England and France has engaged in more their fair share of fighting over the centuries. In main, this is because the two countries are neighbors. However, it should also be noted that the English royal family started out as powerful French landowners, which resulted in more than one struggle between them and their nominal French overlords. Regardless, seeing as how the English-speaking countries spring from England, it should come as no surprise to learn that a lot of French stereotypes come from the same source.
However, it is important to note that the rest of the English-speaking world has had more than enough time to form its own prejudices about the French. For example, the stereotype of the French being cowards has its roots in England, but swelled with terrible strength in the United States because of the French opposition to the Iraq War, thus resulting in much being said about “cheese-eating surrender monkeys.” Likewise, the American belief in the French being corrupt has been building up since the start, which have not been helped by further American beliefs in the French being corrupt, collectivist, and impractical. Naturally, what a culture believes is reflected in what a culture produces, so it should come as no surprise to learn that French stereotypes abound in Hollywood movies.
What Are Some Blatant Examples of the French Being Stereotyped in Film?
One of the most popular French stereotypes is the rude Frenchman who look down on the United States. An excellent example can be found in Rush Hour 3, which had a scene in which the two heroes were refused service by a French taxi driver named George because Chris Tucker’s character was American. In his own words, George stated that he refused to serve Americans because of their arrogance as well as their penchant for violence, though considering that the scene concludes with Chris Tucker’s character forcing him to humiliate himself by drawing a gun on him after he insulted the state of American basketball, he might have had a point. Another example would be the Parisian waiter from National Lampoon’s European Vacation, who started by claiming that the Griswolds would not recognize dishwater from what they had order before finishing off with a much more graphic statement.
Stereotypes of French corruption are common in American movies as well. For example, Raiders of the Lost Ark featured a French archaeologist named Belloq who was working with the Nazis but tends to be remembered by most people because of a rather famous scene involving the melting of his face. Likewise, there was Inspector Jean-Claude Pitrel from Taken, who was working with the human traffickers because he needed more cash to cover his expenses. Finally, there is the Merovingian from the second and third Matrix movies, who swore in French because he was supposed to seem decadent.
Summed up, it is clear that French stereotypes are not uncommon in Hollywood movies, though they are nastier in some periods than in others because of the prevailing feelings of the times. Some people have suggested that French stereotypes are particularly common because the French are not as on-guard about damaging beliefs being spread in this manner as other groups, which does seem to make some sense on an intuitive level. Regardless, whatever the cause, French stereotypes are harmful to both the people that they are about and the people that believe them, seeing as how they contribute to a particularly simple and fairly nasty understanding of the world.
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