24 October 05
French Television (and Movies)
One of the things I have been meaning to make note of is the difference I see between American and French television (besides the language).
Let me begin by saying French television programming is assumingly a reflection of French interests, which by extension would appear to be talking, eating, sex, Americana, and lots of free time to divulge in all of the above. Four out of five is not bad. God, the French love to talk, about everything and nothing at all—on and on and on and…
The Talking Head Shows
Within a couple of weeks of moving to France (which by the way hit the one-year mark on 11 October 05), I noticed there was a nauseating number of shows where a group of people sit around a table in front of a live viewing audience and just talk at eachother for an hour or two about…well, whatever the hell it is they talk about (I can’t bear to even try and listen to them). When I first voiced this observation to Hanane, she had the guts to actually tell me it’s because “the French are intellectuals.” I about choked on laughter. This is actually a little game we often play; poking fun at the other’s home country and citizens. Hanane rarely scores points from my point of view, though the U.S. is not without its share of things to make fun of, for sure.
American television has talk shows too, of course (Opra, Letterman, Leno…) but there are two big differences. For one thing, there are far fewer talk shows in American television (so I seem to remember). Also, American talk shows have the formula right; they actually have talented people doing the talking, and usually these people are talking to the audience, looking at them, engaging them in the show, not just talking in front of them for the sake of it, which is what goes on here. In French television, talk show audiences are nothing more than props, who stand up, sit down, and clap and dance on cue like trained monkeys—there is never any audience interaction. I hope these audiences are getting paid for their time, because I just can’t imagine these people would be willing to sit through and hour or two of pretentious jackasses, aging has-beens, and droll intellectuals simply for the pleasure of it when instead they could be out eating, screwing, and taking time off with a good strike (apparently another favorite French passtime). Then again, I could be wrong.
One more thing about these talking head shows: you always see the same damn, disappointing people on these shows, sometimes as hosts, sometimes as guests, but always the same; they seem to move from one show to another like it’s a private club for members only. Again, these people rarely even look at the audience, in fact, the heads often sit in a circle with their backs to the audience. The heads will joke, laugh, and backslap like they’ve been sleeping with eachother’s spouses for years (and they probably have). I suppose this would not be so bad if we were talking about talent, but these shows are entirely devoid of that, as well as anything interesting. Nevertheless, this is what makes up a large percentage of French television.
French News
Unlike the talking head shows, French news is pretty good; in fact, it’s a whole lot better than American media—much more global, no censorship, and no biased coverage (yeah, right). French news is what Hanane and I actually watch the most. U.S. affairs are often a big focus, particularly on America’s foreign policy and related events, the war in Irak, the American President’s fuck-ups (the French jump all over that), and natural disasters. You know, good stuff.
Yes, the French do love to make fun of America (it’s easy to do), but also of their own government as well, and there’s an extremely popular puppet show called Les Guignols where one can witness both sides of the coin. The Guignols is presented like a news cast, but the show is entirely done with puppets who represent real people in government, entertainment, and industry; not the muppet sock-looking puppets of Sesame Street, but life-size, exaggerated replicas of the people they characterize. Satire at its best. The main character (the news anchorman) is based on Patrick Poivre D’arvor, a real national news caster hear in France. His character basically moves the show along in news format, and other characters pop-in throughout for interviews or dramatizations of current events. The other characters are mainly French politicians (Chirac, Sarkozy, De Villipain, etc.), while American personalities include Michael Jackson (portrayed as a child molester called Butterfly), Sylvester Stallone (who doesn’t really represent himself, but rather represents the concept of American “Big Brother” in general), and of course George Bush (as himself).
Popular Prime-Time Programs
Despite France’s love to mock America, they nevertheless seem to crave American culture and trends, especially French youth. You may not know who Nicolas Sarkozy is: he’s a rather significant politician in the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP), the same party to which the current president, Jacques Chirac, belongs.
About 3 or 4 months ago, Sarkozy gave a speech where among other things he talked about the state of today’s French youth and the need for better efforts at preserving cultural identity with them. (I caught the transcription while watching the French news so unfortunately I don’t have a reference to provide). His concern seemed to be that French youth are increasingly disinterested in French culture, and are more-and-more wearing American clothes, listing to American music, eating American food (relating to the growing presence of fast-food in France), watching American movies and television, and increasingly seeking American educations.
The latter is likely the most troubling of all to the French government, because while France’s youth (read as future) are emigrating out of France for foreign educations (many finding jobs afterwards and not coming home), France itself is filling up with immigrants from Africa and eastern Europe who have few (if any) high-level skills to offer France at all. The result, which I’m witness of myself, is a laboring social system, with a high unemployment rate.
Anyway, that bit about American movies and television is what brings me back to my point: French television, besides the talking head shows, is dominated by American programs. For example, popular shows include Friends, NYPD, ER, Boomtown, Six Feet Under, Sex in the City, Nip Tuck, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera—and even trash like Stargate SG-1 (sorry mom) and, believe it or not, Walker: Texas Ranger. Yeah, that’s right, I said Walker: Texas Ranger; that cheeseball show with Chuck Norris, and with the low-grade hick tune that goes, “when you are in Texas look behind you…cuz the eyes of the Ranger are upon you”, or some such creepy shit.
All of these programs are translated to French, of course, but there’s certainly no effort with trying to match voice characteristics of the original actors, and the result is often comical to the point where it ruins the show. Also, because of language differences, American shows often have different titles in French; for example, the popular series CSI is called Les Experts (The Experts), because in French you would never say Crime Scene Investigation (CSI), it would be something a lot more complicated like Les Investigations Scientifiques et Techniques d’Activite Criminale (or there abouts).
Reality Shows
Yeah, France has got these too, and guess what…95% of them are copies of the American versions, and if you thought the American versions were bad…
The only reality show I ever bothered following in the states to any degree was Survivor. The French version of Survivor is called Koh-lanta, which is not a French translation of the word “survivor”, by the way. Koh-lanta is largely the same but has some noticeable differences. For one thing, in the American version you never see anybody but the contestants and the host, but in the French version you frequently see medics and other show-affiliated personnel interacting with the contestants. I don’t know, but this seems to take some of the stranded quality out of being…well…stranded. Particularly noticeable were the medics, who would come running for every little thing; stomach cramps, headaches, insect bites, et cetera. The other main difference was the winnings; American survivors stood to gain a cool one million dollars, and even the runner ups made pretty good. The French winner only walks away with 250,000 euros, which even with the poor dollar-to-euro exchange is a far cry from reaching a million dollars.
The reality shows that are unique to France are incredibly lame, and that’s putting it too good. One example that comes to mind was about a select number of single country folk, simple folk, who were looking for love and hoping to attract mates to come live on the farm, as it were. I think this one flopped, even with the French.
Star Academy, Et Cetera
It seems that France’s method of keeping the country in an ever constant supply of pop singers is by holding national competitions once or twice a year and making a reality-music show out of the whole process. I guess the concept is not foreign to the U.S., but here in France it seems to be serious business and the shows are very popular. They are also pretty much what you would expect: pop singer wannabes, judges, competitions, and eliminations until there’s only one person who does a decent job of croaking out a tune. (Heh, I said “croaking.”)
I can say one thing about these shows (besides being very boring), it is pretty much gauranteed any given episode will not pass without at least one person crying like a baby, and that goes for the sissy guys too.
Television Commercials
This article would not be complete without mention of French television commercials.
Commercial Breaks During Prime-Time Programs
First thing to point out is the frequency of commercials during evening programming. Here the French do it right. Unlike American television, where you are subject to numerous interruptions throughout any given program, French television has only one commercial break, usually around the middle of the show. The break is much longer than any given American commercial break, but that’s super OK with me because it’s just one break, not fifty. This gives you plenty of time to take a piss, get some snacks, make a phone call, check your email, whatever…thereafter you return to your show and watch the second half uninterrupted. It’s great! When it happens to be an American program your watching, you can tell when the American commercials would normally start, because there is a very brief fade-to-black pause where American commercials would normally fill in (and it’s shocking how frequent these are), but here the scene immediately fades back in again to the program.
Censorship
Another big difference in television advertising is that French television is not afraid to show some nudity; in fact, it almost seems obligatory for any commercial pushing shampoo, feminine products, hair removers, bras/underwear, or anything else having to do with personal grooming and hygiene. Seeing a woman’s nipples in a commercial is a pretty regular thing, even more so her naked ass; men’s asses too, though never a wang (I know you were wondering).
Made in America
France consumes a great variety of American products. I commented on this once while Hanane and I were watching the tube, and pointed out a couple of company names to her that I was seeing. I was a little surprised to find that Hanane didn’t even know the companies were American, she had always assumed they were French, or possibly from a neighboring European Union country. My wife is a very smart and aware woman, so her misconception about these companies (and their products advertised) made me think that a very large percentage of French consumers probably don’t know that a lot of what they put on the shelf at home comes from an American business.
Another funny observation I made is with respect to what you see in commercials that are (for lack of a better description) on location in the field; i.e., commercials that depict city scenes, neighborhoods, etc. A wary and knowing eye would notice these commercials are taking place in American locations, not in France, and I’m guessing a very large percentage are shot in California. Car commercials are the most obvious, because cars are driving around in places easy to distinguish, but many other commercials are shot in the U.S. too which you can distinguish if you watch for the tell-tail signs.
Movies on Television (Sans Cable)
Movies on French television are kind of a 50/50 mix of French and American films, but the difference here is no censorship exists in French television. In America, you get clipped editions and crudely dubbed voiceovers for questionable words; it sucks, plain and simple. In France, when an American movie is shown, you get the Director’s Cut edition with all the sex, violence, and dirty words. In fact, even in regular French programs, like game shows even—you hear a lot of merde (shit), putain (fuck), and so forth. A person may or may not like it, but I personally find it to be quite refreshing from the stuffed attitudes in the U.S. about censorship.
Movies at the Cinema
With respect to cinema, it turns out the French love American movies so much that the French government has imposed an annual quota on the import of Americans movies into France; I don’t know what the actual number is, but there is a limit. Why? because the French film making business is suffering badly, all due to France’s passion for American films. Thus, the quota was an intervention to try and sustain the French movie-making industry. My wife, a French citizen, thinks it’s not working. I don’t really know myself, but what I can say is American films arrive here about 6 months to a year after their release in the U.S.
In case you are wondering, American films are generally shown in their original language format for the first few weeks, or sometimes theaters show them in both French and English at alternating showtimes, but after running a while they change to the French versions only.
I have been to see only three movies in the year I’ve been here; I don’t know why, it just seems to be a bigger effort here than it is in the U.S., but as an American who likes to go to the cinema, this kind of sucks. Hanane and I mostly catch things on DVD, where it’s easy to switch between French and English, but only then if we buy them, which is not very often (we are rather particular about the DVD’s will actually keep on hand). There is a DVD rental system here, but it is different that what I am used to in the U.S., and I just have not bothered trying to figure it out.
And that, my loyal three readers, is a wrap. It is also all I will likely ever say again about French television.
