Talk:Le ménage moderne du Madame Butterfly

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A fact from Le ménage moderne du Madame Butterfly appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 6 January 2008, and was viewed approximately 8,200 times (disclaimer) (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the 1920 French film Le Menage Moderne Du Madame Butterfly is the earliest known hardcore pornographic film to depict bisexual and homosexual intercourse?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2008/January.

Wikipedia

Title[edit]

The title is grammatically incorrect, which is surprising since this supposedly is a French film.

It should be "Le ménage moderne de Madame Butterfly".

Any explanations? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.20.106.70 (talk) 16:22, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The "du" is how the film is cited in every source I have found. Even IMDB cites it that way. - Tim1965 (talk) 17:43, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Since the title is grammatically incorrect, I've added the tag {{refimprove}} to request reliable sources (preferably in French) for verification. If the error was intentional, an explanation should be added. Korg (talk) 03:36, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The error does not appear to have been intentional, but rather that of a Romanian newly-arrived in France and getting the title wrong. A Google search on the title with "de" in it turned up absolutely nothing. - Tim1965 (talk) 14:26, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I couldn't find a reliable source in the Google results; most of them are from blogs or are derived from the Wikipedia article. I found a page with "de" in the title: [1].

Also, I would be cautious with the sources you provided, as the word "ménage" appears to be spelled without the e-acute. I'll try to find additional sources. Korg (talk) 03:25, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Title[edit]

The title is grammatically incorrect, which is surprising since this supposedly is a French film.

It should be "Le ménage moderne de Madame Butterfly".

Any explanations? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.20.106.70 (talk) 16:22, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The "du" is how the film is cited in every source I have found. Even IMDB cites it that way. - Tim1965 (talk) 17:43, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Since the title is grammatically incorrect, I've added the tag {{refimprove}} to request reliable sources (preferably in French) for verification. If the error was intentional, an explanation should be added. Korg (talk) 03:36, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The error does not appear to have been intentional, but rather that of a Romanian newly-arrived in France and getting the title wrong. A Google search on the title with "de" in it turned up absolutely nothing. - Tim1965 (talk) 14:26, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I couldn't find a reliable source in the Google results; most of them are from blogs or are derived from the Wikipedia article. I found a page with "de" in the title: [2].

Also, I would be cautious with the sources you provided, as the word "ménage" appears to be spelled without the e-acute. I'll try to find additional sources. Korg (talk) 03:25, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I found a French source (a book about the Bernard Natan case, Pathé-Natan: la véritable histoire, by André Rossel, 2004, page 53, which uses the correct grammatical form, calling the film Le ménage moderne de Madame Butterfly. Another French book, about the history of pornography, just calls it Madame Butterfly. Since porn films were clandestine in those days, they probably did not have established titles anyway.

I suspect that the preposition du (which makes absolutely no sense in French : it would make a little sense if "Madame Butterfly" were a man in drag, which is not the case) comes from a misspelling in some catalogues, which has been reproduced in various English-language sources. Anyway, since no French source mentions du Madame Butterfly, I think we should change the title to Le ménage moderne de Madame Butterfly (or possibly some thing like Madame Butterfly (pornographic film)) and mention in the note that several sources reproduce the incorrect form du. What do you think ?

Also, I saw the film, which is available online, and there is no "Mr Sharpless" : the version I saw has four characters, Butterfly, her maidservant, Pinkerton, and the male servant. There is no source about the existence of several versions, although that is a possibility. I did not see the initial scene where Pinkerton marries and ravishes Butterfly, so maybe I saw a shortened version. But there certainly was no Mr Sharpless in the final scene. By the way, there appears to be much confusion about the attribution of Pinkerton's role, whether it is to "JH. Forsell", or to Bernard Natan. Various (disputed) French sources attribute to Natan the role of Pinkerton, not of the "coolie boy" : Natan, who had a very distinctive nose, looked a bit like the fellow playing Pinkerton, but certainly not like the Asian male servant.

By the way, reading "The French intertitles are generally witty and humorous, poking fun at racism and American arrogance" makes me wonder which version Thomas Waugh saw. There might be several versions of French intertitles - especially if there are several versions of the film - but in the version I saw, they do not "poke fun at racism and American arrogance" : there are actually no references to Pinkerton being American. There are a few double entendres, though, especially the name of the Asian male servant, which contains a crude joke about the character's homosexuality : in the French version, he is called "Pinh-Lop", which is an "asianized" version of "Pine lope", the two words meaning respectively, in French slang, "Cock" and "Passive homosexual" (or "wimp"). It may qualify as a double entendre, but hardly as an indictment of Western racism towards Asia (quite the opposite, actually). Jean-Jacques Georges (talk) 07:43, 10 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There are probably several versions, as films (especially clandestine ones) were often re-edited for whatever reason by the local exhibitor. I'd be very hesitant to use original research in this article, however. - Tim1965 (talk) 17:05, 10 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Of course : however, yesterday I could find no sources about the "Mr Sharpless" character in the film. This source, which was apparently added yesterday, makes me wonder : it actually appears to describe a different film. Pinkerton is not a "beefy muscular American sailor" : the actor is dressed as a naval officer, but he is not particularly "beefy". Reading that "The final sex scene is very revolutionary. It shows gay anal sex as being just as sexually satisfying even when vaginal sex is readily available" is quite bizarre : the version I saw shows just the opposite, as it ends with the male servant reduced to masturbating while Pinkerton (with no Mr Sharpless in sight) cavorts with the two women. It makes me wonder if the reviewer at qnews.com.au actually watched the film (possibly in an entirely different version) or just relied on second-hand (and partially inaccurate) sources. The weirdest thing is that the article repeats the false rumor about Bernard Natan (his name is misspelled several times, by the way) playing the servant boy, while a much more credible rumor actually attributed to him the role of Pinkerton. The reason for that is quite obvious if you look at the actors : "Pinkerton" has a large nose and an angular face like Bernard Natan (his face was distinctively thinner, though), while the fellow playing the servant boy does not even remotely look like him. I think we should be using this article : it may have been published on a blog, but IMHO it is a much better source than the qnews.com.au article, since the author 1) seems to have actually watched Madame Butterfly and the other films attributed to Natan 2) is not just an anonymous blogger, but the director of a documentary about Natan. The article also mentions the absurdity of Natan playing the servant boy, which is made blindingly obvious by the photos.

How about the title ? As I said above, I found a French book which calls the film Le Ménage moderne de Madame Butterfly, and another one which just calls it Madame Butterfly. Since it's a clandestine film, it's not surprising that it had several titles.

The second source I mentioned has a relatively detailed description of the film (with some interesting trivia : it appears that the film had a larger budget than most of the other productions of that kind). It also has a lot of trivia about Natan's alleged (and highly disputed) involvement in that film and porn productions in general : according to several scholars, Natan was a fraudster, but what we know about his supposed activities in porn may have been an unfounded legend. Finally, it stresses that the role of Pinkerton was attributed to Natan, not the role of the male servant. Once again, the idea that Natan played the Asian servant boy is not only improbable, but IMHO physically impossible (where did his nose go ?) Since I own that book, I'd be glad to use it to improve the article. Jean-Jacques Georges (talk) 06:55, 11 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Available online anywhere?[edit]

This article has aroused my curiosity (and only my curiosity, thankyou very much) such that I'd quite like to watch the film. I assume that as a 1920 film it's now out of copyright; is it likely to be available online anywhere? 81.187.153.189 (talk) 23:32, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you can find it online if you google things like "vintage French porn", "1920s French porn", etc. It's usually included in compilations. Jean-Jacques Georges (talk) 07:43, 10 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Title of the film, title of the article[edit]

The film is titled Le ménage moderne du Madame Butterfly. That is not correct, if we followed French spelling rules (as the Waugh quote points out). But that is the title of the film, and should be the title of this article. The page move is horribly inappropriate. - Tim1965 (talk) 14:43, 23 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Title, 2024 edition[edit]

The title exists with a "de"; every single french source uses this form or the condensed "Madame Butterfly", and IMDb also uses it now. I don't know where the "du" came from but it is in all probability a transcription error that has been propagated uncritically, since it is only found in english texts. French wiki has changed the title to "de" , IMDb has changed to "de", I think it's high time this article was renamed "Le ménage moderne de Madame Butterfly" - there's no reason to think that the "du" form is the correct one (if there ever was one), so favoring the original language usage, and the grammatically correct sentence, seems like the sensible thing to do. DommageCritique (talk) 09:13, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]