In 2014, a French short film titled Majorité Opprimée (Oppressed Majority) went viral. The short film, directed by Eléonore Pourriat, sees her male lead Pierre subjected to the indignity and terror women face every day – on the streets, in workplaces and even their own homes – creating a topsy-turvy world where men are treated with casual disregard, even violent contempt, by women. The video has been viewed more than 13m times on YouTube and remains a confronting reminder of the inequity between the sexes.
But it isn’t the first time this shoe-on-the-other-foot scenario has played out on screen. More than 100 years earlier, Alice Guy-Blaché, another French female director, widely regarded as the world’s first female director, had a similar idea. Her 1906 film, Les Résultats du féminisme (The Consequences of Feminism) also skewers gender roles. Men in Guy-Blache’s reimagining of the belle epoch powder their noses, sew, tend to young children and fend off unwanted advances from sexually domineering women who spend their time smoking, drinking and leisurely reading newspapers.
