L’art du stéréotype : la représentation des guerres de Religion dans la série Le Chevalier de Pardaillan de Josée Dayan (Antenne 2, 1988)

Abstract

This article analyses the form and content of a little-known French television series produced and broacast between 1986 and 1988. Le Chevalier de Pardaillan is considered today to be inferior in quality to period dramas from the 1960s and the 1970s, labelled as a « golden age » for French period dramas. This rather faithful adaptation of a voluminous « cape and dagger » novel by Michel Zévaco is undeniably the vehicle of broader cultural fantasies of sixteenth century French religious wars. Indeed, these wars helped to nurture what can be called a « national mythology. » Le Chevalier de Pardaillan, in appearance a pleasant and consensus-seeking TV series, is in fact ideologically oriented and a typical contribution to the popularization of this specific national mythology.

Keywords

• period drama
• France
• 16th century
• cape and dagger genre
• religious wars
• stereotype