It’s always fun to see how the French media treat stories about America. One of the top magazines here, “le nouvel Observateur,” leads this week with a story about the America which “we” (presumably, the French) love. (Take with a grain of salt my characterizations of things such as “top” magazine. I call it that because it's one of France’s best sellers and it happens to be the magazine I picked up this week).
The cover of “le nouvel Observateur” includes pictures of 7 Americans (Barack Obama, Marilyn Monroe, Charlie Chaplin, Martin Luther King Jr., Neil Armstrong, Bob Dylan, and Joan Baez). The sept magnifique (magnificent seven) correspond to the 7 dream sagas which are the theme of the article. Incidentally, I passed on the opportunity to “demandez la version avec DVD” of Woodstock for an additional 5,45 Euros.
So, just as America is replete this summer with retros on the moon landing and Woodstock and critics trying to assess those events forty years later, France suggests that the American dream is still alive, though not necessarily well.
In the magazine’s story/interview about the Michael Jackson televised wrap-up, French fascination and confusion with America is best summed up in some of the descriptors:
peuple baroque (weird people), internal tensions and narcissism (which nevertheless fascinate the rest of the world), schizophrenic Americans, and the ambivalence toward the American dream best represented apparently by President Obama.
In a story that mirrors American reports of the event, “le nouvel Observateur” enquete (investigates) the murder that involved black students and their guests at Harvard University this spring. Highlighting the irony of bringing poor black students into the elitist and predominantly white “plus prestigieuse universite du monde” (the most prestigious university in the world), “le nouvel Observateur” captures perfectly the dynamic tension that the events have created. What’s more, the writer astutely recognizes that the drug-related crime garnered headlines because of its Harvard connections whereas a more mundane drug murder a month later in the same city of Cambridge escaped attention altogether. Vive la difference et la contradiction.
While the French may not totally grasp the American psyche, they certainly seem to appreciate the complex web of challenges that rest within the American mosaic.
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