Since 1945, radical changes precipitated by the development of increasingly globalised consumer culture in France have changed conceptions of identity: national, racial, gender, sexual and generational. We investigate the exciting ways in which post-war French novels and films may reflect, perpetuate or challenge and influence the impact of the mass media and global market forces on ways of constructing and expressing identity. We examine how some of the most original writers and filmmakers of the last six decades have explored new ways of understanding identity by representing, appropriating or exploiting the discourses of consumer culture. Situating these innovations in their historical, cultural and critical context, the aim is to assess how contrasting novels and films engage with the effects on identity politics of globalised consumer culture.