Rue Rude

Madame, or Mademoiselle?

 
 
Caption: It's absolutely none of our business but we still demand to know if you are a virgin, unmarried, divorced, a widow, or just a naïve young thing....

Someone sent me this article, from a website called Madame ou Madame. It's about a new campaign against the word Mademoiselle.

Mademoiselle-- One box too many

Have you ever wondered why we don't call an unmarried man "my damoiseau*" or even "young virgin"? It's not surprising, since this distinction is reserved for women....

Yes, in France in 2011, men and women are still not treated equally: one salutation for men, two for women!

Therefore Osez le féminisme [Dare to be a feminist] and the Chiennes de garde [Watchdogs] are launching a campaign called "Mademoiselle-- one box too many" to remind us that the distinction Madame/Mademoiselle is neither flattering nor obligatory. And above all, that it is a sign of the everyday sexism that persists in our society.

Mademoiselle, la case en trop !

Vous ne vous êtes jamais demandé pourquoi on n'appelait pas un homme célibataire « Mondamoiseau », voire « jeune puceau » ? Pas étonnant, ce type de distinction est réservé aux femmes…
En effet, en France, en 2011, les femmes et les hommes ne sont toujours pas logés à la même enseigne : civilité unique pour les hommes, double civilité pour les femmes !

Osez le féminisme et les Chiennes de garde lancent donc une campagne intitulée « Mademoiselle, la case en trop » pour rappeler que la distinction Madame/Mademoiselle n’est ni flatteuse, ni obligatoire. Et surtout, qu’elle est le signe du sexisme ordinaire qui perdure dans notre société.

I don't want to be sexist, but for me the word "Mademoiselle" calls up a host of pleasant memories, from the time D took out his 14-year-old daughter to a grand restaurant in Paris and the waiter called her "Madame" the entire evening (wonder what he was thinking) to this World War II cartoon by one of my heroes, Bill Mauldin:

"Are you seeking a company of infantry, mon capitaine?"

 

*damoiseau is the male equivalent of demoiselle (damsel).

My Favorite Ten... Best Funny French Films

I won't be back in Paris for a few more days, so I thought I would fill the time by posting some "Ten Best" lists.

I prefer funny films to serious ones, maybe because I am a pessimist by nature. I even have a faiblesse for really stupid funny movies, like Dude, Where's My Car? As Oscar Wilde said once, "Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow." It's easy to make a moving serious film -- life is serious. All you have to do is take a sad true-life situation. Even if the acting, script and camerawork are mediocre, that movie can turn out halfway decent. And how good an actor do you have to be to look somber? (Scarlett Johansson anyone?) To make a brilliant funny film is much harder. Few actors have good comic timing. The script has to keep you laughing. And the second people stop being amused, they get annoyed. No one ever goes out of a serious movie angry because they didn't cry! But people are irritated by films that try to be funny and don't deliver.

The Oscars almost never go to a funny movie. That's because the Academy is full of pseudo-intellectuals who need to feel they're smart. (See Oscar Wilde quote, above.) If they weren't worried about that, they would understand that it's a far greater accomplishment to make an audience forget its troubles and laugh than it is to make them weep or remind them that the world can be a harsh place (um, duh!).*

The French are great at funny movies. They stuff them with historical and literary references, cultural in-jokes, visual and musical puns, and great acting. Here is a list of my favorite ten French funny films. It was hard to choose!

These movies don't always translate well, even if they have subtitled versions. They're often not politically correct by American standards. But they reward a second and third viewing. If you don't like them... well, let's just say it doesn't necessarily mean you're deep. 

These are not in any particular order.

Saint-Jacques-la-Mecque [which could be translated as "Santiago de Mecca"]

Siblings who loathe each other discover that the terms of their father's will require them to make a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela together. 

I have several French friends who walk on the trails to Santiago every summer. The entire trail can take months, but they go for a couple of weeks at a time. This movie made me think it would be a beautiful way to see medieval France.

Jean-Philippe Smet is the real name of French pop star Johnny Hallyday, who is about as big in France as Elvis was in the U.S. in his day. This movie is about the life of his biggest fan, a miserable salaryman who suddenly finds himself in a parallel universe where Johnny never made it big and runs a bowling alley.

 

Dîner de cons

This movie, originally a play, was bought by Hollywood and made into a bad American movie without the wit and cruelty (to someone who richly deserves it) of the French movie. I went with someone who dislikes comedy and rarely laughs. He had tears rolling down his face the entire time from laughing so hard.

Les Visiteurs is about time travelers, a count and his servant from the 1200s who find themselves in provincial France in 1993. 

 
La Cité de la Peur stars an older woman as the love interest,  a French touch.

Taxi 2 features a taxi driver who can go as fast as the Roadrunner outrunning Wile E. Coyote. Un-PC.

La Vie est une longue fleuve tranquille [Life is a long tranquil river] features a pair of boys switched at birth. One was raised in a working-class family with a mother who spits at the TV when she disagrees with someone; the other in a BCBG family with the children all dressed in navy blue.

Astérix et Obélix: Mission Cléopatre has held up to multiple viewings and is a favorite in my family. Gorgeous Monica Bellucci is perfect as imperious Cleopatra ordering her slaves about. Almost every line is a reference to something else famous, and it's fun to try to figure it all out.

Brice de Nice is a L.A. surfer wannabe, but he lives on the coast of the Mediterranean where the waves are one foot high. When he loses all his money, his invincible idiocy is all he can count on.

Mais qui a tué Pamela Rose?  Another favorite, featuring deep-voiced Frenchmen intoning, "Nous SOMMES le F.B.I."

Les trois frères Three men discover they are brothers and set out to recover their fortune.

(All right, that's eleven. One for lagniappe.)

*The theme of Sullivan's Travels (1941)

The Paris painting at the flea market

Paris paintings are a whole genre in themselves. Every thrift shop in America has some and they're mostly like this, with chic women from the 1950s. There's often a poodle and usually a café.

A Southern sorority's Paris day

Facebook steal, shhhh! Everyone loves Paris.

Inspired by France... but not enough to check the dictionary

Le grande cuisine in a thrift shop

Le Fleur de Lis in Chicago

La Salon of beauty in New Jersey

Le belle couture seems to be based in Singapore

 

Le belle façon facon in Second Life (I think) (by the way, do you know that several real nations have embassies there? Maybe the Académie française needs to get to work preserving French in Second  Life as well)

La bistro. You could give them the excuse that it's an Italian restaurant. However, bistro is masculine in Italian, too. A better excuse is that it's in Hurst, Texas.

Le belle dame is a hair salon in Kansas City.

And my favorite.... which you see all the time in Louisiana:

 

Anomalies of French life: strikers versus management, French version

One of my grandfathers was a coal miner until a mine collapsed right in front of him, killing a man standing three feet away. He emigrated to America and raised his children and grandchildren never to cross a picket line. And I never have.

French strikers in today's France are another breed, though. Here's a story from today's paper. It's normal union-management relations in France to hold executives hostage, block highways, train stations, and factories, and go on transport strikes at the beginning of big holidays. It's also typical reporting in France that the union leader is interviewed, but not the policemen or the kidnapped executives. The fact that the factory is losing 5 million euros a year is mentioned in passing.

The four directors of Constellium held captive since Friday morning by employees of the business in Ham, in the Somme, managed to escape last night. To the great annoyance of the employees who were protesting a plan social which provides for the elimination of 127 jobs out of the 200 at the factory, which processes aluminum (window frames, bars, structures). A fifth person, in charge of human resources at the site, was initially held but allowed by the employees to leave earlier.

Questioned this morning by France-Info, Benoît Mérelle, CFTC [union] representative, is still not over it. "Last night around two in the morning, our executives escaped with the help of the policemen by the railroad. The police set up a lure by coming to the barriers to ask us what we were going to do.... During that time, their friends helped the management escape," complained the union rep. The four executives slipped through an opening cut into the fence around the site by the police, he told reporters.

"We are not voyous."

The employees, taken by surprise, nevertheless hope for the executives to return to discuss [matters]. "We are not voyous, we won't sack the site, it's our industrial tool," emphasizes the CFTC representative.

Friday, taking advantage of a visit by the president of the worldwide business, Paul Warton, ccompanied by the French director, Hervé Pelcerf, the factory's employees decided to take them hostage. Around midnight, after a fruitless mediation, the employees decided to continue their action.

"The employees are disgusted by the attitude of management," said Benoît Mérelle. "There is no dialogue. We haven't gotten any kind of concrete measure." The unions are asking for promises that the factory will not be closed and support a reindustrialization project which an investment fund has shown interest in, but which was rejected by Constellium, he says. The employees are afraid that the plan social is nothing but a "disguised closing" before the factory could be completely shuttered next year. The management states, on the contrary, that this restructuring is necessary for the survival of the company, while the factory has lost 14 million euros in the past three years.

 

    March 2009. Employees of Sony France imprison their boss for 24 hours. They get €13 million extra and better conditions.

    March 2009. Employees of 3M France imprison their boss for more than 30 hours. They get the promise of a minimum of €30,000 for being laid off.

    31 March 2009. Four managers at Caterpillar France held captive by employees for 24 hours. The company laid off 70 fewer people and added €1.5 million to the laid off employees remuneration.

    7-8 April 2009. Four managers at Scapa France held overnight. Money for laid off employees increased from €900,000 to €1.7 million.

    April 2009. Employees of Molex hold two managers hostage. The factory closes four months later than planned and employees are paid for strike days.

    July 2009. Employees of New Fabris, a bankrupt auto aluminum supplier, threaten to blow up their factory. They get €12,000 apiece for being laid off.

   July 2009. Employees of Nortel threaten to blow up the company. They ask for extra money beyond legal requirements for being laid off. They get it.

  January 2010. Employees of Akers, a Swedish metallurgy firm, hold four managers hostage for more than 24 hours. They want €45,000 apiece for being laid off. Management offers €30,000.

March 2010. Employees of Sullair France, a tool company threatened with closure, hold the new boss hostage his first day on the job. They demand €50,000 apiece for "non-material loss."

    March 2010. Employees of Siemens France hold managers hostage for more than two days. Management agrees to give every laid off employee €25,000 more than the law requires.

    April 2010. Employees of auto equipment maker Sodimatex threaten to blow up their factory. They get €21,000 apiece extra for layoffs.

    April 2010. Employees of bankrupt Poly Implant Prostheses threaten to set fire to their company if they do not get more money for being laid off.

     23 September 2011. Latest managers "sequestered" by employees: Still-Saxby, an elevator-car factory that is being closed within a year. (Story has six quotes from workers, one from management (not one of those held hostage), one from an under-prefect.)

     28 September 2011. Elected representatives in Puy-de-Dôme held hostage for four hours by angry government employees, until freed by policemen.

     3 February 2012. Angry parents at a grade school hold the principal prisoner in her office. They took away her telephone so she cannot speak to the media.

    30 March 2012. "Exasperated" employees of FNAC, one of the largest stores in Paris, sequester their boss.

Here is an article in Le Monde about this interesting technique for getting your way, with examples. Le Monde adds, "Holding  your boss hostage has become an obligatory step in letting your grievances be known."

    9 April 2013. Employees of Candia, a major milk company, hold hostage the executive in charge of closing their factory.

I could have been a Mommy-blogger

I'm sure I would have been a Mommy-blogger if blogging had come along a little earlier. As it is, I'm glad I wasn't, because using your kids as blog-fodder (or book-fodder) can become a bad idea really fast, as they get older.

                     (From my diary, first year in France)

Yesterday we were caught in the rain on avenue X near .... an expensive store that sells hand-embroidered clothes for children, as well as baby carriages, crib linens, etc. I went inside to get out of the rain, but then I thought, since all the stores are having sales, that it would be a good time and place to get a present for Charlotte and Louis's new baby Chloé-- I knew Charlotte would recognize the name of the store. Anyway, L sat down in a chair and read a book she had brought along in her backpack-- fidgeting the whole time, of course. The baby dozed in the stroller. When I came to leave, I saw N-- lying on the floor full-length, face up, looking under the skirt of a very real-looking little-girl mannequin. I was mortified but it was also so funny-- I mean, he's only three! 

As we left he was about to call out "Pipi-culottes!" to the saleslady (who luckily had a good sense of humor and was used to children). I clapped my hand over his mouth and said fiercely, "Say 'au revoir, Madame!'" N took a deep breath and said, "Au revoir, Madame... Poubelle!"

French titles in the DVD store

While trying to think of what to write about today, since I'm not in Paris till later this month, I looked through the stash of images in my Paris file and found this one:

 
It reminded me of the frustrating hunt through the Virgin Megastore on the Champs-Élysées (a fun store otherwise) when you are looking for a specific DVD in English. The store sells lots of DVDs in version originale (abbreviated V.O.) but the title is rarely the one you are looking for-- it's always sold by its French name. Charlie's Angels, for example, becomes Drôles de Dames ("a strange kind of lady").  And that's just the beginning.

The Other Boleyn Girl

Season of the Witch

Family Guy

Godfather 2

French at the supermarket

Trying to find a common theme here. I think it's just that it's hard to imagine another country's name being used so much to persuade you to buy something. "Creamy German dressing"? "Decaf British roast coffee"? "Country-style Belgian fries" (which would be more authentic)? "Canadian manicure"? A magazine called "Country Dutch"?

 

Onze septembre, ten years ago

Photo by Dennis Mana-Ay

Le Monde published a front-page article after the attacks on the World Trade Center, by the editor-in-chief Jean-Marie Colombani, entitled "Nous sommes tous américains." I've tried to find a photo of the headline saying that, but haven't been able to.

Here is a translation. (The Google listing for this said "Jean-Marie Colombani, of Paris' Le Monde, records her reaction to hearing about the terrorist attacks on the United States.")

I was in London when the attacks happened. A cleaner speaking Spanglish told me, "You didn't hear? The World Trade Center, it's gone!" I sat in front of the television for hours, feeling colder and colder, as my legs began trembling despite myself.

The outpouring of sympathy was overwhelming and touching. One of the London newspapers printed a huge U.S. flag on half the page, and suggested people put it in their windows to show compassion. You saw this flag everywhere, in truck drivers' windshields, in store displays, in the windows of private houses. Two of my family members went to the memorial service at Saint Paul's Cathedral and reported that they couldn't even get within blocks of the cathedral for the crowds. All the embassies, including those of Islamic countries, set their flags at half-mast. I heard from all my friends abroad, asking if my family and friends were all right. 

It was a human tragedy, and everyone can identify with those ordinary people who went to work on an ordinary day, only to find themselves caught up in world politics.