Breaking The Norm In The Film Chocolat

The film Chocolat expresses the different interactions of a community dealing with anything of the unknown. These interactions would fit on a spectrum that goes from hatred towards change to fear of breaking the norm. The former of this spectrum would be the mayor’s influence on the village while the latter would be from Josephine’s relationship with her husband. A conflict theorist would view this spectrum of interactions and realize that it is form of an instable mob mentality towards accepting the unknown, which is different people and cultural aspects in this case.
The reason why the village has created a mob mentality towards Vianne at the beginning of the film originates from their repetitive lives that reassures them safety in the form of avoidance. This is shown in the scenes where he goes to the beauty shop and to the priest in order to form prejudice by calling Vianne “the enemy” amongst influential members

This brings it to the next part of the spectrum: the fear of breaking the norm. A prime example of this is Josephine as she attempted to push herself away from chocolate only to avoid being beaten by her husband Serge. During her encounter with Vianne at the bar, Josephine hesitantly asks if her husband knows about the sudden appearance. In this same scene, she speaks of the mayor as if she was against what he says but could not bring herself to challenge his power. Theorists of conflict and symbolic interactionism would suggest that this interaction is one of the effects from the patriarchal concept of women being subordinate to men. Although this scene only applies to Josephine and her relationship with Serge instead of the entire village, there is some resemblance of a patriarchal society as the women of the village either worked in a secretary position or the beauty shop or remained without a job at an old