From: francis@ircam.fr (Joseph Francis)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.europe,soc.culture.french
Subject: (French Kulcha) Re: CNN Reports...
Date: 15 Apr 92 16:12:08 GMT
Organization: IRCAM, Paris (France)

In article <1992Apr14.164835.18501@muddcs.claremont.edu> ccharpen@jarthur.claremont.edu (Jolitorax) writes:
>>Thank god the Parisites can flee to the refuge of LaToya Jackson
>>entertaining along with Chippendales at the Moulin Rouge, or if that
...
>>gasping in the highest carbon monoxide levels of any city anywhere (LA
>>included). 
>
>They're not already dead? I'm sure that you're really objective. Let's
>say that every american listen to country music too! Ask them!
>Or better : Bruce Sringsteen (I don't know how to write it) the
>american hero!

"Country Music" has quite a presence here in France also, something
which mystifies me, but I guess its the "toe-tappin' rhythm". I never,
/EVER/ said America was wonderful. It doesn't surprise me at all that
European Universities are shutting down "American Studies"
curricula... But the imperious sniffing about "culture" in a country
whose best and most engaging culture in many domains rests on
laurels more than 30-50 years old (and whose laurelient racines delve
deep into high 19th century "Belle Epoque" cultural hegemony and
ascendancy over a not completely willing world who viewed it as
superficial and "decadent")...

Crying over EuroDizz merely grants it a legitimacy in discourse that
ordinary yawns avoid entirely.

>>I'm sure a few old Jerry Lewis movies on TV will brighten
>>up the day, if not, there are always the soporific and ludicrously
>>pornographic soft-pore corn interludes on later-evening television.

>Where is Playboy coming from! I can't remember, may be France!

France generated the pornography industry as we know it today in the
late 19th and early 20th centuries. Get your sources correct.

>>Soporific, I know, but something has to compete with the Valium, in a
>>country which has the highest rate of tranquilizer consumption per
>>capita. What?  You can't tell the difference between television and
>>film in France with your eyes closed, or open? 

>You're so funny, ASSHOLE!!!!!!!! I understand now why americans are
>not so welcome in France! (with your sources of course!)

They French film industry has over a long time been gradually absorbed
and altered by French Television for the purposes of Television (i.e.
to inhibit competition) - a result has been the simultaneous (and
paradoxical) decline in film quality and a strangely growing
dependency on American programming to fill the created markets. Isn't
it difficult to believe that Le Cinq just closed (can you imagine a
Television network going bust in this day and age?), and most
financiers are about as interested in funding Television and Film
projects in France as they are Real Estate in London Docklands.

>>Thank god you can fall
>>back on fashion, fabulous YSL monogrammed sweaters, ties, belts,
>>shoes, handbags, monogrammed and (in the US at least) K-Mart (yes!
>>KMart) quality "New Look". That is, if you don't gasp from how
>>fabulous Pierre Cardin competing things are. Or if you notice that all
>>the actually nice clothes are ... made in Italy? 
>
>Yes it's cheaper! French are so sophisticated and proud and rude and
>cute and ... Is it not your idea of the french culture. By the way, do 
>you know where is France or do you think it's just a country outside
>USA!

We were speaking about "export culture", since that is effectively
what Dismaland is. Entertainment is America's second largest export,
second only to military arms (which one might qualify as larger toys
for fightin' boys). I love the quality of life in France, and I love
the cultural mileu in which I 'disport myself'; that isn't to say that
I'm blind to glaring bad taste - Las Vegas has its origins on the
Champs Elysees, Versailles I note has "singing fountains" on alternate
weekends (loudspeakers secreted in the bushes blaring Handel - you
guessed it "Water Music" and -- surprise? Vivaldi's "Four Seasons",
and what?  Is that Pachelbel's Canon?), the refreshingly beautiful and
sophisticated day and eveningwear of fashion gives way to the most
shudderinly ugly sportswear available worldwide (well, there is always
the Netherlands) (I mention fashion specifically because The Clothing
Industry in France (well, lets say Couture) was the single most
important post-war industry, and the largest continuing cultural
export...; I made the comment because what French Culture which used
to be found only in I.  Magnin, Bloomingdales, Saks, now is
merchandised K-Mart fodder).

>>Well, I suppose I'm
>>being rude; It /IS/ too much to remark that in a culture where
>>goodspirited unpretentious fun requires a... pack of unfiltered
>>Gitanes, and sitting totally passive on the side of a street drinking
>>beer...
>Yes, USA is so fun! All the parties close at 1PM, the beer is disgusting!
>And more, is it not an american habit to go to party to be drunk. Music, who
>say music?

Great Britain and America produce the best popular music today; Germany
and France produce the best serious music today.

American Beer is vomitaceous.

And lets get one other thing straight: "MacDonalds" - hamburgers are
French cuisine (steack hachis), though the bun is an American utility.
Pommes-Frites are more Belgian, though I would hasten to point out
that "Belgium" is a synthetic country made up of (rather warring)
Flemish and French-speaking peoples; Americans consider fried potato
sticks "French Fries" as is well known. The fried fish croquette, as
well as the fried chicken croquettes, are derived from french Bistro
cuisine, though it could be quibbled that they are more Dutch. I
suspect a mixture of the two. Of course mixed salads - what country
originated that?; Coca-cola is definitely American. But then one
reminds onesself that French cuisine was derived from Italian cuisine,
I believe in the 17th century. And then there is the "Chausson aux
Pommes", or the apple-turnover. French.

/////

I never defended America. I simply wanted to make a few sarcastic remarks.
I did, after all, choose to leave the US and live in France.

I do believe that what there is which defines a culture (a way of
life, a quality of seeing things, a sensibility of place, the
intellectual mileu one travels in) in France is interesting and
compelling enough that worrying about an encroachment by Disney does
less to criticize Disney than to question the fragility of /French/
culture. There was an interesting, though irritating book, written by
the cultural critic of the New York Times about French Culture called
"Fragile Glory".  I must say, it is not something I believe, and it is
exquisitely "American".

>I don't want to be rude to all the nice americans I met here but this guy
>piss me off!

Don't worry. I wanted to pull a lot of legs.

-joe


-- 
| Le Jojo: Fresh 'n' Clean, speaking out to the way you want to live
| today; American - All American; doing, a bit so, and even more so.
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