MARY LOUISE ROBERTS, What Soldiers Do: Sex and the American GI in World War II France, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2013
MARY LOUISE ROBERTS, What Soldiers Do: Sex and the American GI in World War II France, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2013

Summary/Abstract: The intimate relationships that developed between American soldiers and French women during the Second World War as represented in American films such as “Catch Me If You Can” (2002) or “The Words” (2012) are shown to be always romantic, adventurous, and ending up with the formation of a family. By contrast, French films that deal with the same subject depict the harsher realities of such connections. In “Léon Morin, prêtre” (1961), for example, the main character, a French woman, is heading home with her daughter when two GI’s they meet on the way decide to escort them, one offering to carry her bag. When they arrive home, the aforementioned soldier insists that the woman accompany him upstairs, and then proceeds to slowly force himself upon her, being stopped only by the woman’s cries and his friend’s intervention.

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