ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to address the evolution of women's recent contributions to the making of popular genres of film in contemporary French cinema in order to assess not only the way they reappropriate genres that, until recently, were male preserves, but also the potential (or real) level of transgressiveness of their films. Concentrating on France's most popular genres, such as comedy and crime films, or male-dominated genres like the road movie, this analysis questions women's input into, and impact upon, these genres from a feminist perspective. A brief historical overview of the history of women and film in France is needed in order to make these changes visible and to contextualize the films in question. I then consider whether these films do or could achieve the aims of 1970s feminist films and feminist film theory, and offer an analysis of some genre films made by French women directors in the 1990s.
