Captain/Admiral Jean Luc Picard, or, if you are an annoying all-power Cosmic T^^at, “Mon Capitain”.
One of Star Trek’s most popular characters.
But, how is he viewed in RL France? What do the RL French think of this Gaulified Spaceman?
They call him Mark Matthew and dub his French with a thick American accent.
(I don’t know, I just wanted the thread bumped to get some opinions.)
The French page of the Wikipedia article on Jean-Luc Picard does seem to focus on his Frenchness, noting 1) that the show makes very little real connection to his Frenchness, but nevertheless 2) making note of every French connection that is in the show. I’m not seeing much of any of that in the English version of the page, so it appears to be original work by a French Wikipedia contributor.
The English page is mostly talking about Picard’s personality and popularity as a character. The French page is trying to connect him to his ancestry.
I’m not seeing any negative connotations. But it is the Wikipedia, not some random forum - which is where you’d get all the hot takes.
To this day, I have NO idea why, when the frenchwoman (Genvieve Bujold?) who was cast as captain backed out, and they got Patrick Stewart…
… why wouldn’t they take three minutes and change the word “French” in the script to “English”?
People don’t have to have an accent. He could very well be a French person who learned British English, at a young age, and talks without a hint of his original French.
It just seems weird to us, because we know that he’s really just a British actor who couldn’t do a good French accent. Minus that knowledge, there’s really nothing weird about it. You can meet people from one country, speaking a perfect form of a language from a second country, now living in a third country. It’s not the average person, but there’s nothing particularly unbelievable about it - and that’s before living in an age with instant, global teleportation.
The real question is why the ship is mono-lingual and, specifically, English.
You have two different Star Trek series confused.
Genevieve Bujold, who is French-Canadian, was (briefly) the captain on Star Trek: Voyager. She left the series after just two days of shooting; it’s generally believed that her departure was due to (a) disagreements with the producers and showrunners over how she wanted to portray her character, and (b) being uncomfortable with the intense production schedule of a weekly television series (she was primarily a film and stage actor). She was then replaced by Kate Mulgrew in the role of Captain Janeway.
Bujold was never under consideration for the role of Picard; apparently, Stephen Macht was Gene Roddenberry’s initial choice for the role, and both Yaphet Kotto and Edward James Olmos turned down the role before it was given to Stewart. Note that, obviously, none of those actors are French, or even French-Canadian. 
They did try having Stewart speak with a French accent, but the result sounded so ridiculous it was quickly dropped.
Monsieur Reeker, ah shall be in mah reedy rheum.
Your mother was a tribble , and your father smelt of quadrotriticale!
Why would a Frenchman want Earl Grey tea, hot? Wouldn’t he want some kind of coffee? That tea thing made him seem even more English.
I just can’t imagine him saying that.
Now, him constantly calling for “Nombre Un…”
Captain Jean-Luc Clouseau.
Or Captain Jean-Luc Crabtree.
Why would an American want Earl Grey tea, hot? Wouldn’t he want some kind of coffee? Yet plenty of Americans drink tea (some of us were drinking Earl Grey as far back a the early 1970’s, long before The Next Generation).
Oh, and the French do have access to tea.
The world of ST:TNG is even more globally connected than ours is, I just assumed there was a lot more sampling of other cultures/cuisines and one could find a person who liked almost anything anywhere on the planet.
If you’re trying to make someone seem American in a TV show, you wouldn’t have him order an Earl Grey tea, hot. Given his accent, his tea order made him more British, which I’m sure was not what they were aiming for, if they were trying to pretend he was French.
In Season 1, Episode 4 of TNG, Data calls French an “obscure language”. Combine that with “French” people like Picard not speaking it, and the show seems to at least heavily imply that it died out at some point in the past (maybe outside of academia at least).
In this previous thread, the discussion of languages in Star Trek, and the idea that every species had just one language (including humans of Earth) started here:
Actually, we don’t know that they’re speaking English. Even if they were, their English would be different than our English. (Contrast modern English with that of the 17th Century, or the King James Bible/Shakespearian English depending on which point in the ST timeline you’re talking about). It’s “translated” to our archaic language so we can understand it.
In any case, it’s possible that by that time in the future history Star Fleet operates in just one language for efficiency/clarity/convenience/whatever so anyone joining Star Fleet has to learn it (or else must continually use a universal translator, which no doubt some do who physically can’t speak whatever the actual language is). Perhaps education in that one language is mandatory in schools in addition to whatever one’s “home” language might be so that government, science, medicine, international relations, etc. may be conducted in that one language.
Sort of like how nearly everyone in our time uses metric units for measurement, regardless of historical units used. Yes, yes, I know there is one BIG exception, just ignore than for now. The point is that when it comes to, say, science historical French or British or Chinese units of measurement don’t matter, everyone doing this for a living is using the same system no matter where they are in the world.
Maybe not if you want stereotypes and caricatures, but if you wanted to flesh out a character (and there is time to do that in a TV series) you can give him traits that wouldn’t normally be expected. Say… a Nigerian doctor who likes sushi and Japanese monster movies, or someone Arab interested in Brazilian music and dance, or otherwise mix things up so they aren’t a complete stereotype and/or to emphasize the greater global culture mixing taking place in a time or location.
(Note I am playing the devil’s advocate a bit here. Honestly, if that’s your biggest beef about the franchise you’re either not watching it much or you’re such a fan you’re willing to overlook some of this sort of thing.)
And thank heavens for that. It makes me think of the role sounding like Poirot a la David Suchet, which is to vomit (I know, Belgian not French, can you tell the different in an imitated accent?).
They had an opportunity to deal with Picard’s Englishness in the episode where he visited his older brother’s family, who IIRC owned a vineyard in France. My memory is fuzzy, but I don’t remember it coming up, which is probably all for the best.
That is not my biggest beef at all. It was just a comment in the context of “how is he viewed in France?”. I assume they think, no proper Frenchman is drinking tea! He should be sneering in a cafe drinking coffee and complaining about the meaningless of it all! Or, whatever stereotype I should be using.
At least for the American audience, Picard was French, but he wasn’t FRENCH, except for a few moments where the writers decided to lean into that a little bit. He was a human, a native of Earth, and a Starfleet Captain, and the fact that he was French rarely came into play.
Contrast that with Scotty, who was SCOTTISH, and Chekov, who was RUSSIAN: they had accents, they dropped in regular references to the characters’ backgrounds, etc.
I don’t know where you get that idea. There is in fact a tea culture in France. Thank goodness, because I’m a tea drinker myself and I would have been sad if tea had been utterly unavailable there during my visit.
The French also drink beer. I had a delightful dinner one evening in the Paris Chinatown. I also had a lunch of a hot dog and fries in Paris, too, and it wasn’t just American tourists buying and eating them at that location. It’s not all Cordon Bleu and expensive wines. The French do like their native culture very much but are also open to sampling, enjoying, and even making a hobby out of what the rest of the world has to offer.
Are there snooty Frenchmen? Of course. There are snooty people everywhere. Also, some people are determined to be stereotypes.
However, I do wish some of our French members here could chime in on this. But maybe the Venn diagrams of “SD members” and “ST fans” do not intersect.