From La Haine to a Queer Reading of the Banlieue: Masculinity, Intimacy, and Social Exclusion in Mathieu Kassovitz’s Film

Abstract

Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine (1995) is often seen as a key film in banlieue cinema and as an important voice in debates about police violence, racial exclusion, and the shortcomings of French republican ideals. This article suggests that the film also deserves a queer cultural studies approach, since it often challenges traditional masculinity and highlights male intimacy, dependence, and vulnerability beyond what is expected in heteronormative stories. The point is not that La Haine shows explicit LGBTQ+ characters. Instead, the film presents masculinity as something that must be worked at and performed, shows how aggressive behavior is unstable, puts friendship at the heart of its emotional story instead of romance, and places non-traditional bonds in a world shaped by class struggles, racialization, stigma, and state violence. Using ideas from banlieue studies, queer theory, masculinity studies, and spatial analysis, the article explores how Vinz, Hubert, and Saïd each show different masculine styles but are closely connected by their reliance on each other. By looking closely at scenes like the rooftop, bathroom, mirror, police station, gallery, and the final confrontation, the article shows how La Haine queers the banlieue by revealing the uncertainty of gender and national identity. The film’s black-and-white visuals, tight timeline, repeated thresholds, and open ending make this sense of uncertainty stronger. The article also notes the film’s limits, especially its focus on men and the sidelining of women. La Haine stands out as a politically strong but also contradictory film: it questions dominant masculinity but does not fully break away from patriarchal views (Vincendeau, 2005; Body-Gendrot, 2016; Kramer and Remster, 2021).