Though the three main characters, Hubert, Vinz, and Said, are sexist and abusive towards most of the women in Mathieu Kassovitz's La Haine, they are surprisingly protective and loving towards the women in their family. This contradiction can be explained through the overall lack of male figures in the novel, as Ginette Vincendeau notices in “DESIGNS ON THE BANLIEUE Mathieu Kassovitz's La Haine (1995).” The boys feel they must fulfil the “gangster” type to survive out on the streets, yet at home play the strong, kind, masculine figure, filling the gap their absent fathers left behind.
The boys, Hubert, Vinz, and Said’s, treatment of the women in their lives is contradictory. While the film itself is male dominated, the few women shown, outside the boy’s families, are disrespected and abused. The first woman encountered is a news reporter, but before she arrives Said sets the tone of his opinion towards women with a vulgar recounting of his sexual affair, “I fucked her like an animal,” asking if Vinz “knows the bitch.” Then, when the reporter asks to speak with the boys, they immediately retaliate, asking her “who the fuck [she] think[s] [she is], coming around here,” scaring her off only to ask…show more content… Vinz, Said, and Hubert are so kind to their families because they are working to fulfil the roles of their absent fathers. As Vincendeau correctly points out in ““DESIGNS ON THE BANLIEUE Mathieu Kassovitz's La Haine (1995)” There are “no fathers or male authority figures” in the boys’ life, so they must rise to the challenge, providing for the family and supporting them. In this way, Kassovitz works to show the softer, kinder side to the boys while arguing to a larger theme of the need for role models in La Cité. The boys are capable of being upholding citizens, and know how to treat others and even women correctly, they simply need
