#french stereotypes

[athelind]

I am contractually obligated to flag @paulgadzikowski on any and all posts relating to Arthuriana.

Finding out that Lancelot was apparently the invention of a french writer is absolutely hysterical to me. 12th century french poet sitting around reading arthurian romances and thinking "yeah these stories are pretty good but I think what they really need is a french guy who shows up and fucks arthurs wife"

[the-shades-of-night-descend]

i can't believe this is all i could find about the male gaze and female objectification in classic french cinema... a brief mention in a single article...

(...)

The French girl has been a cultural obsession for decades. She’s been crystallised into our collective imagination as the epitome of effortless beauty, charisma and charm. Her magnetism has been canonised through innumerable films, magazine articles, ad campaigns and even local festivals. From the Alliance Française Film Festival to Australia’s most stylish celebration of French culture — one which exudes French girl chic with slew of romantic, floaty and breton striped street style — ‘So Frenchy So Chic.’

Celebrity

(...)

How did the French girl aesthetic start?

French New Wave cinema began during the period of modernisation and sexual emancipation that followed WWII. A new generation of (mostly male) directors made their cinematic debuts, bringing to life their visions of the ‘modern woman’ on the silver screen. The result launched a pantheon of it-girls including Brigitte Bardot, Catherine Deneuve and Jane Birkin who captivated audiences around the globe and all remain mood-board fixtures today.

Central to the appeal of the trope of the French girl, at least in cinema, is her ability to occupy a number of seemingly impossible binaries. She’s beautiful, but without effort. She’s thin, but without ever denying herself anything. She’s liberated enough to be sexy, but not enough to be considered a feminist (god forbid). If all of this sounds unrealistic, that’s because it is. The French girl isn’t real — she’s a fantasy.

Although cinema solidified the image of the French girl as a muse, the portrayal of women in film received backlash even at the time. French philosopher and writer Simone De Beauvoir penned Brigitte Bardot and the Lolita Syndrome in 1959, criticising the way French cinema objectified and infantilised its female subjects. “In an age when a woman drives a car, speculates on the stock exchange [and] unceremoniously displays her nudity on public beaches,” she wrote, this objectification served to diminish a woman’s power and “re-establish the distance necessary to desire.”

The male gaze in cinema had popularised a fantasy of the feminine ideal — a standard that nobody, not even the women who immortalised it could live up to. A French publicist once noted, ”Men fall in love with the idea of Brigitte Bardot. When she starts to become a real woman to them, she simply gets rid of them. At all costs, she must preserve the illusion, the mythology”. However, the mythology of the French girl as an archetype of ideal femininity has lived on as a self-perpetuating one — buttressed by a highly profitable industry.

(...)

In addition to wearing curtain bangs and haphazardly styled Marinière tops, the trope is overwhelmingly represented in the media as thin, white and able-bodied. Ultimately, it serves as a relic of an oppressive beauty standard that we’ve been trying to shed since the turn of the decade.

If the troupe of popular brands associated with the aesthetic (such as Musier, Maje, With Jéan) are anything to go by, the French girl doesn’t exceed a size EU 42 (AU/UK 14). And although there’s been some improvement in the past years, mood boards and listicles featuring French girl style frequently exclude women of colour and/or plus-sized bodies. Even in contemporary pop culture, shows like Emily in Paris have come under fire for lacking diversity in what is supposed to be one of the most multicultural cities in Europe. Emily in Paris is far from the first TV show to capitalise on the fantasy and enduring allure of France. But it raises the question — why is a romanticised portrayal of Paris, still one that’s exclusive?

A post #MeToo era also saw a slew of tarnished legacies from some of the icons who immortalised the French girl as a cultural phenomenon. In 2018, Brigitte Bardot and Catherine Deneuve both spoke out against the #MeToo movement — Deneuve signed an anti #MeToo manifesto alongside 99 other prominent French women, whereas Bardot denounced actresses who came forward about experiencing abuse as ‘hypocritical’.

On the surface, it seems shocking that two women so synonymous with women’s sexual liberation would attack a cause like #MeToo. But as Jasmine Lobe writes in The Observer on Bardot’s comments: “I see a woman who fears the #MeToo movement — fears it will invalidate her career, a career built upon sex appeal and countless trysts.”

Although Bardot herself never identified as a feminist, she helped to popularise a brand of feminism in which embracing one’s sexuality and desirability was seen as a source of power over men. But as a delayed wave of #MeToo sweeps across France, we’re entering an era that’s pushing to transform a culture of sexual violence, not merely survive within it. And although the French girl (allegedly) doesn’t age in terms of appearance, the comments from Bardot and Deneuve revealed some of the values embedded within the trope that are well and truly outdated.

All of this isn’t to say that we shouldn’t celebrate French style and culture — far from it. It’s more than okay to appreciate an aesthetic or an image, but it’s important to acknowledge when elements of it become toxic or harmful. Luckily, there are plenty of women who are already challenging the French girl stereotype. Journalist Lindsey Tramuta’s book The New Parisienne: The Women and Ideas Shaping Paris spotlights 40 women living in Paris who are driving change through their creativity, intellect and activism. Determined to move beyond tired clichés, the book “demystifies this oversimplified archetype and recasts the women of Paris as they truly are, in all their complexity”.

By reframing the image of the French girl to include women from all backgrounds and walks of life, the age-old trope is receiving an important and humanising update. And honestly — it’s about time.

[the-blob-mob]

Lucy and her weed smoking boyfriends: an incel doctor, a cowboy, and the eat the rich ;) edition

[sophsun1]

Interview With The Vampire – 2.02: Do You Know What It Means to Be Loved by Death

[littlefankingdom]

~ Batman: No Man's Land

I'm really only bringing this up because my French ass need to tell you that, apart from politicians and bourgeois, no one is calling you "monsieur" when annoyed, especially not the guys shown there. You annoyed a "everyday" French and you immediately get called "connard" or "enfoiré", and in my heart, that what they said here, lol "T'as un problème, connard ?!" (literally: You have a problem?!) is the perfect traduction for "You want trouble?!"

And Bruce answering with the most serious and determined "Oui." to "T'as un problème, connard ?!" is funny as hell.

Usamericans are just too puritan to use bad words in their media, tho 😮‍💨

[deeppenguinstudent]

I think the most unrealistic thing in aftg is that the moment Jean got out of the Nest, he didn't pick up a horrible smoking habit

[marandsviet]

French Miku

[pinkyjulien]

Valentin Da Silva | 177/??

[cheddertm]

I’ve been thinkin about this LMAO

I always think its so funny n cure that Baghera is the one always doing typical French shit when she’s not, 1000/10

[hockeyisforwomen]

my team name suggestions:

Boston Massholes

New York Rent

Minnesota Winter Shorts

Montréal Frenchies

Toronto Money Bags

Ottawa Bureaucrats

[devilsburger]

Is Louis as protective over Alys in this AU or is Philip just his most special blessing from God boy still? Honestly I'm just curious about Alys in general here

I actually do have ideas for her in this AU!

Basically my thoughts on her is that she is kind of the "middle child" between Marguerite (Maggie) and Philip and is kind of in an awkward teen insecurity place due to her older sister being more accomplished/outgoing/attractive and "grown up" and Philip being more doted on.

Philip still gets the very "God's Special Gift" treatment by Louis, due to being the Only Boy(tm) but also because he was kind of prone to various sickness/injury as a kid so Louis and Adele worry over him a lot. 

Philip as he gets older is more resentful of the overprotectiveness but his being rebellious or having a bad attitude about things is generally more tolerated by his parents. Meanwhile the girls kind of have a mix of the performative Father-Daughter Protectiveness, but Louis is very awkward about "girl issues" especially re: puberty and sexuality stuff so he just leaves that to his wife.  I like the idea of still in this AU or Adele being Alys and Maggie's stepmom as well, so there's also that awkward  emotional distance between them. She's close to her sister but since Maggie is busy with her social life and bf she doesn't have much time to spend with her (and Alys is self conscious about coming across too young/"baby" in comparison to the older girls)

Anyways for Alys specifically she kind of is a little envious of the fatherly doting but also bc of neglect ends up having a bit more freedom to roam around. I would think I'm this AU since they're closer/in the same house she does care for Philip and wants to have more of a relationship with him, since they do share some similarities, but he's in a stage of aggressively wanting to distance himself from "girly" things and developing his own brand of weird women resentments lol.

She has baby crush on Richard bc he the only one of the Plants boys who doesn't actively harass her bc he forgets she exists. I did have an idea of a storyline where they do have sex (did some comic and art here)  but it was Cringe for everyone involved, makes all feelings fizzle out and die, no one was satisfied with it etc (except for the Geoff Junior who think they are geniuses)

Good thing there's someone willing to listen to her and make her feel better though....

Anyways in the end she is a lot like her father and brother in being prone to anxiousness and stubbornness, but definitely in vulnerable place due to the lack of attention and self esteem jdjfjfj

*As for Marie and Alix...they are grown up, married, getting their doctorates of literature in France or something djdjd and may or may not be biologically related but just imagine...

[inkblackorchid]

Ok. Ok. Look. I don't care where you stand on Roseknightshipping in particular, I don't even care where you stand on 5Ds shipping in general, but you cannot. You cannot tell me there's anything remotely straight about this moment. Like, this cannot have been an accident.

[danaris112]

Who is going to let me eat macarons. Or baguettes

[hausofmamadas]

FRENCHIE | Queer!Mode, Detected

The Boys, Season 1, Ep 2 - Cherry | Season 2, Ep 3 - Over The Hill With the Swords of A 1000 Men, 6 - The Bloody Door’s Off, 8 - What I Know | Season 3, Ep 3 - Barbary Coast

∴

I’ve seen a lotta chatter in The Boys fandom (mostly on Reddit but also TikTok. Appropriately this take wasn’t on Tumblr much) that ppl were mad at Kripke and Co for taking an unforeseen “gay turn” with Frenchie’s character in S4 ..? And I’m over here with my Sherlock Holmes cap and pipe and tiny detective notebook just

trying to understand how these ppl didn’t pick up on the bipan vibes from this beautiful, majestic, so-French-he-can't-help-it butterfly.

(Also all this hand wringing about Frenchie "turning gay," te lo juro me esta eloqueciendo alaverga. Like canwenot with the bi-erasure, it’s giving Ashley telling Maeve she’s a lesbian bc is more “clear-cut” and easier to sell than bi. It’s just as insulting to call a bipan person gay as it is to call them straight. And I don’t mean like the use of gay as a catch all that a lotta us queers use sometimes interchangeably for queer, I talkin ppl acting as tho bipan isn't real and/or thinking Frenchie jumped out the closet as a gay man 3/4 of the way thru the show.)

And their confusion over this has got me confused. Like I didn’t even realize it was such a plot twist until I got on Reddit and a lotta ppl were screaming like Ned Stark's head just got cut off, or like it's some wild-ass writer's room shenanigans where the character is suddenly a diff person for no discernible reason. Like have you seen this man? Do you know where you are? Bc they’ve been dropping hints throughout the show. Case in point:

a) Little Nina and all that talk about her Sergei ahem it's Serge and his overwhelming enthusiasm for butt stuff and Vincent Cassel try to convince me Sr. Cassel wasn’t a childhood crush of Frenchie’s or someth and that’s why it’s his safe word. You can’t

b) this time he planted a fat smooch on Hughie’s face after finding out he leaked the compound V tip to the press (bonus points for his attempt to make out with mm before getting a no-homo hard pass)

c) this deep, abiding love of The Golden Girls this is unequivocally the gayest thing on the list

d) how he turned tricks in mad NYC before Little Nina locked that mf in a chastity belt and held him hostage by his penis he went to ‘work’ for Nina. -> Disclaimer: this is not to imply that queer ppl’s participation in sex work is bc they’re hypersexual. This is here to point out queer coding, as lgbtqia+ ppl are more at-risk for mental health issues stemming from severe trauma, food and housing insecurity, and addiction, often without access to the care they need to recover. So sex work becomes a viable vocation to survive bc unlike a regular 9-5, it’s more conducive to untreated mental health issues and substance use also it’s an easier market to get into than arms dealing or contract killing

e) this throuple arrangement btwn him, Cherie and Justin

f) His attempts to…er broaden mm’s horizons ?

g) the evident lack of knowledge or interest or acumen for this mysterious sportsball of which mm speaks of but he’ll still go on that dumb golf bachelor trip bc he loves his fraaand

h) this fondness for Eurotrash raves and dancing

And look, I might get it if they sprung it on us. But this shit has been since the beginning. The earliest indicator being ep 2 of S1 — THE FIRST EP HE’S IN. Hughie asks what it’s like to kill someone and Frenchie waxes poetic about his first hit (just before ominously dropping, "I carry them all with me" buried the lead on that one to Hughie's horror but to the delight of bbygirllovers like myself everywhere) and well, I think the evidence here speaks for itself

Like the dichot— nay, Bichotomy of talking about how mindblowingly hot this chick is whilst, in the same breath, gushing over her outfit. Okay I’m sure there’s a token straightmale who can id high-end designer brands on sight. I’m sure that unicorn exists somewhere, right, cuz humans contain multitudes. But this man? He just a bipan butterfly. So those who felt blindsided by Frenchie gettin’ dicked down, oh you beautiful, naive, sophisticated newborn babies. If not spelled out, it was so heavily implied, I saw the fling with whatshisname with the murdered fam whose name I’m too lazy to Goog and was like, “hm yes, the math is indeed mathing, these calculayshuns are correct”

Like u thot a mf dressed like this??? was straight ?

Mans is in a scoopneck bunny crop top that looks straighr from the juniors section of Forever21 with plaid pants and fuckingsjs suspenders iconic so to think he'd nary tarried in sausage-central before, well ... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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taglist: @drabbles-mc, @complete-nonsequitur, @rerorero-my-cherry, @ladygoatee, @tofuwildcard, @tinylittleobsessions

[cyanide-sippy-cup]

"B-but billionaires shouldn't have to live in fear!!1!" You're so right. All that money making that poor man a target. I say we should all go help him out! It's a lot of money, though. It'll probably require a lot of people to help him move it. We should get started right away! 😊

[lil-gingerbread-queen]

So... Multiple right-wing politicians and figures in France went to social media to ask people to vote for Israel at the Eurovision and themselves vote for her, because it is "antisemitic to boo Israel" or something... That's how you get Israel a ton of votes.

Btw, a lot of those politicians are in a political party that was created with a SS. The leaders are from the same family, the father being friend with the SS and Nazis and the daughter viewing Hitler as an uncle when she was younger. This party also denied the Holocaust and later declared that it did happened (because it's against the law to deny the Holocaust), but it's not as bad as we make it. Just to point out that zionists just want to get rid of Jewish people, they don't care about them.

And also, French don't care about the Eurovision, because we all agree that we suck at music. People barely speak about it. And suddenly, those mfs give a fuck about it (the other time they do is when we send a poc to represent France, that's a scandal for them 🙄)