from The Guardian | Posted by Paula Cocozza
Eléonore Pourriat’s short film imagines how a man might experience a sexual assault in a matriarchal society. ‘I wanted it to be not so realistic but frightening,’ she says.
Have you seen the film Oppressed Majority (Majorité Opprimée)? In less than a week since its director Eléonore Pourriat uploaded it to YouTube, the version with English subtitles has been watched over 2.3m times – and rising. The 10-minute film tells the story of Pierre, an ordinary guy, on an ordinary day, in an unnamed French town. But something is different in Pierre’s world. Women are in charge. They run around barechested – hey, it’s hot! – piss in an alley, and offer sexual favours to Pierre when he is stuck at a red light. (He’s riding a bike, so his lack of physical barriers provides an opportunity if not a provocation.) Events culminate when Pierre is sexually assaulted at knifepoint. Inevitably, the police officer who takes Pierre’s statement is female. She raises an eyebrow, but only to check for accuracy: “She pinched my testicles … then she took my penis in her mouth and bit it”?

Still from Oppressed Majority by Eléonore Pourriat
Pourriat made her film five years ago. It won an award at a festival in Kiev but made little impact in France or online. So why its contagion now?

Still from Oppressed Majority by Eléonore Pourriat

Still from Oppressed Majority by Eléonore Pourriat

Eléonore Pourriat: ‘It is like a black tide today in France.’ Photograph: Serge Benhamou/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
Pourriat realised that the film had gone viral only when she started seeing activity on Facebook. Her YouTube mailbox filled up, but the messages were so aggressive she deleted them. “I kept one though because really, you can’t believe it. Someone said: ‘More patronising feminist bullshit. Keep whining, bitches!’ When I read that, I was more convinced than ever that I have to continue to make films.” She is already working on her next project – a mockumentary about the removal of pubic hair.