All is not forgiven, Guillaume, and we have the cartoon to proove it.
I hate to slate the French, but time and again they just keep making it so easy for me. They put the bait right there and, as the weak-willed ‘Anglo-Saxon’ (as the French press continually refers to the British in an annoying, inaccurate way), that I am, I just have to take it.
We’re the same way with booze over here, hence the drunkenness. But anyway, on with the show.
The creators of the Mr. Men cartoons, popular with countless toddlers and their sleep-deprived parents, have just re-launched. Amidst the familiar faces, there is a new friend- Mr. Rude. And he farts when you pull his fingers! Fnar.
But, unlike the rest of the Mr. Men, Mr. Rude is a ‘Johnny foreigner’, and yup, you’ve guessed it, he’s French.
Whilst of course the French do, at times, really deserve their reputation as some of the rudest people on earth (as illustrated by the recent spate of Japanese tourists to Paris developing psychological problems because of the disrespect) they’re not ALL bad, surely?
The answer is of course, no, they’re not. A country of 60 million people has to have at least some nice people, and my own anecdotal evidence points to the fact that indeed, some French people are very lovely indeed (for the record, we are not talking about the Parisians here). My own time spent living in France showed me that many people are friendly when circumstances necessitate it. The general populous is not so much rude, but slightly cold, deeply private and suspicious of change.
Then in dawned on me; maybe they just hate the English…Well again, no, I don’t think that’s true. Acquaintances of mine from all over the world, some with the most impeccable French have been huffed and ‘boffed’ at in France with the best of them. And the huffing and ‘boffing’ extends to other French people too. So best not to take it personally.
If anything, we Britons have the problem: We single out the French for particular scorn. We’re obsessed with Agincourt, with never giving in to ‘the Hun’ and with boycotting Granny Smith apples grown in French orchards. We’re the ones living in the past… but then again they did thwack an arrow into our king’s eye. Bastards…
But basically, tongue in cheek as Mr. Rude may be, is a kid’s cartoon really the best place to have a pop at a whole nation? No, it’s not. It’s funny to people like me because I’m a grown-up and I know it’s all a bit of banter (to me at least). To a four-year-old they’re already getting ideas in their head that is as negative as men being the strong ones who use violence to solve their woes and women being there to look pretty and have babies… oh, hang on, Barbie? Action Man? No one’s complaining there. Apart from me, it seems. Oh sod it, let’s not give our kids any unrealistic notions about equality, they’ll only be disappointed.
The one thing that confuses me though is the farting. We, the British, the lovers of Brussels sprouts, red hot curries and consumers of gross quantities of cheapo, gassy lager surely have no right to criticise anyone else for farting, and certainly not a people whose innards are soothed by fine wines and copious amounts of seafood. Some say the French don’t shower as much as ‘les anglais’, but farting? Come off it. Our trouser trumpets surely have a substantially bigger carbon footprint than those of our cousins on the other side of the ditch. Maybe that could be someone’s research project. I’d like to be commenting on that one day…
Tags: 1066, Britain, England, France, Mr. Men, UK
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