The fury of what I think | Nelly Arcan seen by the generation that follows her

They are in their thirties and have all chosen the path of writing. For the play’s return to the stage The fury of what I think, inspired by the writings of Nelly Arcan, four authors take a lucid look at the woman who shocked, upset and electrified them with her pen. Often to the point of having marked their trajectory.

Stephanie Morin
The Press

Fanie Demeule

The author of Natural light red was 19 when she read Whore the first time. “It was a beneficial and painful revelation. At the time, I was anorexic, I had dark thoughts. Nelly had put into words what I felt in relation to my relationship to the body. It was a slap in the face. His suicide at age 36, a few months after I discovered his words, also upset me. »

Thirteen years later, the author considers that Nelly Arcan has lost none of its relevance. On the contrary. “There are themes in her that are not yet resolved for women, such as the obsession with the body image that we project. It’s very good to celebrate the diversity of bodies as we do today, but we should go further and give ourselves the right to be without focusing everything on body image. »

If certain themes remain relevant, others were obliterated when the novels were published, believes Fanie Demeule. “There was a blind spot in his lyrics that was little talked about at the time, but which is coming back to the fore today: putophobia. The subject remains very taboo and it is not collectively accepted among feminist circles. »

” Whore is one of the founding texts of my work as an author. It’s very liberating to know that like Nelly, you can explore your taboos without resolving all your contradictions. It gives me courage in my own endeavors. I don’t need to be perfect…”

Lea Clermont-Dion

The director and author is formal: if she discovered Nelly Arcan today, the thunderclap would be less powerful than when she plunged into Whore for the first time, in his early twenties. “At 20, you are more vulnerable. I took everything for cash, without contextualizing. Reading it was very confronting for me. I was notably too young to understand Nelly’s toxic relationship with seduction. This form of enslavement traumatized me a little! »

The one who signed the documentary I salute you bitch continues: “Even if I recognize the immense grandeur of his pen, his themes resonate less with me. I am 31 years old, two children. I have a greater distance. I am freed from the male gaze. »

According to her, Nelly Arcan’s books have “a lesser strike force” in 2022 than when they were released in the early 2000s. “Today, we are more in a movement of sexual emancipation; the heteronormative model is questioned. Many women try to get away from emotional dependency. We no longer accept the misogynistic gaze on women. With #MeToo, we have evolved a lot. His texts are like a photograph of an era, which allow us to see how things have changed. »

“I also believe that the woman Nelly was would be better received today. There was a form of sexism in the media during his lifetime. Cosmetic surgery, for example, caused a lot of ink to flow. Today, it would go unnoticed. »

Marie-Eve Milot

Rather small, dark-haired, with the air of an eternal kid… Physically, the playwright, director and actress Marie-Ève ​​Milot in no way resembles the “daughter of Marilyn” that was Nelly Arcan. And yet. Reading the works of Arcan, devoured in order in her early twenties, Marie-Ève ​​Milot quickly understood that she too should live with the weight of the image that her body projects in spite of herself.

“People have preconceptions about me. They often approach me like I’m a fragile and vulnerable little thing when I’m a bad ass feminist! “says the 39-year-old woman. “Nelly taught me to recognize the gap that exists between what people want me to be and who I really am. »

Today, Marie-Ève ​​Milot does not intend to confine herself to the role that we would like to attribute to her. “Like Nelly, I don’t just want to be nice and go where I’m expected. I have the desire to surprise, even to provoke. With her contradictions, Nelly gave me permission to explore harder, more complex territories in myself and in my female characters. She is part of the cartography of women artists who accompany me in my approach as a feminist activist. »

And the feminist that she is notes that social networks have exacerbated the cult of image and eternal youth. “What she criticized is perhaps even more true, more violent today. Rarely have I read such a powerful, confrontational author. »

Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay

When the 32-year-old author and actress discovered Nelly Arcan, she was 20 and at the start of her gender transition. His reaction ? “I received his texts like a punch! »

For the young trans woman she was becoming, Nelly Arcan’s writings raised several questions. “I recognized myself in certain themes, in particular, that of women prisoners of the gaze of others. Me, I was in the middle of a race… Did I feel tempted to be seen like that? To be a prisoner of the gaze of others too? With her, I thought about the place of women, about what we do of our own free will or under pressure from society…”

The author of daughter of herself continues: “I knew Nelly Arcan posthumously, but seeing the media treatment she received, I found it unfortunate that much emphasis was placed on the image she projected and not enough on her pen. . »

“Nelly had a very visceral side, she could be very sharp. In one of his novels, Open air, I believe it’s about a trans character who has to undergo feminization surgery. She has a very rough look on this person. It traumatized me, but she made me realize that it existed, this hard look between women. »

Even today, she believes that Nelly Arcan remains relevant, because “the pressure on women continues to exist. And broken love is a theme that never gets old.