I am so tired of USAmericans just barging in into everything and acting like they know best. Because it is almost always USAmericans who act like this.
Because Amurrica's the greatest country in the world!!!!111eleventyone Speaking of American rhetoric, it's interesting that France is something of a football for the American left and right. To the right it's a symbol of decadence, while the left usually compares it favorably to America. A New Rules monologue by Bill Maher was emblematic of the left's stance toward France, though Maher's praise of French reticence about public figures' private lives is ironic given later events. Michael Moore's Sicko similarly presented the French healthcare system as a model.
Americans sometimes use Korea as a model, too, and I usually find that embarrassing because our education system which they praise is really a sick mess, if less so than the U.S. system. Our wi-fi access is cool, though, no doubt about that. I freaking get wi-fi on the bus I take to work! It's nowhere as important as a well-functioning system of public education, but I'll take what I can get.
In the context of French national identity, it is in fact significant that Astérix and co are from Brittany.
Ah, so that was the connection. Are you saying that it's significant that the main characters are Bretons because it places this historically marginalized group in the roles of heroes? OTOH couldn't it also be appropriative to present a group that suffered for the creation of a national identity as the symbols of that national identity? That's an honest question, since I'm not aware of the nuances of French identity or of Asterix, for that matter.
I actually like La Marseillaise for a variety of reasons
Yeah, it's uh... gobsmackingly bloody, now that I know the words. I find that exciting in comparison to our own staid and politically correct national anthem. The song does a great job of capturing both the urgency of the days when it was written and the universal response of violent rhetoric against outside threats. Plus it's so damned catchy!
Help from the earworm arrived, as often happens, in the form of another earworm: The Internationale. I think it had to do with reading a book review of Foucault's Il faut défendre la société, a book in which Foucault argues that nationalism erases and ignores class divisions to enforce bourgeois rule. My brain seems to have decided that La Marseillaise stands for bourgeois nationalism and L'internationale is the antidote, lol.
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Date: 2015-03-22 08:09 am (UTC)Because Amurrica's the greatest country in the world!!!!111eleventyone Speaking of American rhetoric, it's interesting that France is something of a football for the American left and right. To the right it's a symbol of decadence, while the left usually compares it favorably to America. A New Rules monologue by Bill Maher was emblematic of the left's stance toward France, though Maher's praise of French reticence about public figures' private lives is ironic given later events. Michael Moore's Sicko similarly presented the French healthcare system as a model.
Americans sometimes use Korea as a model, too, and I usually find that embarrassing because our education system which they praise is really a sick mess, if less so than the U.S. system. Our wi-fi access is cool, though, no doubt about that. I freaking get wi-fi on the bus I take to work! It's nowhere as important as a well-functioning system of public education, but I'll take what I can get.
Ah, so that was the connection. Are you saying that it's significant that the main characters are Bretons because it places this historically marginalized group in the roles of heroes? OTOH couldn't it also be appropriative to present a group that suffered for the creation of a national identity as the symbols of that national identity? That's an honest question, since I'm not aware of the nuances of French identity or of Asterix, for that matter.
Yeah, it's uh... gobsmackingly bloody, now that I know the words. I find that exciting in comparison to our own staid and politically correct national anthem. The song does a great job of capturing both the urgency of the days when it was written and the universal response of violent rhetoric against outside threats. Plus it's so damned catchy!
Help from the earworm arrived, as often happens, in the form of another earworm: The Internationale. I think it had to do with reading a book review of Foucault's Il faut défendre la société, a book in which Foucault argues that nationalism erases and ignores class divisions to enforce bourgeois rule. My brain seems to have decided that La Marseillaise stands for bourgeois nationalism and L'internationale is the antidote, lol.