Miquelon.org – The Fighting French

World soccer can whip up a nationalist frenzy like nothing else. This is also a time when French Bashing becomes popular in many circles; sports writers and commentators for instance. This year will be no exception if France qualifies for the next rounds. wins, loses or … does anything at all really.

A reminder of things past:

• In 2006, even in Canada, we had to contend with snide comments from George Stroumboulopoulous (who never apologized) and Bob Magee at CHFI (who apologized graciously).
• In 1998, France’s win against Brazil marked the beginning of a new wave of surrender jokes in America including Letterman’s Top Ten: “Top Ten Signs France Is Celebrating Their Soccer Victory: 8. Surrendering to Germany.”

We at Miquelon.org have dealt with both comedians and their forays into the world of French Bashing.

Conan O’Brien had been invited to Toronto in early 2004 and aired one of the most vile anti-Quebec and anti-French sketches ever. This comedian’s associate, Robert Smigel and his hand puppet Triumph, caused such a stir the issue was raised in Canada’s parliament.

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It’s Sunday, and some news comes over the wires about Sarkozy having a dizzy spell. Whatever. But you – Bridget Johnson – think you’re the funniest thing to ever hit About.com, so out comes the references to surrender jokes. Har dee har har.

I loathe thee.

Not so much for making fun of Sarkozy, he’s a public figure so he’s fair game, but for your utter disrespect for the most traumatic event in our history. Sure the headline is from the Onion (We know it’s satire – but why mention it? That’s the issue we have), but you think it is worthy of attention when discussing France’s Foreign Policy.  Read the rest of this entry »

Pretty much everybody online fancies themselves a comedian; unfortunately most of us are and will remain wannabes. Now that “Eternal September” has hit twitter, legions of newbies clamoring for attention are using the micro-blogging platform to repeat, rehash and retweet their skewed and simplistic view of history and the world.

On average, about a dozen or so anti-French jabs are written on twitter per week, most of them being some form of “French Surrender” joke. While some are deliberately trying to be offensive, others are living proof there is a “long tail” to America’s recent spate of French Bashing.

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Just a quick post about French Bashing and twitter.  Conservatives and bashers in general have discovered twitter and will us it to spew anti-French venom in under 140 characters:

To find and respond to French Bashers on twitter, check out these searches :

• “French surrender”
• “Arrogant French”
• “Surrender monkeys”
• “Hate French”

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South Park’s French Bashing Explored.

The world of cartoons is a powerful way to get out any message you could never achieve with traditional actors or more conventional means. Much like Aesop’s fables, the use of animated characters often serves as a vehicle for political and social satire that avoids serious scrutiny. After all, it’s just a cartoon right?

The Simpsons, Family Guy, King of the Hill and South Park have all achieved success through poking fun at our collective hypocrisies or our contradictions. Unfortunately, when empowered with such a potent vehicle, the creative teams behind these cartoons sometimes let their own prejudices show through.

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