The "Annual [insert name here] Award" should be called:
Total Voters: 66
Loading ...Votes will end on Friday July 4th 2008.
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June 28th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
I vote for Freedom Fry — fry those bigots!
June 29th, 2008 at 12:05 am
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June 29th, 2008 at 12:06 am
Marc
good choices
as a PR guy, i don’t like THE FREEDOM FRY AWARD, it will backfire on you. FREEDON FRIES WAS ALWAYS A STUPID WORD COINED IN STUPID USA….do not use that. Please!
Freedy the Freedon Fry is also POORLY WORDED AND not good, IMHO
so i will VOTE for THE FRANCOPHOBE AWARD, that says it all. GOOD NAME
PS : GALLOPHONE AWARD is too strange sounding..FRANCOPHOBE IS GOOD. BEST. to start with, i like THE FRANCOPHOBE AWARDS, it says IT ALL>>>> GO GO GO
June 29th, 2008 at 12:07 am
i cannot stresss enough, how FREEDOM FRY AWARD will backfire on you and cause you more trouble. stay far away from that word, that term. it is very stupid. cute, but stupid name for this prize.
again
FRANCOPHONE AWARD, says it all….the media will pick up on this word, and explain to readerse what FRANCOPHOBE means, etc. so it’s a good learning tool….freedom fry award will BACKFIRE.
danny
June 29th, 2008 at 12:12 am
Thanks for the feedback - Vox populi, vox dei. If anyone comes up with a better name, please use the comment section so we can add new options, in which case we’ll have to allow for multiple voting (2 votes per person).
Vote for Pedro !
June 29th, 2008 at 12:22 am
About the Freedom Fry, Danny, I have an email alert for any news item with that comment, and it is now 100 % negative.
No, he’s not whipping up a special prix fixe menu or creating a French rebuke to the abominable concept of “Freedom Fries.”
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2008/06/famed_chef_cooks_up_beats_not.php
… tough love speech there was appreciation, applause and respect from the Israeli’s–and no sign of menu’s offering “freedom fries” in the Knesset cafeteria.
http://www.prospectsforpeace.com/2008/06/at_israels_parliament_a_french.html
We must remember the resulting “Freedom Fries, not french fries” attack on the French. The president’s attack dog, John Bolton, was sent in to tarnish the …
http://www.nwfdailynews.com/opinion/weapons_8877___article.html/bush_lie.html
Response to this active opposition started the boycott of goods like French fries, which quickly became “freedom fries,” thanks to Reps. …
http://media.www.dailyemerald.com/media/storage/paper859/news/2008/06/23/Opinion/Study.Abroad.Experience.In.America.Has.Been.Valuable-3384156.shtml
… in favour “freedom fries”, and the proud President of the Fifth French Republic was derided by the tabloid press as a “cheese-eating surrender monkey”. …
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/06/13/do1306.xml
June 29th, 2008 at 12:23 am
More at News Google
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&q=%22freedom+fries%22&btnG=Search+News
June 30th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
I voted for francophobe award.
Because francophobes is what this is all about and it is a clear cut, no ambiguity award.
Freedom fry award will get people confused and french-haters may even claim it as a badge of honor whereas francophobe carries a clear meaning of xenophobia and who wants to be associated with that ?
June 30th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Janaka Yagirala; that guy/girl is, IMHO, more than deserving of the francophobe ward. What a disgusting piece of French hatred.
http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items08/180608-5.html
June 30th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Barney - I saw that article in the sidebar, yes a pathetic piece. I have yet to investigate the context, I think this has to do with Sri Lanka / Ceylon etc.
June 30th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
I must say, despite the comments above, I like a lot the Freedom Fry award. It’s fun, and makes this thing not too serious. Which I like, it sounds to me a bit like the Big brother award.
But effectively, I’m not sure it will be well taken, maybe that would make us appear arrogant one more time…it’s never that good to insist on mistakes to make fun of, not if you want to be taken seriously.
July 1st, 2008 at 6:23 am
Danny Bloom — how long have you been in PR? “Francophobe awards”, in my humble opinion, may be seen more as an attack than as a humorous (albeit serious) reprimand.
You see, what we want is to ridicule the bashers, and make people see how ridiculous it is. We don’t want them lynched by an angry mob (besides, it’s not happening). Often, the shortest way to peoples’ hearts and minds is through laughter — laughing at the bigots, that is.
That’s why they use “chickenhawk” instead of “cowardly belligerent republicans”
July 1st, 2008 at 10:03 pm
I have the same take on the matter as André Wernesson. As he says, ‘You see, what we want is to ridicule the bashers, and make people see how ridiculous it is.” (and if I may add, how idiotic they, French bashers are.)
“Francophobe award” indeed lends it a serious note and is technically the appropriate term but we don’t want to make the whole enterprise seem <i>lugubre.</i>
July 2nd, 2008 at 12:52 am
Wish we could hire AMC’s Mad Men for this project !
July 2nd, 2008 at 1:46 am
A suggestion from one of our readers : Well…maybe the critics are are right. Maybe it should be coupled with something like the Lafayette award [or the Lafayette-Jefferson Award] for the person who has done the most to improve Franco-American relations.
July 2nd, 2008 at 6:26 am
“(and if I may add, how idiotic they, French bashers are.)”
Precisely. We could actually photoshop the contestants’ faces onto freedom fry “bodies”, (well, actually, French Fries with legs and arms) and make a nice page where you can visit the contestants. It would all be done in Rocky style, as if they were ready to duke it out.
July 2nd, 2008 at 3:17 pm
If we turn french-bashers into cool cartoon characters, I’m afraid the impact will be somewhat limited.
We need to ridicule them I agree but not in the pretty mild way that you describe, andré.
I mean we’re talking people who are responsible for an entire generation of americans growing up persuaded that the French are cowards and stinky (it’s no longer a joke now for them).
That’s really serious. We need to hit them as hard as we can.
July 2nd, 2008 at 4:07 pm
“cool cartoon characters”
COOL CARTOON CHARACTERS?
You mean being a grotesque, ridiculous, talking, walking FRIED POTATO is COOL?!?
So, you mean that, like, if they portray president Bush as a turnip-head, he’s cool. ‘cos he’s a turnip-man. Cool.
July 2nd, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Let’s not get me wrong here: We’re going for ridiculous. If some people have no sense of humor and can’t get the joke’s on the bashers, then tough. I don’t like people without a sense of humor.
July 2nd, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Keep the debate going, the more we hammer this out, the better it gets.
“I’m enjoying this - I’m enjoying this” - Margaret Thatcher
July 2nd, 2008 at 4:53 pm
“Stop him, Bernard, stop him!” –Sir Humphrey Appleby ;-)
July 2nd, 2008 at 4:57 pm
… I have the entire dvd set … Awesome!
My favorite episode : education reform.
July 2nd, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Remember - Votes will end on Friday July 4th 2008. Let’s get a true majority decision here…
July 2nd, 2008 at 10:25 pm
I don’t want to humor people who think my little boy stinks and is a coward and are doing everyhting they can so their own boy believe it.
It’s not a comedy rally. It’s a struggle against bigotry and injustice.
July 3rd, 2008 at 4:11 am
Here’s a perfect example of a hypocritical turncoat who’s trying to gloss over his anti-French hatred of yesteryear. Rush Limbaugh who used to refer to John Kerry as “French-looking” and mocking him as “Jean Cheri” or “Jean F. Cheri” now wants to be seen as pro-French.
Now this hypocrite wants to bee seen as a Francophile : “Unlike many right-wing talk-show hosts, Limbaugh does not view France with hostility. On the contrary, he is a Francophile. His salon, he told me, is meant to suggest Versailles. His main guest suite, which I did not personally inspect, was designed as an exact replica of the presidential suite of the George V Hotel in Paris. ” Source : http://reason.com/blog/show/127323.html and the New York Times
July 3rd, 2008 at 5:28 am
And more surrender jokes… why ? Of course, a Frenchman lost something, to a Briton !!!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2008/07/03/stmoor103.xml
“Andy Murray made a monkey of cheese-eating Frenchman Richard Gasquet at Wimbledon
By Brian Moore
Last Updated: 2:22am BST 03/07/2008
I have always said you cannot trust the French; Primates capitulards et toujours en quête de fromages (cheese-eating surrender monkeys). Just when Richard Gasquet was cruising to a three-set win against Andy Murray at Wimbledon, he goes all French and surrenders.”
So I nominate Brian Moore for this award ! ;)
July 3rd, 2008 at 5:41 am
Pathetic, beneath contempt.
July 3rd, 2008 at 6:46 am
Barney, you’re getting it all wrong!
“I don’t want to humor people who think my little boy stinks and is a coward and are doing everyhting they can so their own boy believe it.
It’s not a comedy rally. It’s a struggle against bigotry and injustice.”
Me neither! Remember, we’re laughing AT the bashers, not WITH them!
The fact is, if it’s people who already are anti-French, chances are, no matter how we present it, they’ll stick to their wretched ideas.
But we must win ourselves those sane people who DON’T — and the best way is not to “accuse” them (which is never appreciated) but to be more “with” them.
July 3rd, 2008 at 6:50 am
Look, it’s like political caricatures. You may make a caricature to denounce something which you think a certain party or politician did wrong. And it’s funny. Of course, the said politician won’t find it funny. Perhaps, neither will his party colleagues, or his die-hard factionneers. But anyone who isn’t biased will grasp it, and understand how ridiculous that politician was.
According to your reasonning, there should be no political caricatures in the papers, only grim copperplate engravings portraying the horror of what they did!
July 3rd, 2008 at 6:52 am
“So I nominate Brian Moore for this award !”
May I second that. The Britons always, no matter what, have managed to make their bashing more venomous, more offensive, more hateful. The Americans try, but lack that special touch.
July 3rd, 2008 at 7:02 am
This is for Barney:
http://www.historicalstockphotos.com/details/photo/407_ulysses_s_grant_on_a_trapeze.html
OK, so here we’ve got this fine, fine example of late 19th century political cartoons, about our buddy Ulysses S Grant.
Now before we start objecting here that he’s cool because he’s portrayed as a cool trapezist or something, let’s have a look at his attributes: The president is obviously making a tremendous strain to make his whole shennanigan work — hanging onto different rings and bars such as “whiskey” and “third term” and especially, “corruption”, with a whole multitude of tiny, ridiculous carnies (his chamber members) weighing down the whole, absurd, fragile construction of state Grant has made.
Now, let’s not say this is uneffective! The ridicule, the absurdness, so plainly exposed, make it impossible to object that “This isn’t a comedy marathon; this is making corruption funny! We’re talking about a drunkard who’s spending the taxpayer’s money irresponsibly, not some cool trapezist!”
This one is even less subtle: http://www.historicalstockphotos.com/details/photo/409_ulysses_s_grant_cartoon.html
Grant is portrayed as a hobo followed by some stray dogs (his cabinet members).
Does funny exclude effective? Au contraire!
July 3rd, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Here we go again - see new item on front page. Carcassonne - Funny stuff for Danziger.
July 5th, 2008 at 7:22 am
May I add one small consideration in favor of “The Freedom Fry Award” and against “the Francophobe award” — it’s the “phobe” thing. It’s very in style lately, it basically consists in thinking that anyone who doesn’t think like one, the “phobe” in question, is obviously sick, and with a couple pills he’ll be just like us.
I’m not defending the bashers here, but I doubt these people suffer from a phobia. I think they’re assholes, period.
July 5th, 2008 at 11:32 am
The poll has now closed. We didn’t get a clear majority choice but a relative majority for “The Freedom Fry Award”.
July 8th, 2008 at 8:23 am
I find it kind of funny that when you google for “freedom fry award” (the name I voted for btw) you come across this page
http://www.billingsgazette.com/newdex.php?display=rednews/2005/05/20/build/nation/65-star-wars_v.inc
An article written in 2005! :)
July 8th, 2008 at 8:36 am
Concerning what Danny says (#3 & #4) no, “freedom fry award” will not backfire, but “francophobe award” will, because the real die hard francophobes will be proud to get a “francophobe award”! They’ll say “So what, I AM a francophobe!”. Whereas no one wants to get a “freedom fry award”, and be reminded of how idiotic they are (for having come up with “freedom fries” in the first place).
Sorry if my comment comes a little late.
July 11th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
I would tend to agree Cyrano, it will not backfire if we give the award to a part-time French Basher, someone who thought he / she could get away with it and would rather not be reminded of their comment(s) -
I will be putting the first nominations together shortly, but I might also have two nominations per category : (a) popular award (b) editorial award ?
July 27th, 2008 at 2:28 am
All good comments above. However, given that we now know that the Bush admin regularly fed anti-French talking points to the right wing columnists and radio people, this Freedom Fries thing was a Bush concocation, and we should not use it, even in ridicule I feel. However, this is just my opinion, and I will go along with whatever NAME for the award that the webmaster chooses. I think the most important thing to consider is how the NAME will be perceived by the media, not by those of us here. Let’s see what unfolds….
again, good discussion above, everyone!