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dreamer_marie (![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} dreamer_marie) wrote in ![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/community.gif){kind=small} fandom_wank,@ 2007-08-14 16:57:00 |
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| Entry tags: | food, taking it too seriously |
Paris Is a Great City But the French Are Rats
As you may know, Pixar has released a new movie called Ratatouille. At first glance, it seems like a cute movie about a rat with a talent for cooking who overcomes all obstacles and prejudice to become a great chef.
Superfrenchie blogger Flocon knows better:
At another moment, Colette again introduces the different people working in the kitchen. About one of the guys she goes: ”He says he’s been resisting but nobody really understands what he’s referring to. He must have lost something”. Needless to say, this last line is absolutely useless for the understanding of the situation. Just a cheap shot, a mediocre jab for the fun of it to American ears. I knew the majority of the French audience in the theatre didn’t understand at once what was this line supposed to mean. I had to ask the friend I was with what she understood there. Eventually, and after I’ve been insisting, sheguessed it must have had something to do with the war. My guess is thatthe average American audience didn’t need more than one second to get it.
But what is the whole story about after all? The movie goes to tell that “Grande Cuisine”, which is automatically associated with France in the minds of most Americans, is actually made by … rats!
Skinner,the bad guy, who’s the most despicable, treacherous, mean, ugly character you can think of, who can’t talk without making the most atrocious faces. And to top it all he’s very, very short, to the point he always needs a ladder when he wants to look through a window, for example. Last but not least it seems Pixar thought an Arab-looking man will perfectly illustrate what a contemporary French cook could look like. Is this another opportunity for a certain American obsession to emerge?
How about the very idea on which the plot is based! Why would they choose rats to be the ones responsible for the great cooking???Because, mind you, none of the French can cook in this cartoon but the rats! You think it’s just a coincidence? Aow, come on… Now, what is the most common expression we know about rats? Those who flee when the ship is sinking! Do you remember the defamation campaign launched by FOX and pretty much the entire American MSM when they used to ponder again and again that the French had let America down when it was under the threat of WMDs? Am I too much of a paranoid when I think this campaign has eventually found a PC and subliminal translation into a family movie?
And of course:
Behind the smiling appearance of an innocuous nice little cartoon, Ratatouille is actually a filthy piece of French-bashing in artistic disguise. It will be seen by millions of American kids who will be offered another confirmation of all the prejudice they’re being regularly exposed to:Paris is a great city but the French are rats.
A lot of going back and forth in the comments about the symbolism of various animals, who exactly in the movie can cook, if it's offensive to portray Paris as a romantic city, and whether or not that joke was offensive (and what it really meant).
Oh, and have I mentioned that the OP safely lives in Paris, where the most French-bashing he's exposed to is the occasional polite request for directions to the Eiffel Tower?
