Middle aged American here, and when I was a kid the culture around me regarding france was basically “lol they surrender.” And that whole stupid thing probably peaked in 2003 with Freedom Fries.
But now?
I honestly wonder if any other nation’s population has their heads on straight as much as the French. The only place in Europe where I have spent much time though is up in Sweden, and the nords seem pretty good at life-ing too.
I watched Les Mis, and there’s the song about clothes wet from the rain, sticking to thier skin, while the rich are getting richer.
I wonder how the movie would do if it came out now… (But even then, people would complain about Russel Crowe.)
also also
Tom Hooper can’t get lucky. Kings Speach vs Social Network. I didn’t like The Kings Speech. (Maybe im biased with Social Network being my personal favourite movie of all time). I wasnt on the internet for that oscar race, but at least Social Network is getting more praise than the Kings Speach.
Les Mis got hated on because Russell Crowe (bad singing) and Anne Hathaway (in like 1/8th of the movie and nominated for best actress).
and then Cats which is… Cats…
And now, I noticed, Tom also directed The Danish Girl, which I havent watched yet, but I remember the controversy…
They’ve been flirting with far-right government like most everyone else, but their protesting game is on point. The whole country being smaller than Texas helps, too.
Yeah, the average population density of the US is a lot lower than many people realize. Protests are seen as city-based things, both geographically and culturally.
And then you have eu-nation-sized red states that can hold many many trumpers who are unable to play nice with others because they don’t have to have neighbors.
I didn’t really finish my thought there. Apologies.
It was starting to get at why we don’t really see “the americans” protested like we might “the french.” And our media doesn’t help in how they report it. It enables the republican populace as well as the entire government to more easily ignore it. It’s always "protests broke out in cities across america in response to X.
The physical separation is also part of it. it all helps feed into this “divide” where the republican voters can seemingly give no shits about human suffering or the rise of fascism because it’s all happening to “other” people far away. It might as well be the middle east.
People without neighbors are also less clued into to how policy changes affect entire societies of people, rather than just the price of gas for their truck.
And like the other reply said, this is just one contributing factor.
Disagree… It’s not “reported” as news, but if 5% of a town showed up to a protest, that’s a big fkn deal to the people who see it, and makes them aware that the protest exists.
It’s only one factor. The bigger factor is that our police are insanely militarized. If my black ass tried to barbecue at a protest, I’d get gunned the fuck down, then I’d be unnamed in the news stories (if there were any), and the cop would get a medal for killing a “terrorist”.
That’s more like it. Americans (just like Russians) like to automatically dismiss all the critique and calls to action with this knee-jerk “country big” reaction, and since you can’t actually do anything with a country being big, it’s a bit of a thought terminating cliché. Meanwhile, the size of a country rarely has anything to do with anything
Historically, the French really only surrendered once, unfortunately evocative of the “but you fuck a goat one time …” joke. It didn’t help that they surrendered to one of the biggest monsters in history, at a time where they arguably didn’t need to surrender. TBF, the main reason their biggest ally (Britain) didn’t surrender at the same time was the fact that they were able to run away.
The other thing to remember is that when they surrendered they surrendered their entire naval fleet to the Nazis which was really irksome because why did they do that? So then the British had to launch a mission to sink the French naval fleet. All of which was a giant waste of resources, those ships could have come over to the UK.
Obviously it’s all water under the bridge now but it was a tactically stupid decision.
when they surrendered they surrendered their entire naval fleet to the Nazis
This is absolutely not correct. The Nazis didn’t try to seize (what was left of) the French fleet until the end of 1942 (more than two years later) in response to the Anglo-American invasion of North Africa. The French fleet remained under Vichy France’s control and the French admiral had promised to scuttle the fleet if the Germans attempted to seize it. Churchill did not consider this assurance adequate for the security of his country and ordered the attack. It’s worth noting that France did scuttle most of their remaining vessels when the Germans attempted to take them in 1942.
Should the French fleet have continued fighting? As I mentioned in my comment, the entire country could have and probably should have continued fighting. But once France surrendered, there’s no particularly logical reason why just one part of their military should have gone on.
Have an extensive history of military might, from rampaging barbarian hordes, to a continent-conquering emperor, to a foreign legion famed as being one of the most badass fighting forces in the world, and nobody bats an eye. But get embarrassingly outflanked one time, and you never hear the end of it!
explanation since the comm isn't History Memes this time
“rampaging barbarian hordes” – the Gauls
“continent-conquering emperor” – Napoleon
“foreign legion” – the French Foreign Legion
“embarrasingly outflanked” – the failure of the Maginot Line in WWII
There was the loss in WWII, but there was also the loss of all their colonies after WWII. Some of them they fought for and lost like Vietnam and Algeria. The reputation of the French for losing wasn’t accurate, but it also wasn’t based on nothing.
Middle aged American here, and when I was a kid the culture around me regarding france was basically “lol they surrender.” And that whole stupid thing probably peaked in 2003 with Freedom Fries.
But now?
I honestly wonder if any other nation’s population has their heads on straight as much as the French. The only place in Europe where I have spent much time though is up in Sweden, and the nords seem pretty good at life-ing too.
I watched Les Mis, and there’s the song about clothes wet from the rain, sticking to thier skin, while the rich are getting richer.
I wonder how the movie would do if it came out now… (But even then, people would complain about Russel Crowe.)
also also
Tom Hooper can’t get lucky. Kings Speach vs Social Network. I didn’t like The Kings Speech. (Maybe im biased with Social Network being my personal favourite movie of all time). I wasnt on the internet for that oscar race, but at least Social Network is getting more praise than the Kings Speach.
Les Mis got hated on because Russell Crowe (bad singing) and Anne Hathaway (in like 1/8th of the movie and nominated for best actress).
and then Cats which is… Cats…
And now, I noticed, Tom also directed The Danish Girl, which I havent watched yet, but I remember the controversy…
They’ve been flirting with far-right government like most everyone else, but their protesting game is on point. The whole country being smaller than Texas helps, too.
Yeah, the average population density of the US is a lot lower than many people realize. Protests are seen as city-based things, both geographically and culturally.
And then you have eu-nation-sized red states that can hold many many trumpers who are unable to play nice with others because they don’t have to have neighbors.
How on earth the fact that your country also has wast swats of empty land stops you from doing effective protesting? Or any, actually.
I didn’t really finish my thought there. Apologies.
It was starting to get at why we don’t really see “the americans” protested like we might “the french.” And our media doesn’t help in how they report it. It enables the republican populace as well as the entire government to more easily ignore it. It’s always "protests broke out in cities across america in response to X.
The physical separation is also part of it. it all helps feed into this “divide” where the republican voters can seemingly give no shits about human suffering or the rise of fascism because it’s all happening to “other” people far away. It might as well be the middle east.
People without neighbors are also less clued into to how policy changes affect entire societies of people, rather than just the price of gas for their truck.
And like the other reply said, this is just one contributing factor.
Protesting in the bumfuck nowhere gives no results. 10 people protested in village of 200 isn’t news. 2k people protested in 200 villages isn’t news.
Disagree… It’s not “reported” as news, but if 5% of a town showed up to a protest, that’s a big fkn deal to the people who see it, and makes them aware that the protest exists.
Couple of years ago, “mud wisard” made an international news, and it was a protest of a dozen people in an empty village in the middle of nowhere.
It’s only one factor. The bigger factor is that our police are insanely militarized. If my black ass tried to barbecue at a protest, I’d get gunned the fuck down, then I’d be unnamed in the news stories (if there were any), and the cop would get a medal for killing a “terrorist”.
That’s more like it. Americans (just like Russians) like to automatically dismiss all the critique and calls to action with this knee-jerk “country big” reaction, and since you can’t actually do anything with a country being big, it’s a bit of a thought terminating cliché. Meanwhile, the size of a country rarely has anything to do with anything
Historically, the French really only surrendered once, unfortunately evocative of the “but you fuck a goat one time …” joke. It didn’t help that they surrendered to one of the biggest monsters in history, at a time where they arguably didn’t need to surrender. TBF, the main reason their biggest ally (Britain) didn’t surrender at the same time was the fact that they were able to run away.
The other thing to remember is that when they surrendered they surrendered their entire naval fleet to the Nazis which was really irksome because why did they do that? So then the British had to launch a mission to sink the French naval fleet. All of which was a giant waste of resources, those ships could have come over to the UK.
Obviously it’s all water under the bridge now but it was a tactically stupid decision.
This is absolutely not correct. The Nazis didn’t try to seize (what was left of) the French fleet until the end of 1942 (more than two years later) in response to the Anglo-American invasion of North Africa. The French fleet remained under Vichy France’s control and the French admiral had promised to scuttle the fleet if the Germans attempted to seize it. Churchill did not consider this assurance adequate for the security of his country and ordered the attack. It’s worth noting that France did scuttle most of their remaining vessels when the Germans attempted to take them in 1942.
Should the French fleet have continued fighting? As I mentioned in my comment, the entire country could have and probably should have continued fighting. But once France surrendered, there’s no particularly logical reason why just one part of their military should have gone on.
It does seem they’re suffering from the same rightward-slide that many other countries are facing though, unfortunately.
As an European, I still can’t believe you guys did that
Clearly you’ve never seen a marketer and a politician in a room together.
Copied from my earlier comment elsewhere:
explanation since the comm isn't History Memes this time
One post that I read somewhere else on fedi was in the lines of, you can’t reasonably think French are cowards, they made snails into fine cuisine.
There was the loss in WWII, but there was also the loss of all their colonies after WWII. Some of them they fought for and lost like Vietnam and Algeria. The reputation of the French for losing wasn’t accurate, but it also wasn’t based on nothing.