In the world of cyber France-bashing, authors hiding behind cartoonish names, hyperbolic statements, and a shaky command of grammar practice a new genre of fiction, a reverse heroic epic in which "little lying, cowardly, collaborating, garlic-eating, never-bathing, nose-picking French bastards" periodically stop eating "maggot-infested cheese" long enough to effetely and ineffectually lay siege to the unyielding ramparts of Anglo-Saxon superiority. Current posts on the website "F***France.com include references to France as "Froggystan," the "diseased whore of Europe" and the "whore of Islam." One featured article states "At its annual meeting, the International Olympic Committee has decided to add French-Bashing to its roster of medal sports in both the Summer and Winter Games. Sports writers are predicting French-Bashing to be the biggest spectator sport of all time, with the potential of billions of dollars in TV revenues and hundreds of millions of dollars in endorsement contracts for world-class bashers." A breathless admirer of this form of humor uses the literary device called "metaphor into reality,"adding: "It would be even better if the french-bashing (sic) could be done with clubs. People would pay good money to see frogs clubbed." Rhetorical genius or plain stupidity? We report, you decide.
Fine. In some circles of the easily-amused, this displaced fear and anger might well pass for humor. Does the depiction of France's history in the cowardly epic mode, played and replayed on this web site, fit the definition of hate speech? The latter is defined as "speech intended to degrade, intimidate, or incite violence or prejudicial action against someone based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, or disability." This may in fact qualify as hate speech, but even so, should anyone care?
A French person with healthy self-esteem, sometimes conflated on F***France.com with the stereotype of the implacably treacherous Arab and/or the venal and insatiable female, is often perceived by a swaggering, but not-so-self-confident Anglo-Saxon type as the cultural "Other," a figure of rarefied exoticism at best, and unbridled moral depravity at worst. The popular image of France is often portrayed as one or the other of these two extremes.
The Internet has made the marketplace of ideas bigger than ever, but censorship and denunciations only stoke the fires of irrational wingnuttery. So let them chide the "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" at will. By berating the France-bashers on web sites and in the press, one gives currency to the idea that these ideas are valid enough to warrant being considered and discussed by serious people in a serious forum. Better to let the expression of these ideas flame out into oblivion, allowing more powerful ones (and humor that is funny) to beat them out in the marketplace of ideas. Francophiles can lament that France (along with feminists and liberals) has become a scapegoat of choice for some angry white Anglo-Saxon men (and their surrogates) with a tenuous hold on the power that had come to appear as a historical entitlement. To attempt to silence the France-scapegoaters would be not only un-American but "un-French." Okay, gotta run. The aroma of a ripe--but not yet maggot-infested--Camembert is beckoning.
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