• From the "Banlieue" to the Bronx: Remaking Race and Class in "Intouchables" and "The Upside"

One of French cinema’s most successful exports, Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano’s Intouchables (2011) was duly followed by Hollywood remake The Upside in 2017. Intouchables’ mixed critical reception in the United States focused on the stereotypical representations of class, race, and gender within the film, revealing the differing socio-cultural sensibilities regarding multiculturalism and post-colonialism in the United States and France. This paper synthesises critical and scholarly responses to this clash of cultures, detailing how the French backlash to American criticism highlights a universalist attitude towards multiculturalism in France which elides the issue of racial representation in Intouchables. In turn, a protective exceptionalism emerges in critical discourse around French cinema, casting American hegemony as an existential threat to France’s national identity.

Neil Burger’s remake carries the implicit burden of remediating the representational ills of the original and making the subject matter more palatable to American audiences, with The Upside emerging as a “contested homage” to Intouchables. This paper conducts a comparative analysis of key scenes within the two films, comparing the representations of race, class, and masculinity articulated through the central, homosocial relationship between Phil and Dell (The Upside) and Philippe and Driss (Intouchables). Consequently, this paper argues that while The Upside confronts the issue of racial power dynamics more directly than Intouchables, its diversions from the original film ultimately present equally problematic and stereotypical representations.