Articulating Childhood in Céline Sciamma’s Tomboy

The French word for ‘tomboy,’ pretty terribly, is garcon manqué (failed boy). In both English and French common parlance, it’s an oft-used term to describe a cisgender female who eschews make-up, dresses or long hair. It’s used mainly to describe young people, a stepping stone between their ‘confused’ childhood years into what they inevitably are: what Jack Halberstam posits as the ‘butch dyke’ myth. It is a term loaded with prejudice, heteronormativity, and conjures up more harm than the mere image of skinned knees and muddy…

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