamas, reprimands Cruchot in his pajamas for thinking there is an alien among them. Cruchot is more vulnerable than

usual because he is out of uniform, but Gerber’s admonishment becomes ridiculous because he is giving orders in nightclothes, not in uniform. The two men are on the same level because they both wear night clothing, but the relationship of superior and subordinate persists, although rendered absurd by the costuming.

Additionally, in Saint-Tropez Cruchot chastises Nicole in his pajamas after she has come in late after curfew, thus demonstrating that his role of father persists when he is informally dressed. When he learns later in this scene that Nicole has crashed a car in a ditch, he begins to dress in his uniform over his pajamas complaining “ma carrière est foutue!” or that his career is ruined if anyone finds out that his daughter committed such an indiscretion. He sends her to bed aggressively, followed by his continuing to put on pieces of his uniform hanging on the wall – including a khaki shirt and khaki jacket- and placing his kepi quickly on his head, he appears to walk out the door, though only halfway dressed. As the director cuts to the next scene, the audience sees that it is daylight, and that Cruchot is properly dressed in uniform as he approaches the crashed car. Putting on the uniform over his pajamas was thus meant to exaggerate Cruchot’s agitation over an event that is harmful to his reputation, and to highlight his desire to act as quickly as possible, even if that meant leaving while partially dressed.

CHAPTER 4 HIDING MYSELF: DISGUISE

To Escape Shame

Cruchot often wears a disguise when he is transgressing the rules. For example, in En Balade he wears his uniform to impersonate a gendarme even though this is now illegal, and in Extra-Terrestres he wears a nun’s habit to avoid being recognized by his fellow gendarmes. Cruchot uses disguise to evade trouble, or to catch rule breakers.

In New York, Cruchot and Nicole dress as racist versions of Chinese people to avoid the Italians pursuing them. In Chinatown, Cruchot dresses up himself and his daughter as two Chinese people with hats and silk oriental robes and yellow on their skin in an amount of time that was unrealistic for the costume change, which assists in maintaining the fast rhythm of the chase. Questions are left unanswered for the audience. Where would they have gotten the makeup? Chinese people do not have a need to make their skin yellow, so why did they paint their faces? Was it due to an orientalist vision of the East? But the quick costume change, necessitated by the fact that this is a comedy and requires a fast pace, places the scene into the realm of farce, and the audience does not require their questions to be answered. While these costumes help Cruchot assimilate in Chinatown and hide, they make him stand out to

Gerber when Cruchot and Nicole return to the hotel. Therefore, the perception of the costumes changes in different settings. Gerber comes in to check on him, and, seeing

Cruchot in traditional Chinese dress and squinting while moving his mouth without speaking, mistakes Cruchot for a woman saying “Excusez-moi, madame. Je me suis trompé de chambre,” but immediately recognizes Cruchot when he replies “Oui, mon adjudant.” Alerted by Cruchot’s strange behavior, Gerber enters, thinking that Cruchot is

hiding a Chinese girl in his room, based on Cruchot’s Chinese-style robe. The stereotypical oriental costumes thus become fodder for jokes as verbal comedy, since

Gerber does not realize that the inappropriate sexual comments he is making are actually directed at Cruchot’s daughter. Furthermore, Cruchot’s use of Chinese dress, yellow paint, and grimacing to minimize the size of his eyes demonstrate a racist perception of the Chinese. This disguise is meant to serve as a contrast so far from the serious French gendarme that Cruchot could not possibly be recognized. Following a comedic format, this attempt at concealment of course fails as Cruchot unintentionally ruins the ruse using the expression “Oui, mon adjudant,” after a burlesque misunderstanding by Gerber that Cruchot could be not only Chinese, but a woman.

Cruchot in The Gendarme films wants to be seen as an authority figure, and he experiences a constant struggle to maintain his image: he cannot catch the nudists, his daughter tags along to New York even though he ordered her to stay home and as a result he has to hide and disguise her, and he attempts to control his daughter from running around with her friends in Saint-Tropez but ends up helping her by pretending to be rich. Cruchot’s gendarme uniform points to his authority, thus when his costume is absent-such as when he wears his pajamas or civilian clothing- he loses this power.

Costumes are therefore used as subterfuge. In Se Marie, Cruchot desires to take dance classes to impress his love interest Josépha, but is ashamed to partake in a stereotypically feminine activity. Dressed as a civilian, Cruchot adds an oversized white cowboy hat and large dark sunglasses because he would not be sufficiently concealed from the prying eyes of his fellow troops who would judge him. To make the scene even more comedic than the absurd appearance of Cruchot, it so happens that a criminal

enters the dance studio dressed in makeshift disguise as a woman (in order to escape the gendarmes outside) and dances with Cruchot. Not realizing that Cruchot is in fact a police officer since he is not in uniform, the criminal confesses outside to Cruchot that he is a thief and that he plans to harm the approaching gendarmes. Cruchot pretends to agree with him, but in reality trips the thief and allows the gendarmes to capture this perpetrator. Thus in this case, dressing as a civilian was not intentional to catch the thief, but did aid in the ruse that led to his capture.

To Pursue Suspects

Using a disguise to pursue a potential intruder, Cruchot dresses in ferns in En

Balade to follow Gerber and Gerber’s wife. This foreshadows his desire to pursue criminals although he has been deprived of his position and uniform by a forced retirement. Also as mentioned above, in Se Marie Cruchot is disguised to avoid being seen taking dance classes. Unrecognizable in civilian clothes to a criminal trying to escape who does not recognize him as a gendarme, Cruchot seizes the opportunity to attack without being suspected. Cruchot therefore saves his fellow gendarmes from an attack, and captures a criminal while in disguise. Later in Extra-Terrestres, Cruchot wears a metal barrel to sneak by working gendarmes to catch rocket-building children.

The barrel fell onto Cruchot by mistake, and Cruchot uses this opportunity to sneak past the gendarmes until he hits a wall – his vision blocked by the barrel - and his disguise falls away. Thus in pursuit of the criminal children who wish to steal dynamite to build a rocket, Cruchot produces physical comedy as the comedic disguise falls into his lap, and then causes him to hit a wall.

To Infiltrate

In the first film of the series, the gendarmes mimic the nudists’ appearance in order to catch them in the act. Later in Extra-Terrestres, the aliens originally appear as a handsome, blonde teenager wearing a blue jumpsuit and sneakers, but quickly disguise themselves as civilians. The aliens do this by mimicking another’s physical appearance. Therefore, the aliens can appear as power figures, and cause confusion and suspicion among the gendarme due to gags of misunderstanding. For example, the colonel is thought by Cruchot to be an alien, and the misunderstanding leads

Cruchot to stab the colonel in the butt, and Cruchot consequently is thought to be insane. This is not the first time in the saga that the gendarmes have questioned

Cruchot’s sanity. In New York, Gerber requires Cruchot to undergo a psychoanalytical cure after repeatedly insisting that he has seen his daughter (who is not supposed to be in Saint-Tropez, even though she is in fact in New York City). In the scene that satirizes the psychoanalysis popularized by Sigmund Freud, Cruchot is wearing civilian clothes, and thus vulnerable to psychoanalysis; he yields his authority to the American doctor.

The doctor delves into Cruchot’s childhood “traumas,” as Cruchot complains of “cette petite Dorothée” who refused to share her snack, bemoaning that “elle donnait toujours son chocolat au gros Lulu.” Additionally, in En Balade, the retired gendarmes escape the current gendarmes -necessitated by their wearing their uniforms despite being expressly forbidden to do so- by driving away in the car of a troop of “baba cools” or hippies. The hippies steal their car, with their civilian clothes, so the troops must wear the hippies’ clothing and infiltrate their gathering to get their clothes back. The disguise is an accident, but allows the gendarmes to haphazardly escape.

To Assist Others

Nicole dresses to exaggerate her youth in Se Marie to help her father, because

Cruchot constantly referred to her as a young child to his new love interest Josépha at the beginning of their relationship. To disguise herself, Nicole dresses in an exaggerated light pink gingham dress with pig tails and bows, high frilly socks, and a lollypop in order to trick Josépha -who was jealous of the daughter at the dance hall thinking that she was a competing lover of Cruchot, not his daughter- into thinking that

Nicole –a teenager- is in fact a toddler. However, Josépha immediately perceives the disguise, and the costume is comic because the daughter is clearly too old to pass for a young child who talks in baby talk using words such as “dodo” meaning “beddy-bye.”

Nicole dresses as a toddler to go along with her father’s lie that Nicole is a baby, and thus wears such an exaggerated costume through pure altruism.

CHAPTER 5 EXPLORING MYSELF: CROSS-DRESSING

Cross-Dressing In Mythology and Modern Film

Cross-dressing, or “the act of wearing items of clothing and other accouterments commonly associated with the opposite sex within a particular society” (Rudd 5) is a prominent comedic aspect of The Gendarme films. The act of cross-dressing has appeared through much of recorded history, and appears often in Greek and Norse mythology, or among historical figures such as Joan of Arc. In Greek mythology,

Achilles tried to hide as a woman to avoid the Trojan War, and Athena would often appear as a man in The Odyssey. As a part of Norse mythology, in the poem

“Thrymskvitha” from the Poetic Edda, Thor dresses as Freyja to enter into a fake marriage to retrieve Mjölnir, his hammer. Author William Shakespeare made substantial use of cross-dressing in many of his late 16th century and early 17th century plays. For example, in The Merchant of Venice, Portia disguises herself as a male lawyer to aid her lover’s financier, and in Twelfth Night, Viola dresses as a man named Cesario and enters into a comically complicated love-triangle when a rich woman falls in love with her. Cross-dressing has also been seen as a central plot point in popular film comedies such as I Was a Male War Bride (1949) from director Howard Hawks, Some Like It Hot

(1959) by Billy Wilder, La cage aux folles (1979) by Édouard Molinaro, and the recent film She’s the Man (2006) by director Andy Fickman. Below will be discussed the practice of cross-dressing in the films of The Gendarme series, whose usage follows a long-standing historical tradition in comedy.

To Hide

In Gendarmettes, the gendarmes must face the feminine element in the form of the skirt and heels-wearing gendarmettes, but also the feminine within themselves by means of cross-dressing. Midway through Extra-Terrestres, Cruchot wears a nun’s habit to escape from being sent to a nuthouse – since no one believes him when he states that he saw the aliens- and to hide from his superiors. Gerber does not recognize

Cruchot, or the fact that he is talking to a man, because Cruchot obscures his face with his hands. Cruchot is recognized by the now mother superior Clotilde, showing that a woman can more easily discern a man in drag that a man can perceive a man in drag.

Continuing the ruse, Cruchot is ushered into a choir performance, where his disguise is compromised because he is forced to sing, and his voice is low and rasping. His disguise in drag was convincing until his voice gave him away. Forced therefore into this ludicrous position of dressing as a nun by necessity, the gendarme becomes the joke, and Cruchot’s respectability is undermined when his true identity is revealed.

Criminals as well as gendarmes cross-dress to escape being caught. In Se

Marie, the banal comedy provided by Cruchot hiding his appearance with a large hat and sunglasses is heightened when a criminal quickly changes into women’s clothes to hide from the pursuing gendarmes. This criminal enters the dance class where Cruchot was already disguised in civilian clothes, and it transpires that the two dance together.

Playing with sexual orientations, Cruchot does not realize that he is dancing with a man, while the criminal is entirely aware of the situation. Outside later with Cruchot, Cruchot absurdly does not realize that the criminal is a man until he takes off his wig, showing once again that men cannot detect another man in drag. When the criminal then attacks the gendarmes, he is still wearing his dress. The attack is threatening because the

criminal wields a knife, but is lightened to fit the setting of a comedy by the fact that he is dressed in women’s clothing. The unexpectedness of a male-criminal attacking while wearing a dress makes the audience laugh.

As a Means of Rescue

Following the beginning of the kidnappings in Gendarmettes, the gendarmes involve civilians to replace the missing gendarmettes to abate their superior’s suspicions. Since two gendarmettes were kidnapped, Cruchot takes the uniforms of the two remaining gendarmettes (removing their power) and coerces two civilians to imitate them. This act allows Cruchot to hide the fact that he has lost the gendarmettes, while using a civilian couple consisting of a man and a woman to fill their role to avoid suspicion when the colonel comes to the scene to investigate. The civilian man in a feminine gendarmette uniform convinced the colonel, despite his obvious appearance as a man to the audience, showing the comedic naïveté of the colonel, and the unexpected brilliance of Cruchot who tricked him.

The forced cross-dressing of civilians served merely to abate the suspicions of his superior and buy time while devising a plan to rescue the missing gendarmettes.

Cruchot decides to allow himself to be voluntarily kidnapped, taking the place of his wife who volunteered to wear a gendarmette uniform to lure the kidnappers and confirm their location. Cruchot dons the gendarmette uniform, and while walking by the docks thought to be the location of the kidnappers, is attacked by an abductor wearing the shirt of the yacht where the girls are being kept. During this confrontation in which

Cruchot fights back violently, Cruchot is not recognized as a man, despite his obvious lack of feminine facial features. In fact, once amongst the kidnappers Cruchot has to

remove his wig for the abductors to realize that he is a man, showing the gullibility of the captors believing his burlesque transformation.

It is important to note that the cross-dressing in the series is one-sided. Men dress as women. The women of the film never dress as men. This can imply that the gender roles of women remain fixed as feminine, whereas the men fluctuate between masculinity and femininity. Cruchot, for example, is a single parent who must play the role of father and mother, until he remarries in Se Marie. Thus, cross-dressing for a character such as Cruchot comes across to the audience as more natural.

CHAPTER 6 SHOWING MYSELF: NUDITY

Voluntary Nudity

Saint-Tropez treats the controversial topic of public nudity as a main plot topic, drawing on a historical conflict between the Saint-Tropez gendarmerie and nudists over clothing. During the sexual revolution of the late 1960s, feminists in Europe argued to allow equal exposure above the waist for both genders (Allyn 5). The “monokini,” or

“topless swimsuit” developed by designer Rudi Gernreich in June 1964, emphasized women’s personal freedom of dress with “the perfect synthesis of Southern California hedonism, socio-sexual politics, and ready-to-wear wit” (Allyn 23). The topless bikini

“became the fashion story of the year with everyone chiming in, from the Soviets (a sign of “capitalist decay”) to the Vatican (“negates moral sense”)” (Bay 45). “Even in the

South of France- what would eventually become the world’s epicenter of topless bathing- the suit was banned” as the mayor of Saint-Tropez banned topless exposure and “instructed officers to keep order via helicopter” (Allyn 23). In Saint-Tropez today, topless sunbathing is popular for both men and women. Additionally, Tahiti beach, popularized in the 1956 French drama And God Created Women by Roger Vadim and starring Brigitte Bardot, is now clothing optional.

In The Gendarme series, the nudists are officially the enemy, though contradictorily also the object of attraction for the men of the film who gawk at them through binoculars. Thus the female nudists fall victim to the men’s sexual gaze. Male and female nudists are portrayed throughout the series in their exposed state, that is to say, fully naked. Often the nakedness consists of bare breasts or bottoms, but occasionally the sex of a person is seen on-screen. Nudity is not separated from the

genre of comedy, and often nakedness can attract audiences. However, including nudists in this French comedy appears more for comedic situations, than for the implied sexuality of being naked. This is not true in every case of nudism, as mentioned earlier with the male sexual gaze of the female nudists. Nudists are portrayed initially as smarter than the gendarmes, suggesting that the average citizen is smarter than the police. The nudists are the enemy of the gendarmes while they are employed in Saint-

Tropez since public nudity was illegal, but in retirement the gendarmes helped the nudists escape in En Balade; this unexpected and comedic behavior shows the double standards of the law.

Costumes empower the actor, and thus being naked makes the character vulnerable, eliciting more laughter because vulnerability is inherently funny. In Saint-

Tropez, the gendarmes attempt to arrest nudists, but each time that they get close to doing so the nudists are dressed again as if by magic –as it turns out they have been tipped off by a lookout. Later after a crazy in-depth military plan to trap the nudists, the climatic scene is funny because these people are running away and being arrested while naked, being exposed to gleeful gendarmes and a laughing audience. Cruchot and his subordinates also bury the nudists’ clothes so that they cannot dress themselves like they normally do when they are about to be caught; thus the gendarmes take away the nudist’s power since the garments prevented them from being arrested.

Quick changes are used throughout the series to avoid on-screen nakedness when it is not useful to comedy. A quick change involves the changing of a costume in an elapsed time that would be impossible in real time. The purpose of a quick change is to maintain the rhythm of a scene, without taking the normal amount of time for the

character to change. There are several costumes for every character in each film. Thus costumes are often different from scene to scene to show a passage of time. For example, the wives’ or daughter’s clothing changes to mark the day changing. The changing of clothes is here not seen as important to the story, thus the director does not include costume changes on-screen. Quick changes add humor because of the unrealistic speed in which they occur, because the audience knows that it is not humanly possible to change that quickly, allowing a scene involving a quick change to enter into the realm of farce. To illustrate this, in New York, Cruchot and his daughter enter a store in Chinatown and reenter the shot dressed in Chinese traditional clothes, in order to not be identified by the people chasing them, who appear around the corner just as they board a rickshaw. The timing of this scene would not have been realistic if the characters took the time to enter the store and the audience watched them change, for their pursuers would have caught up with them. The audience also recognizes that the amount of time taken to change is not realistic, but they allow it because it permits the pace of the chase scene to be maintained. Additionally, moviegoers are habituated the practice of cuts and editing -necessitated during the post-production process to ensure the desired effect of the director- that result in a shot changing from one image to another instantaneously, as opposed to one continuous take. The scene does not lag as we watch the characters change, due to the ellipsis in time used by the director Jean

Girault, and thus the excitement of the moment is not lost.

Other times, the spectator is purposefully allowed to see the character changing, permitting the audience to perceive the character’s vulnerability. For example, in

Gendarmettes, Cruchot needs to reenter the gendarmerie, but is embarrassed to be

wearing women’s clothes. He thus sneaks nervously into the gendarmerie without being seen, and once upstairs enters his room as the camera continues to watch the door. He reappears into the shot moments later wearing a perfectly orderly gendarme uniform in an unrealistic period of time, beaming with renewed comfort at being in his uniform once more. A quick change in En Balade shows an exaggerated enthusiasm of the characters, who after being forced out of retirement and not technically allowed to wear their uniforms, come to the rescue of a traffic jam and exit through the left frame in civilian clothes to enter the frame again from the left wearing their uniforms.

Occasionally, the characters change their outfits in real time, like in Gendarmettes when

Gerber’s wife takes him to his room to change into new pants, or when Cruchot’s wife makes him put on a sweater she bought him while she watches in Extra-Terrestres. In

Gendarmettes, Cruchot also sheds the nun habit for his uniform, which happened to be conveniently underneath. Other times a character appears in a new costume over a normal period of time, but wearing something out of the ordinary, or wearing nothing at all. For example, in Saint-Tropez Fougasse appears naked on the beach, or Cruchot appears as a nun in Extra-Terrestres. In Se Marie, Cruchot runs off to help Josépha who has been kidnapped, and the audience sees him changing into his uniform while talking to Nicole, showing his semi-authority and the transparency of his power.

Cruchot possesses a semi-authority because he is semi-dressed.

Forced Nudity

When the troops take off their uniform voluntarily- to infiltrate nudists in Saint-

Tropez, for example- or are forced to as a part of their forced retirement in En Balade- it demonstrates their vulnerability and lack of power. Moments where they have to remove

the uniform are undesirable because to lose their uniforms is to lack both their respectability and their authority.

Forced into retirement by their superiors in En Balade after being called outdated, the gendarmes feel emotionally naked and powerless without their uniforms.

Uniforms are now put on display and not worn. In En Balade, Cruchot proudly shows

Gerber a collection of props from early films, including the gendarme uniform, which lets the two reminisce about better days when they had the power of the uniform and the structure of the gendarmerie. Trying to settle into retirement at his estate, Cruchot wears many costumes other than the gendarme uniform, such as that of a fisherman and a jockey, none of which seem to suit him. Thus Cruchot is forced to redefine himself now that he has been deprived of his uniform and identity as a gendarme, and is unsuccessful. Bored, the gendarmes occasionally defy the order not to wear their uniforms, needing to feel powerful again. Consequently Cruchot, who clearly craves dominance as evidenced by his power trip when he was selected in Se Marie to have a higher rank than Gerber, finds extensive shame and boredom outside of his uniform. In

En Balade, he was unable to avoid exerting his power by seeking law-breakers while in retirement, even though he was not permitted to wear a uniform due to his forced retirement. Since it was his instinct to bring them to justice, he required the clout that the uniform gave him, and he wore it anyway.

Once naked, a gendarme’s power has been removed and he becomes vulnerable. Selected to be completely naked to infiltrate the nudists in Saint-Tropez after no one was willing to volunteer upon hearing that the assignment implied nakedness, middle-aged Fougasse asks of Cruchot if it would be possible to wear “un petit slip” to

which Cruchot objects fervently, and Fougasse gives in quickly. Fougasse’s desire to cover himself up displays his discomfort at being made vulnerable. This is supported later when Fougasse is on the nudist beach completely naked, but holds a newspaper tightly wrapped around his bottom to avoid the vulnerability of being seen. For

Fougasse, while infiltrating the nudists, his grimace indicates he is more shamed by his nakedness than aggravated by his lack of power.

In Saint-Tropez, the nudity forced upon Fougasse is, according to Cruchot, for the good of the entire gendarmerie. Fougasse must shed his uniform despite his protests in order to capture the enemy nudists. Cruchot himself did not want to be chosen, and demonstrates his hypocrisy when Fougasse protests after being chosen.

This hypocrisy permits a comedic scene where Cruchot cheats in an “Eenie Meenie

Miney Moe”1 sort of game (a French nursery rhyme entitled “A Hen on a Wall”2). Here

Cruchot purposefully cheats, despite attempts to distract the troops, in order to select

Fougasse instead of himself, who would have been the rightful choice.

Fougasse calls out this act as “la triche” or “cheating” which exposes Cruchot’s mild corruption in the face of an action -shedding his clothing- that he finds shameful, but that he is willing to inflict on someone else. The scene recalls another cult scene involving an English Lesson from New York, the second film of the series, where

1 Children use this American nursery rhyme to select someone to be ‘it’ (the person on whom the last word of the rhyme falls). One word of the rhyme corresponds to one movement of the person singing the rhyme until the rhyme ends. The rhyme is as follows: “Eennie Meenie Miney Moe / Catch a tiger by the toe / If he hollers let him go / Eennie Meenie Miney Moe.” 2 The original French version and English translation of the nursery rhyme entitled ‘Une poule sur un mur’ or ‘A Hen on a Wall’ is as follows: “Une poule sur un mur / Qui picote du pain dur / Picoti, picota / Lève la queue / Et puis s'en va,” “A hen on a wall / Pecking some dry bread / Pecky, peckay / Raises her tail / Then goes away.”

Fougasse calls out Cruchot’s “chouchoutage” or favoritism when Cruchot favors Gerber at the expense of the other gendarmes, a move favorable to Cruchot and detrimental to the subordinates who are forced one by one to leave. Upon leaving, Fougasse is told by

Cruchot to write two hundred times in English “I am stupid and aggressive.” Thus this scene from New York becomes more comedic because it repeats the humor already present in the first film of the series. The similar delivery of lines furthers this repetition:

Fougasse grumbles his protest, and Cruchot yells at him and stares intensely in both

New York and Saint-Tropez.

Cruchot’s method of choosing who should volunteer is childlike, and his natural inclination to cheat further emphasizes his childlike nature, which is comedic and unexpected due to his maturity in years and position of power. Being an official police force, it would be expected that a more formal method would be used to choose a volunteer for an official mission. Thus the genre of a police film is blended with the genre of a children’s movie, resulting in a comedic setting where men in uniform act like children. This is a direct example of the actual procedures of a French police force being critiqued by the screenwriter and director. The gendarme, though in uniform, becomes the joke.

Cruchot commandeers the uniforms of the two remaining gendarmettes as a means of rescue and problem solving, but the action appears sexual to uninvolved characters. This serves a gag of misunderstanding, because Josépha, thinking Cruchot is attracted to the gendarmettes that she finds in her room in their underwear, also is in her underwear when Cruchot enters the room, reminding him that she is a sexual object. Thus their power as officers has been removed even though the gendarmettes

did this as a means of following orders. The opposite effect of nakedness occurs in

Gendarmettes when the women strip down to make the men think that they want to sleep with them as their last wish, but in reality they are using their sexuality to trick and detain their capturers. Their nakedness gives them power due to their sexuality.

However, their nakedness later in front of the wife of Cruchot embarrasses them, and thus a contradictory use of nakedness in the film leaves nudity as ambiguous. For example, we as the audience know that the law-breaking nudists are the enemy of the law-enforcing gendarmes. Furthermore, a naked gendarme is a powerless gendarme.

Yet scantily clad women attract the men. Thus the gendarmettes pose a contradiction to the idea of negative nudity in Gendarmettes.

Shedding Clothes To Regain Power

The gendarme Fougasse must infiltrate the nudists and temporarily abandon his uniform to catch the law-breakers in the act in order to salvage the gendarmerie’s tarnished reputation- tarnished by being continually evaded by the nudists. Fougasse has to become vulnerable himself while being naked to catch these nudists. He must lose his costume, because the nudists have taken away his power by not being able to catch them, and to regain his power he has to become naked like the nudists and be vulnerable to regain his authority. Similarly in Norse mythology, in “Thrym’s Poem,” Thor has lost his hammer or his power, and must dress as the woman he was supposed to marry and thus weaken himself, in order to regain his power. This is also similar to Edith

Hamilton’s Mythology when Hercules is lowered to the status of mortal or a weakened state as a demigod, and from there he must prove himself with his Herculean tasks in order to absolve his crime of killing his wife in anger to become a true god. Finally, in

Charles Perrault’s late 17th century tale Peau D’Âne, a beautiful princess has to dress in

a donkey skin and debase herself as a peasant, in order to escape a marriage to her father the king. Eventually she re-ascends to the status of princess when a prince discovers her true identity, despite her hideous disguise. Thus, although the gendarme

Fougasse had to expose himself to shame during the attack against the nudists, he restored the reputation of the gendarmerie, and consequently the status of his uniform.

CHAPTER 7 CONCLUSION

According to La Motte, it is possible to “create character with a costume”

(La Motte 87). While Louis de Funès and Michel Galabru, along with the other talented comedians of The Gendarme series, create personality in their interpretation of their characters, a strategic costume can aid the credibility of a specific gag, or render a character consistent throughout a series of films. It would be difficult to believe that de Funès and Galabru were gendarmes during six films if they never once donned a gendarme uniform! The getups are used to facilitate situational comedy, as the characters of a comedy are often forced into extreme situations. When in uniform the gendarme are powerful, but often they abandon these uniforms and become clowns. The costumes aid in the execution of gags featuring these burlesque characters. The costumes can also become the subject of verbal jokes by the characters, or bring up controversial questions about race with jokes that are at the expense of non-white cultures – such as the

Josephine Baker reference that alludes to African exoticism seen in the early 20th century or the Chinese disguises using yellow face paint in New York.

The series spans over three decades, and subsequently the costumes change according to changing trends. Cruchot’s daughter is young and always modern in Saint-Tropez, New York, and Se Marie. In the fourth film En Balade, the screenwriters Jean Girault and Jacques Vilfrid even include the baba-cools of

70s France, thus incorporating the historical period. The uniforms of the gendarmes however, always remain the same. Their constancy demonstrates that their power -or their comedic incompetency- is unaffected by the passing of time. This dependability of dress is included explicitly by the feel-good saga’s 55

director Jean Girault, and reflects the format of the films that remains the same throughout the series, only altering based on the given antagonist of each film, always including the zany antics of near-sighted Soeur Clotilde in her death-trap- on-wheels to save the day, and finishing with a parade on the streets of Saint-

Tropez.

APPENDIX PRECIS

Les costumes d’un film importent plus que l'apparence physique d'un personnage. Un costume permet une conversation silencieuse entre le costumier et le spectateur. Du costume, ou du déguisement d'un personnage, le spectateur peut apprendre leur réputation parmi d'autres personnages, le niveau de santé mentale du personnage et même les incertitudes du personnage interprétées par l'acteur. Dans la série comique et française Le Gendarme, constituée de six films s'étendant à partir de 1964 à 1982 et avec Louis de Funès et Michel Galabru dans les rôles principaux, les costumes utilisés par le réalisateur Jean Girault créent ou soutiennent les gags dans cette farce où l'autorité de la police entre en jeu, et aident dans le traitement des personnages des gendarmes principaux, leurs femmes et leurs enfants. Cet essai examinera quatre types spécifiques de costumes : l'uniforme, le déguisement, le travestisme et la nudité. Je vais analyser la façon dont le metteur en scène, le scénariste et le costumier s’emploient ces quatre genres de costumes dans cette saga cocasse. L'uniforme de gendarme beige est utilisé dans tous les six films, en plus d'un uniforme de gendarmette bleu roi ajouté dans le sixième film ; il représente la cohérence et l'autorité des gendarmes, et s’oppose à leur conduite souvent enfantine. En poursuivant des criminels, ou en évitant de s’attirer des ennuis, les déguisements revêtis par les gendarmes dissimulent ou révèlent leurs motivations avides : soit l’orgueil dans la poursuite des criminels, soit la honte à éviter le châtiment. En outre, le travestisme, une tradition de longue date dans le genre comique et l'antiquité, n’est pas employé pour remettre en question la sexualité, mais pour remettre en cause l'autorité d’un personnage puisqu'un clown travesti dans le 57

burlesque semble moins autoritaire. Finalement, un gendarme sans uniforme possède moins d’influence et la nudité représente ainsi un gendarme à son plus vulnérable et impuissant. Dans le changement de l'uniforme ou de l'apparence d'un gendarme, son identité est changée, ce que le réalisateur Jean Girault exploite pour encourager le rire du spectateur.

LIST OF REFERENCES

Allyn, David. Make Love, Not War: The Sexual Revolution, an Unfettered History. Boston, Mass: Little, Brown, 2000. Print.

Bay, Cody. "Against All Odds, Topless Bathing Suits Go on Sale in New York." On This Day In Fashion. 16 June 2010. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

De Camargo, Camilla. "The Police Uniform: Power, Authority and Culture." Internet Journal of Criminology (2012): 1-58. IJC. Web. 28 Jan. 2016.

Dicale, Bertrand. Louis De Funès, Grimaces Et Gloire. Paris: Grasset, 2009. Print.

Djemaa, Pascal. Louis De Funès: Le Sublime Antihéros Du Cinéma. Marseille: Autres Temps, 2008. Print.

Fields, Jill. An Intimate Affair: Women, Lingerie, and Sexuality. Berkeley: U of California, 2007. Print.

Freud, Sigmund. Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1976. Print.

Hutchinson, Peter. Landmarks in German Comedy. Oxford: P. Lang, 2006. Print.

Kidd, R. Spencer. Military Uniforms in Europe 1900 - 2000 Volume One. S.l.: Lulu Com, 2013. Print.

Levesque, Roger J. R. The Psychology and Law of Criminal Justice Processes. New York: Nova Science, 2006. Print.

Maindron, Ernest. Marionnettes Et Guignols: Les Poupées Agissantes Et Parlantes À Travers Les Ages. Paris: Juven, 1901. Print.

Moseley, Rachel. Fashioning Film Stars: Dress, Culture, Identity. London: British Film Institute, 2005. Print.

Philippot, Pierre, Robert S. Feldman, and Erik J. Coats. The Social Context of Nonverbal Behavior. New York, Paris: Cambridge UP Maison Des Sciences De L'homme., 1999. Print.

Rudd, Peggy J. Crossdressing with Dignity: The Case for Transcending Gender Lines. Katy, TX: PM, 1999. Print.

Sharrock, Alison. Reading Roman Comedy: Poetics and Playfulness in Plautus and Terence. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2011. Print.

Films:

Le gendarme de Saint-Tropez. Dir. Jean Girault. Screenplay by Richard Balducci. Perf. Louis de Funès and Michel Galabru. Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie and Franca Films, 1964. DVD.

Le gendarme à New York. Dir. Jean Girault. Screenplay by Jacques Vilfrid and Jean Girault. Perf. Louis de Funès and Michel Galabru. Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie, 1965. DVD.

Le gendarme se marie. Dir. Jean Girault. Screenplay by Jacques Vilfrid and Jean Girault. Perf. Louis de Funès and Michel Galabru. Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie and Medusa Distribuzione, 1968. DVD.

Le gendarme en balade. Dir. Jean Girault. Screenplay by Jean Girault and Jacques Vilfrid. Perf. Louis de Funès and Michel Galabru. Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie, 1970. DVD.

Le gendarme et les extra-terrestres. Dir. Jean Girault. Screenplay by Jacques Vilfrid. Perf. Louis de Funès and Michel Galabru. Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie, 1979. DVD.

Le gendarme et les gendarmettes. Dir. Jean Girault and Tony Aboyantz. Screenplay by Jacques Vilfrid. Perf. Louis de Funès and Michel Galabru. Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie, 1982. DVD.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Alexandra Cherry is a candidate for a master’s degree in French and

Francophone Studies at The University of Florida, to be awarded in May 2016. Her focus in the master’s program is literature and film. She also received her bachelor’s degree in 2010 at University of Florida in Biology, and French and Francophone

Studies. Alexandra completed a semester abroad in Paris, France in Spring 2013 where she studied at the Sorbonne Nouvelle- Paris 3 taking two films classes: “L’Age d’Or du

Cinéma Hollywoodien: 1930 à 1960” and “Le Trucage et Les Effets Spéciaux.”

Alexandra will be a Foreign Trainer in Guangzhou, China for Disney English from

August 2016 to December 2017, and plans to continue her pursuit of languages and comedy.