Ma Vie in France

I’ve already commented on French presidents in another post. This post, however, is going to be about my reaction to a video I saw of President Obama. Here’s a link : http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/18e820ec3f/between-two-ferns-with-zach-galifianakis-president-barack-obama In a short recap, the video is part of a series called Between Two Ferns that the actor/comedian Zack Galifianakis hosts, usually with celebrities, where he literally sits between two ferns and conducts ridiculous interviews, making fun of himself and his guest/s. The website’s major demographic is 18-34 year-old males [1] and it functions on a system of votes : once a video is posted, viewers vote whether a video is funny or not. I was shocked to see a short clip from the series with President Obama as a guest. It was shocking I suppose because I’ve been in France for a while where I’m used to seeing the president solely as a political figure. But also because the video blurs the lin...

French news has been full of politically incorrect topics lately, from antisemitism from the comic Dieudonné, to rumors of teaching ‘gender theory’ in French primary schools. But it’s been a while since I’ve seen something in France that truly shocked me. Well last week, I found something. It was while I was walking through the subway station and read the following advertisement in passing : I stopped in front of the poster for a minute, contemplating the term extra-conjugale and then said to myself ‘no, that can’t be right. This can’t be an advertisement for an extra-marital dating site’. Alas, it is. I checked with a French person to make sure I hadn’t misinterpreted the poster. No, and what’s more, these kind of sites are apparently à la mode right now, people are ‘owning up to’ infidelity. Before discussing this further, I’d like to delve deeper into the text of the poster itself. It uses the cheeky imagery of a bitten apple, and the text at the top...

Ah money and markets. These concepts are always sticky subjects in France. One of the first things I heard about the difference between the two countries is that money is an impolite subject in France, at least in general discussion. French people, on the other hand, often hear that Americans freely talk about money with one another, even with strangers, from their salaries to the price of their cars. From a French viewpoint, America is the epitome of a consumer society. After all, we are the country that brought the world McDonald's, Starbucks, and Apple products. At its best, our competitive capitalism can be seen as an example of American individualism, where every person has a right to seek his/her own wealth. And if big American brands have been imported internationally, then it’s just a result of American ‘pragmatics’ and ingenuity. In other words, some would say that Americans culturally have a special relationship with money that allows them to excel at commercialism ...