Imagine a world where it is the women who pee in the street, jog bare-chested and harass and physically assault the men.
Such a world has just gone viral on the internet. A nine-minute satirical film made by Eleonore Pourriat, a French actress, script-writer and director, has clocked up hundreds of thousands of views in recent days.
The movie, Majorite Opprimee or Oppressed Majority, was made in 2010. It caused a flurry of interest when it was first posted on YouTube early last year. But now its time seems to have come. "It is astonishing, just incredible that interest in my film has suddenly exploded in this way," Pourriat said. "Obviously, I have touched a nerve. Women in France, but not just in France, feel that everyday sexism has been allowed to go on for too long."
The star of the short film is Pierre, a slightly gormless stay-at-home father, who spends a day besieged by the casual or aggressive sexism of women in a female-dominated planet. The film begins in a jokey way and turns gradually, and convincingly, nasty. It has a Swiftian capacity to disturb by the simple trick of reversing roles.
Pierre, pushing his baby-buggy, is casually harassed by a bare-breasted female jogger. He meets a male, Muslim babysitter, who is forced by his wife to wear a balaclava in public. He is verbally abused by a drunken female down-and-out. He is sexually assaulted and humiliated by a knife-wielding girl gang.
