Votre kilométrage pourra varier
Jan. 15th, 2014 08:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dhampyresaI'll take a break from umadoshi 's questions to answer one of schneefink's: Talk about being French in fandom, it sounds interesting :)
It's one of the subjects that are very YMMV, as the title of this post suggests. I've tried to deal only with things that relate to being French and not to being me, but I've never not been me, so this is probably still biased.
Last Sunday, I went to see Catching Fire. Early on in the film, there's a scene that's used to contrast the poverty of the main characters and the decadence of the setting they're now in. This scene features a conversation along these lines:
They weren't even fancy macarons, like Ladurée or Pierre Hermé ones. No, they were the standard white (vanilla)/pink (raspberry)/green (pistachio) that you can find in any bakery. More than that, I have a friend who makes macarons, for fun! They don't scream "decadently extravagant" to me, they're just the thing I buy sometimes either for myself or as gift when I'm invited somewhere. They're not even that expensive (1/1€, 16/15€ usually), unless you go for the fancy ones. (Would not reccomend, by the way, they tend to be ~experimental and not that good.)
So that really threw me out of the film.
All this to say that sometimes I run into things in fandom and/or canons that really stop me short.
Like Amora. When I read that name, I don't think of the Marvel villain, I think of the mustard brand. The colour scheme does not help.
Or the idea that menus in French are particularly unreadable and/or only findable in fancy upperclass restaurants, or that escargots is weird or OMG MADE OF SNAILS!, because duh, it's in the name? I don't like escargots, but I do like foie gras and, likewise, the fact that it's "fat liver" is in the name. I still feel weird whenever someone says raw food is strange, because steak tartare is awesome and fairly common. US restaurants tend to way overcook meat too, in my experience.
For the longest time, I was confused by the way evenings seemed to last forever in US TV shows: there'd be time for a movie, drinks and a car chase after dinner. That became much clearer when I realised dinner in the Us was usually between 18h00 and 19h00, which, what the hell? That's super early! In France, it's more between 20h00 and 21h00.
But enough about food.I'm not such of a stereotype that everything is about food, I swear. It's only mostly about food.
One the most confusing things was always guns though. In US TV, they're everywhere. People have them in their homes, in their cars, in their purses, probably even in their underpants, for all I know. I've never seen a gun. The closest i've come is finidng an old cartridge shell once.
It's also really strange when people go on about French being sexy, because it's just French. It's not particularly sexy.
I've never read so many books that everyone else in fandom seems to have read: Little Women? No idea what it's even about. Ender's Game? Never heard of it until the kerfuffle over the movie. There's probably other stuff on that should be on this list, but again, I've no idea what.
MSF is still Médecins sans Frontières for me.
Comics is another subject that is full of cognitive dissonance. Comics fandom seems to be working on several assumptions that it took me forever to ferret out, because 'everybody' knows them. Everybody knows that comics don't sell. Everybody knows that comics have problems with representation of women. Everybody knows comics is just US Marvel/DC published superhero comics. Once I had the last one, the first two started making a lot more sense.
You see, in France comics sell. They sell big. They sell really fucking big. The latest Astérix had an initial print run of 2 million copies. It came out on October 24 and there was a new print run by November 12. Now, granted, it's Astérix and there's a bunch of other factors in play with this particular album, but I think my point is made anyway. There are regularly comics with 100k+ print runs.
I grew up reading the Yoko Tsuno BD albums. This is Yoko:
She's a French electrical engineer of Japanese (and Chinese) descent. She has space adventures. She has time adventures, with two different methods of time travel. That one time, she had a dragon.She has a space girlfriend. Her BD series has been going since 1970. Lately, her albums have come out at about 120k the print run (excluding special and collector editions and integrals).
It's an adventure comic, starring a woman (a non-white one, even) and it sells. And that makes talking about comics in English-speaking fandom really weird, because as far as I'm concerned, the things everybody knows are wrong.
By the way, comics in France? For everyone, not limited to some nerdy subset of the population. There's comics for kids and comics for all ages and comics for adults only and comics for History buffs and comics for SF fans and comics fans of classic literature and comics for everyone. I've never been in a comic shop where people assumed I wasn't there for me.
Also, from TV shows it looks like people in the US are really rude. Do you guys seriously not say "hello" when you enter a shop?
I could say more, but I've already broken 1k. I hope that answered at least partly the question.
(Feel free to ask me things.)
umadoshi 's questions to answer one of schneefink's: Talk about being French in fandom, it sounds interesting :) It's one of the subjects that are very YMMV, as the title of this post suggests. I've tried to deal only with things that relate to being French and not to being me, but I've never not been me, so this is probably still biased.
Last Sunday, I went to see Catching Fire. Early on in the film, there's a scene that's used to contrast the poverty of the main characters and the decadence of the setting they're now in. This scene features a conversation along these lines:
Random Extra (presenting extravagant/decadent food to our heroes): Try one of these they're deliciousAt least I assume that's the audience reaction the film was going for. As far as I was concerned, the message I knew the film was sening and the message I was receiving were totally at odds, because the extravagant/decadent food being presented to our heroes? Macarons. These are macarons, for the record (not to be confused with macaroons):
Our Hero: Oh no, I couldn't possibly eat anymore.
Other Extra: Here have something to make you throw up so you can eat more.
Our Heroin: People back home are starving!
Audience: Gosh those people are really decadent and horrible!
They weren't even fancy macarons, like Ladurée or Pierre Hermé ones. No, they were the standard white (vanilla)/pink (raspberry)/green (pistachio) that you can find in any bakery. More than that, I have a friend who makes macarons, for fun! They don't scream "decadently extravagant" to me, they're just the thing I buy sometimes either for myself or as gift when I'm invited somewhere. They're not even that expensive (1/1€, 16/15€ usually), unless you go for the fancy ones. (Would not reccomend, by the way, they tend to be ~experimental and not that good.)
So that really threw me out of the film.
All this to say that sometimes I run into things in fandom and/or canons that really stop me short.
Like Amora. When I read that name, I don't think of the Marvel villain, I think of the mustard brand. The colour scheme does not help.
Or the idea that menus in French are particularly unreadable and/or only findable in fancy upperclass restaurants, or that escargots is weird or OMG MADE OF SNAILS!, because duh, it's in the name? I don't like escargots, but I do like foie gras and, likewise, the fact that it's "fat liver" is in the name. I still feel weird whenever someone says raw food is strange, because steak tartare is awesome and fairly common. US restaurants tend to way overcook meat too, in my experience.
For the longest time, I was confused by the way evenings seemed to last forever in US TV shows: there'd be time for a movie, drinks and a car chase after dinner. That became much clearer when I realised dinner in the Us was usually between 18h00 and 19h00, which, what the hell? That's super early! In France, it's more between 20h00 and 21h00.
But enough about food.
One the most confusing things was always guns though. In US TV, they're everywhere. People have them in their homes, in their cars, in their purses, probably even in their underpants, for all I know. I've never seen a gun. The closest i've come is finidng an old cartridge shell once.
It's also really strange when people go on about French being sexy, because it's just French. It's not particularly sexy.
I've never read so many books that everyone else in fandom seems to have read: Little Women? No idea what it's even about. Ender's Game? Never heard of it until the kerfuffle over the movie. There's probably other stuff on that should be on this list, but again, I've no idea what.
MSF is still Médecins sans Frontières for me.
Comics is another subject that is full of cognitive dissonance. Comics fandom seems to be working on several assumptions that it took me forever to ferret out, because 'everybody' knows them. Everybody knows that comics don't sell. Everybody knows that comics have problems with representation of women. Everybody knows comics is just US Marvel/DC published superhero comics. Once I had the last one, the first two started making a lot more sense.
You see, in France comics sell. They sell big. They sell really fucking big. The latest Astérix had an initial print run of 2 million copies. It came out on October 24 and there was a new print run by November 12. Now, granted, it's Astérix and there's a bunch of other factors in play with this particular album, but I think my point is made anyway. There are regularly comics with 100k+ print runs.
I grew up reading the Yoko Tsuno BD albums. This is Yoko:
She's a French electrical engineer of Japanese (and Chinese) descent. She has space adventures. She has time adventures, with two different methods of time travel. That one time, she had a dragon.
It's an adventure comic, starring a woman (a non-white one, even) and it sells. And that makes talking about comics in English-speaking fandom really weird, because as far as I'm concerned, the things everybody knows are wrong.
By the way, comics in France? For everyone, not limited to some nerdy subset of the population. There's comics for kids and comics for all ages and comics for adults only and comics for History buffs and comics for SF fans and comics fans of classic literature and comics for everyone. I've never been in a comic shop where people assumed I wasn't there for me.
Also, from TV shows it looks like people in the US are really rude. Do you guys seriously not say "hello" when you enter a shop?
I could say more, but I've already broken 1k. I hope that answered at least partly the question.
(Feel free to ask me things.)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-16 02:03 am (UTC)Yes, we are, and no, we don't! In some parts of the country we would, but the nation is slowly being taken over by big-box stores, where if we said hello, there would be no one to hear us.
As for guns, I've not seen one "in the wild" either. I went with my father for his shooting recertification once, because he was in the military, and got to see (and shoot) a real gun there.
Other than that, no firearms in my life.Police officers carry guns here, so I'll see the butt of them, always holstered.As for "French is sexy," we have lots of associations with France and sex in American culture (French letters, French kissing, etc). I stayed one time in a town called French Lick, IN, and the innuendo was relentless. I don't really understand it either.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-16 09:38 pm (UTC)The ubiquity of guns must be a TV thing then. Oh! I guess I have seen a gun before, but it was always in the context of military/police.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-16 05:19 am (UTC)especially if she actually has a space girlfriend?(Also I have never read Little Women either and I have the vague notion it's about a bunch of sisters in Ye Olden Times and maybe they live in Newfoundland or somewhere like that unless I'm thinking of Anne of Green Gables which I have also never read.)
I would say that access to firearms and rudeness varies by location; I have never seen a gun except those carried holstered by police officers. As for greetings in stores, my current area of residence is stereotypically unfriendly and rude to strangers, if that affects my answer, but I would expect employees of small stores to ask if I needed help finding anything as I entered -- I wouldn't greet them first. (On the other hand, I have also met people who say they couldn't stand to live here because they would hate living somewhere where the supermarket clerk doesn't make conversation as they ring up your purchases.)
(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-16 10:23 pm (UTC)the space girlfriendisn't in all of them. She's in 1, 3, 6, 8, 10, 13, 18, 21 and 25 for sure, maybe more. Technically, Khnay's only Yoko's BFF in canon, but it's a series with very little/no romance. Plus, Yoko has chemistry with an amazing amount of women, I swear.(Anne of Green gables is a new one for me.)
It's the opposite in France, I think: you greet the shopkeepers when you enter, but if you want anything you should ask them. It feels pressuring to have them ask if you need help, tbh.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-17 03:15 am (UTC)(I have also just been informed that Anne of Green Gables takes place on Prince Edward Island, which I feel was a reasonable thing to confuse with Newfoundland. Anne of Green Gables is another one of those classic books that girls like to read that I somehow missed because I was busy reading about dragons and spaceships.)
That is... exactly the opposite custom, yes. I have to say that I think I would find it intimidating being the one to greet the shopkeeper, but I guess it just depends on what's normal where one lives.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-17 06:17 pm (UTC)I knew Asterix is very popular, but I didn't know about comics in general, that's cool.
Thank you :)
(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-17 10:27 pm (UTC)
Date: 2014-01-16 03:33 am (UTC)Oh god, her hair looks identical to how I had my hair from about age 0-12.
I get really hungry by about 6pm, though that's really conditioning; I used to eat really early (like 4:45) to get to after-school events, and it just shifts around to accommodate my schedule. (Working till 7:30 sucks. I'm always ravenous around six!)
TWO MILLION COPIES!! omg
I've also just realized I haven't seen literary past tense in forever which means I have been slacking D:
Re:
Date: 2014-01-16 09:45 pm (UTC)Whose hair, Amora or Yoko?
Diner at 4:45? But that's when the goûter is! (The goûter is a meal between 4 and 5 pm that kids have to keep going until diner. It's usually just a pastry or some bread, nothing fancy. It can be provided by schools and it has a definite 'for kids' connotation.)
To be fair, the next biggest print run is about 500k (Blake et Mortimer).
Get on that, then, gosh!
Re:
Date: 2014-01-16 11:23 pm (UTC)Yoko's hair.
That's probably why :P My family eats only breakfast/lunch/supper.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-17 09:37 pm (UTC)In that case, me too!
But then don't you get hungry around 8 or 9?
(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-16 03:46 am (UTC)Thanks for the fascinating post. :D
I'm English but I live in the States so I deal with these sort of cultural assumptions all the time and sometimes suspect they may be even worse because we (theoretically *g*) speak the same language so everything must be the same, right? Yeah...
Do you find that Americans tend to assume that France is monocultural? It's something I run across all the time here, the assumption that England is monocultural which is really hysterical.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-16 10:02 pm (UTC)I find people in the States can be very reluctant to acknowledge that just because you do things different, doesn't mean you're doing it wrong, do you have that experience too? (Also, because you're a Brit, obligatory Peride Albion comment. Carry on.)
Yeah, I do. I was very pleasantly surprised to watch Switch (2010) and see that the characters and extras weren't all white all the time, unlike the (admittedly very short) bit of Agents of SHIELD that took place in Paris too. There's been non-white people in France for centuries (the Dumas are a famous example), even longer. Even discounting that, there are cultural differences between Bretagne and Provence and Alsace-Lorraine (they get special laws, even) and Savoie and Languedoc (ask me about the Albigensian Crusade sometime) that can go do to the very language people speak, even when they're speaking French and not Breton/Provençal/Elsässisch/savoyard/langedoccien/occitan/catalan/basque/etc. Whoops, TL;DR, sorry.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-16 10:12 pm (UTC)Yes, I've had it to some extent but I'm also always amused by how many Americans talk about England like it's "the old country" even when it's totally obvious their ancestors came from other parts of Europe. They can get a bit confused anyway, using "English" and "British" interchangeably which tends to really upset my Scottish and Irish friends here.
I've been amused by questions like if we have newspapers(!) and if the water in England is safe to drink(!!).
To be fair though, the US is immense so I understand why sometimes they find it difficult to grasp that there's a whole world outside US borders. Although you think they'd understand the cultural variations more as they have quite radical differences in various parts of the US too.
No need to apologize about the TL;DR. We have massive cultural variations in England too.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-17 09:21 pm (UTC)Really? REALLY?! What the hell, seriously.
The thing is, Canada is bigger than the US and I've nevr known Canadians to have trouble understanding that their experience isn't unversal.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-16 11:28 pm (UTC)