Lets not pardon the French?

[XT]

I dont know if there is much of a debate here, but I found this (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,92768,00.html) article on Fox just hilarious. It's the contention of the author (from what I could tell...sorry, the tears of mirth were literally streaming down my face) that the French as a people are a bunch of uncivilized barbarians...oh, and they screw a lot too.

From Fox web site, Julia Gorin is the author of the newly released The Buddy Chronicles, available through bruiserbooks.com
Consider the book that was a 2001 bestseller in France, The Sexual Life of Catherine M (search), (Grove Press), the true-life memoir of Parisian editor and art critic Catherine Millet who "loves penises," as the June 2002 review in Elle Magazine reads.

In one scene, writes reviewer Will Blythe, an entire caravan of cars gets lost on its way to an outdoor orgy at a sports stadium. At another point in the book, Millet writes: "In the bigger orgies ... there could be up to about 150 people ... and I would take on the organs of around a quarter or a fifth of them in all the available ways."


They are also, appearently cruel to animals as can be clearly shown here:

From Fox web site, Julia Gorin is the author of the newly released The Buddy Chronicles, available through bruiserbooks.com
The French even managed to innovate in animal cruelty. The popular dish Foie Grois (search) is liver from a goose that has been mechanically force-fed to make its liver work overtime and become soft and fatty. Last April, a top Paris restaurant celebrated its one-millionth 8-week-old duckling to be strangled and cooked in cognac and its own blood, then served with a souvenir numbered tag. Its owner reportedly remarked, "If for the chef each dish is a work of art, for me, it's ... the return of a happy moment. ... There is nothing more serious than pleasure."

So, I guess the debate is: ARE the French uncivilized barbarians (who like to screw and torture animals) or is that just the puritanical American view of our more cultured/civilized cousins across the sea? And, if they are or aren't, how is this relavant at all? Oh, and what do the British think?

-XT

[David Simmons]

Such things would be a lot funnier if Faux News wasn't the only source of information that lots of people use. Don't they have the largerst audience for all news networks?

I guess they can get away with the sex bit because very few people who watch Faux News have ever read true-blue, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Frank Harris' book, My Life And Loves.

And they have never visited an egg factory where hens are kept in tiny cages with their beaks clipped to avoid injury to themselves and each other. The "foie gras" goose has a bed of roses in comparison.

[Merijeek]

While I've never been one to love the French (and if I had been, 5 years of their language in school surely would have beaten it out of me), I have to say that I saw that article on www.foxnews.com, and I have never seen such an appaling piece of "journalism".

I read it and kept waiting for the punch line. As I got closer and closer to the end, I started to understand that they were actually serious.

All the -isms the could be used to desribe that article could fill a damned thesaurus.

-Joe

[XT]

Its a very good insight into the kind of audiance that Fox is pandering too....IMO. It just seems so over the top. "My god Helen, that Frenchy is talking about letting strange men do....THINGS....to her!" "I know, and they torture geese too! Depraved!" lol.

I'm not a lover of the French either (I've been to Paris several times), but this stuff is just way out in left field. What I don't get is, this is like old style Republican psudo-religious drivel. I was under the impression that Fox was considered a neo-con haven (though I've never see the term clearly defined).

Doesn't anyone feel like defending the article and bashing the French some? The DO kill geese after all. Not much of a debate if no one wants to play. :(

At any rate, I thought the article was a riot. I haven't laughed this hard since I read the latest creationist position paper of 'facts'...

-XT

[Zoe]

I have long been of the opinion that different cultures have only different practices -- not different spirits.

It seems to me that sex would further the cause of civilization. It's the repressed societies that appear to be the most hostile.

Moi? I don't have an angry bone in my body...

[RickJay]

Americans don't have orgies and eat animals? Is everyone in the USA a vegetarian?

Christ, what a stupid article.

Can anyone remember such government- and media-inspired hatred for a country and a people that was being encouraged for the country/people doing nothing at all? You'd think France had blown up the Twin Towers.

[kniz]

Originally posted by RickJay
You'd think France had blown up the Twin Towers.
20% of the Germans think the U.S. Gov't sponsored 9/11 (http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/
europe/07/24/german.poll.reut/index.html),so why can't some of us blame the French? :p

[Jpeg Jones]

Did the article also mention that the French fart in your general direction?

[Avalonian]

Julia Gorin would doubtless be able to explain away the fact thatThe Sexual Life of Catherine M sold pretty darn well (http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/ae/books/1940305) here in the States, too.

Sex sells... imagine that. I guess we're all pretty much immoral brutes.

[David Simmons]

Originally posted by kniz
... so why can't some of us blame the French? :p

For what?

[ChaosGod]

Imagine there's no countries,
It isnt hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too

[elucidator]

Yellow matter custard
Dripping from a dead Frog's eye......

[SnoopyFan]

... so why can't some of us blame the French?

Originally posted by David Simmons
For what?

Do we have to have something specific in mind? :D

[Zorro]

When visiting the South-west of France a few years back, I went to buy some foie gras and associated products (rillettes d'oie were invented by angels for God's delectation, in my opinion). Before buying anything, I was shown around the farm, including the part where happy fat ducks and geese enter and leave as a collection of delicacies. A lab would be a term that does it justice. Well insofar as ducks and geese can be happy, the resident poultry looked fine. They were completely free range, had a pond to swim in, were clearly well-fed, and about as content as fat anatidae can be.

More importantly, they tasted absolutely gorgeous, and the skill and experience involved in making this happen is wonderful. Compared to battery farmed chickens and intensively reared cattle, these ducks were as happy as hare in a terrine (direct translation of heureux comme un lièvre dans un pâté, which is a wonderful but weird expression.

By the way, I often thought that it was great that the guy showed us the full production process beforehand. I just can't imagine a British farmer doing the same: most people in this country are far too damned squeamish and seem to think that the countryside is a theme park.

[jjimm]

Je suis le walrus.

[jjimm]

By the way, despite what Zorro says, the method of making foie gras is hideously cruel (http://www.poultry.org/foiegras.htm).At a typical foie gras company, workers grab a young adult male bird, stretch his neck upward, force open his bill, shove a hard pipe all the way down his throat to his stomach, and pump in an enormous amount of mashed-up corn mixed with oil, water, and salt. Sometimes force-feeding causes birds' stomachs to burst.

This is done three times a day for about four weeks.It's also delicious.

That article is too pathetic to insult.

[Zorro]

Since they kindly included a link suggesting that reader should "Respond to the writer", I did.

Sir,

As a Frenchman living in the UK, I am used to a certain amount of "Frog-bashing" in the mainstream press, but I have never encountered an article this crass and insulting even in the worst British tabloids. This goes beyond standard xenophobic caricature, it is aggressive demonisation, it slanders sixty million people.

As one of the USA's foremost news and information services, Fox has a responsability to provide balanced commentary and professional journalism to American audiences. This sort of writing promotes intolerance, and its publication by Fox furthers the cause of obscurantism, values that the admirable founders of the United States of America fought so hard to eradicate from the new nation built on Enlightenment ideas.

Whereas freedom of speech is also an essential part of this legacy, opinion pieces of this nature betray the very principles that the USA was created to defend and propagate.

That'll learn 'em.

[december]

The article makes a claim that French culture connoisseurship is a cloak for depravity, that is moral corruption or degradation. That's an interesting question to ask, and not just about the French. Another thread here looks at the question of how the very cultured Germans, with Beethoven, Goethe, Schhiller, etc., could turn to Nazism. Cultured people in many countries embraced Stalinism.

Whether sexual libertines are more likely to take an amoral view of cruelties is a worthwhile debate. From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life
by Jacques Barzun takes the position that modern western culture has declined to a stated of decadence. Note that Decadence was "A literary movement especially of late 19th-century France and England characterized by refined aestheticism, artifice, and the quest for new sensations." It would be interesting to consider just how decadent various aspects of western culture have become.

Unfortunately, the cited article has a poorly chosen title and an uneven hodgepodge of examples. IMHO the French deserve serious criticism for supporting cruel dictators in a number of countries, but it's just silly to ding them for inventing the Guillitine.

[stick monkey]

And I suppose veal is a humanitarian effort here in America.

(don't get me wrong, I love veal, just making a point)

And what was the argument against the origies, I got lost somewhere in the description?

[Latro]

The French have orgies, so they are depraved enough to support evil dictators. Since the US has supported way more evil dictators, their orgies must be really wild.

I think that was the gist of the argument.

[RickJay]

Originally posted by december
Unfortunately, the cited article has a poorly chosen title and an uneven hodgepodge of examples. IMHO the French deserve serious criticism for supporting cruel dictators in a number of countries, but it's just silly to ding them for inventing the Guillitine.
IMHO the Americans deserve serious criticism for supporting cruel dictators in a number of countries, but it's just silly to ding them for inventing the machine gun.

Since you're American, I will try to enlighten you by using your country as a counter example. Every single example of French "Depravity" has an equally horrific American equivalent. In the order they are presented in the article:

- The French support murderous dictators? The Americans support murderous dictators.
- There are attacks on Jews in France? There are attacks on Jews (and other ethnic minorities) in the United States.
- The French have supported Islamic rebels? The United States has supported Islamic rebels.
- The French invented the guillotine? The Americans invented the electric chair.
- The French handed over 10,000 Jews for execution? The Americans enslaved a whole race.
- The French kill geese in a cruel manner? Americans kill God only knows how many animals in equally cruel manners.
- Dominique de Villepin is a jerk? What, no jerks in the U.S.?
- Roman Polanski is a child rapist? Try being an altar boy in Boston.
- The French have orgies? Americans have orgies.
- People in Paris attack each other? People in the United States attack and kill each other - more than in any other industrialized country.

The point, which you have totally missed, is not that it's valid or invalid to criticize the study of depravity. It's that the article was blatantly racist. I don't use the word often, but I will here; it was sheer, unbridled, and deliberate hatred and racism. For political reasons it depicted the French as being especially depraved, based on evidence of highly questionable relevance. If the author wanted to make a study of Western decadence, why didn't she? Instead it was a study of things the French do that are no worse than equivalent things Americans do. Or Canadians, or Mexicans, or Spaniards, or what have you.

So why did the article attack French culture when it can't be demonstrated than it's worse than other cultures? Because the purpose of the article was not to attack depraved culture. It was to attack France and the French. Julia Gorin's a racist, pure and simple.

[jjimm]

RickJay, that was excellent. Please send that to Julia Gorin from the link on the page.

[David Simmons]

You know what is ironic (funny? sad? pathetic?) to me is the call to not say "French fries," buy French wine or other products.

Not too many years ago we were in a war with China (Korea, remember?) and the Chinese were all, to the last man, woman, and child, hated commie pinko bastards who should be incinerated with a hydrogen bomb.

And now, while some call for a boycott of all things French, just about every other product I see in Wal-Mart says, "Made in China."

[hawthorne]

During his stay in Paris, journalist Andrew Baker (search) witnessed a cyclist stop to beat an octogenarian pedestrian unconscious after the latter threw a baguette at his head for cutting him off. According to Baker's 2000 New York Press (search) article about his experience, the event was typical of a Paris dayThis is a magnificant example of a technique sometimes seen on these Boards. In its way, the thing is a masterpiece. I really don't know how you could edit it so as to make it worse.

[Dob]

From Pirates of the Caribbean...

Random Pirate: "I will kill whoever invented the word 'Parley'"
Capt. Sparrow: "I believe that was the French!"

The French are just to easy to pick on, even Disney gets in on it!. But lets face it, if France was invaded and conquered, again, the US would be there to help them out. For as much as we bicker and fight with France they are allies, and without them the US might not even be here.

[XT]

From Dob
Random Pirate: "I will kill whoever invented the word 'Parley'"
Capt. Sparrow: "I believe that was the French!"


Um...not to get too carried away with the conspiricy theories here, but I think the French DID 'invent' the word 'Parley'. I saw the movie, and it didn't sound like it was a bash to me...it was supposed to be, you know, funny.

I think that the people a Fox just demean themselves by printing such rubbish. Personally I found it funny, in a sad sort of way. I'm not a regular Fox reader...is this the norm, or is it something they just screwed up on??

-XT

[New Iskander]

Originally posted by xtisme
Doesn't anyone feel like defending the article and bashing the French some? ... Not much of a debate if no one wants to play.
-XT

Well, if you want to play... (no orgies, please, this is US):

They are frogs and monkeys!

Chirac is in bed with Saddam... Well, he was, too!

Villepin trousers are badly pressed!

Whatever you say about Hitler, he was right to crash the French!

I go into the hate storage chambers of my soul to reload on "facts" and "moral clarity". Stay posted; You ain't seen nothing yet!

[casdave]

As for the French inventing the guillotine - not strictly true.Possibly but also likely unknown.

The device was used in England in the post Norman invasion period, possibly in the 10thC but first referances to it occur in 1280 in England.

It was supposedly invented for the execution of William Maurice in 1241.

The Guillotine did not even get it's name until the latish 1700's.

It was considered to be a far more humane method of execution than others, death is very fast.

[december]

Originally posted by RickJay
Since you're American, I will try to enlighten you by using your country as a counter example. Why are you picking on me, when we agree? My post began, "That's an interesting question to ask, and not just about the French." It's that the article was blatantly racist. I don't use the word often, but I will here; it was sheer, unbridled, and deliberate hatred and racism. Hatred, yes. But, I don't think the word "racism" can properly be used if one isn't discussing a race of people. Maybe we need an analagous word, like culturlist to describe hatred of a particular culture.

[Dogface]

The analogous word is "chauvinist" as in "being like M. Chauvin" in narrow-minded nationalism and hatred of another nation.

[RickJay]

Well, no, we ARE discussing a "Race" of people, december.. A race of people is any identified group of people who share a common ancestry, culture, nationality, or history. Look it up if you don't believe me. The genetic division of race is only one particular way to define it; there is certainly a "French race."

Call it what you will - racism, or bigotry, or chauvinism. It's disgusting.

[Wake up call]

Originally posted by xtisme
I dont know if there is much of a debate here, So, I guess the debate is: ARE the French uncivilized barbarians

Excuse me, there is such a thing as “Medecins Sans Frontiers”. Most Americans do not even have a foggiest idea what that means—just as they have no idea what their government’s Foreign Policy is. That translates into the Americans being a bunch of Neanderthals watching their Corporate Media “News” on the boob-tube.

Most Americans don’t even know that out of 6 billion people on this planet, they constitute a mere 280 million (<5% of the world population) and the U.S. citizens are blindly giving Carte Blanche to their government to dominate the other 95% of the world.

France, however, with its meager 60 million population, has enough infrastructure to maintain its own nuclear power and energy, Airbus that surpasses Boeing, its own Marian space launcher, its own Rafal combat aircraft and its own Eurocopter technological base. In medicine and literature, they have many Nobel prizes, and in entertainment they have the Cannes Festival. Their public transportation, railroad, and freeways are as advanced if not superior to the U.S. And last, but not least, most well-to-do Americans would love to have the opportunity to go and live in France, at least for a while, if not forever.

The French enjoy a better quality of life than the Americans do. They are not a slave of working >40 hours per week, they get at least 4 weeks vacations per year, have medical insurance for all, and enjoy a much better security and pension than the baby-boom generation of the US.

O’Riley says “Those Europeans are just jealous of us”. Pooh. If anybody should be jealous, it must be the few Americans who know what is going on, not your average Joe Six Pack.

So, some of the 280 million Americans think that the 60 million French people are shallow? Go on and make a mockery of the French food, wine, perfumes, art and the nudity in the Riviera. We’ll see who will have the last laugh.

[jjimm]

Originally posted by Wake up call
Go on and make a mockery of the French food, wine, perfumes, art and the nudity in the Riviera.According the article, it's these achievements that are part of the problem.

[Sublight]

- The French have orgies? Americans have orgies.

Yeah, but the appetizers aren't nearly as good.

Disappointed though I am that this is the sole news source for a lot people, I had to chuckle that the same network that created Temptation Island and Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire? is acting scandalized over a book with sex in it.

Maybe it's not the content at all, but the fact that those barbarians are actually reading a book? With no pictures, sound bites or commercial breaks? Perverts!

[gum]

Don't give a damn about the orgies. We do them better. I got a strange, giggly feeling when reading Wake up call's post though.

I'd swear it was written by a Frenchie. And it reminded me why I always have so much fun, with the French. They're so modest.

[Tuckerfan]

The French have orgies? Massive orgies? Why wasn't I informed?

::Starts calculating the cost of a trip to France, and estimating the value of one of his roommate's kidneys on the blackmarket.::

[Wake up call]

Originally posted by gum
I always have so much fun, with the French. They're so modest.

Yes they are. If they weren't, Dominique de Villepin would remind the US everyday: "I told you not to invade Iraq. You didn't listen to me. Now take the consequences".

[gum]

heh Wake up call, Thanks for the laughs.

[benthames]

if we hate the French so much, let's send back the Statue of Liberty. That'll show the Frogs who's the boss. And then we can also exhume the Marquis de Lafayette and send him back home too.

[New Iskander]

benthames,

Lafayette is indeed buried in American soil,
but in France (http://www.pbs.org/ktca/liberty/chronicle/lafayette.html).

[Roger_Mexico]

And let's give back that filthy Statue of Liberty, too! We sure don't need it anymore.

[Abe]

A fascinating example of Jewish/American bigotry, if you ask me. And, since you will note I am not Julia Gorin, it would be better if no one falsely assumes that my statement means that Jews/Americans on the whole are bigots. (I gather that the cheap demagogue in question is an American Jew, by the way, I could certainly be mistaken).

It would be amusing to see FOX print crap like this targeting Israel or Mexico or African Americans or Japan. Can you imagine the outrage, the frenzied screams of rage and denouncements from various organizations?

It's well known in the communications industry that FOX sets itself amazingly low standards, but this latest sally against the French is low even for them: it's ideologically motivated, confirmation bias-ridden propaganda designed to instil a sense of vindication and superiority in the American people at the expense of and over the French, those cultured and breasts-baring (thank god for South Europe) people whose politicians dared assume a principled stand when Blair and Bush resorted to alarmism and exaggeration in order to pursue their war.

And that's why this piece was written, and why it's OK to dish it out to the French. Julia Gorin ought to be ashamed of herself. She probably needs to get laid and loosen up a little bit, cut down on the bitchy busybody act and maybe go back to school or something.

By the way, December:

The article makes a claim that French culture connoisseurship is a cloak for depravity, that is moral corruption or degradation.

It may be an interesting question to ask if there were any evidence that depravity and moral corruption or degradation are significant factors of French life/culture. However I'm going to have to ask for a more effective indictment than Gorin's lame, half-envious reference to one cock-hungry author describing how she went about getting what she craved one fine day.

Another thread here looks at the question of how the very cultured Germans, with Beethoven, Goethe, Schhiller, etc., could turn to Nazism. Cultured people in many countries embraced Stalinism.

Yes, and many didn't. I haven't seen the thread you mention, but my guess is that it's a matter of 1) apples and oranges, 2) excessively broad and often artificial parameters, 3) seriously confused thinking.

Tall white people have a tendency for slavery, did you know? You didn't? But, but, just look at American and Dutch history.

The Japanese are really disgusting and depraved, evidence for this can be found in their scat porn industry.

It's well known that people involved in the Arts are ruthless and evil; just look at Kim Jong Il and North Korea.

etc.

[RedFury]

Lets not pardon the French?

For what? They weren't the ones that launched an invasion based on lies and misrepresentations -- in fact, they were the leading voice of sanity opposing this whole mess. Seems to me the opposite holds true. America owes France an apology for all the gratuitous bashing.

Fat chance of that happening of course, what with the jingoistic Neanderthals currently in charge of US fortunes.

[benthames]

Originally posted by New Iskander
benthames,

Lafayette is indeed buried in American soil,
but in France (http://www.pbs.org/ktca/liberty/chronicle/lafayette.html).



Well, stick my finger in an outlet and call me shocked. I swore he was buried here. Thanks for the heads up. You learn something every day.