Search for Acceptance - Ma Vie en Rose

In the film Ma Vie en Rose, Ludo finds an escape from his real life in Le Monde de Pam, or The World of Pam. Pam is a doll fashioned after the real life doll Barbie. For many young girls (and a few not so young), Barbie is a symbol of the perfect women with all the right things. She is (depending on relativity) beautiful, has a large number of material things and has a (once again, depending on relativity) handsome boyfriend/husband. Ludo uses Pam as a role model and someone with who life would be perfect. Ludo sees Pam’s world as a place where everything he wants is possible. He wouldn't have to fight for what he wants, and he wouldn't be seen as strange for wanting. The few fantasy scenes throughout the film are flashes of insight into what Ludo is thinking and wishing for – If only he could escape and be where everything is seemingly perfect, in Le Monde de Pam.

Even at Ludo’s young age of 7 his non-educated (can also read non-brainwashed) logical line of thinking causes him to come to the only conclusion possible, that he is a girl born in the wrong body. His simple way of thinking about it is that his second X was lost. Anne Fausto-Sterling’s theory of five sexes, with each having different variations of the current two sexual options, comes to mind when I saw Ludo’s idea of his gender and sex. He was not like other boys in his activates or in his mentalities. He mentally identified with the social ideas of being a girl so therefore in his mind he was one, and one day his physical state would match his mental state. The idea of intersex people, who are not entirely one or the other in terms of the two current sexual options come in many different forms, is scene not only in Ludo but also in another character who appears later in the film. This is Christine, a little girl who until we hear her name is portrayed to be a little boy. I loved this part as you could almost see a light bulb go off in Ludo’s head when he finds this friendship with someone who was not within the social norm either. This then spreads to his family who had a rough time at their first home, and now finds this new understanding and acceptance from their new neighbors.