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You're going to compare France to... Belgium?
I think that alone is enough to certify your point as worthless.
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In general people bash other people, mostly its due to WWI and WWII animosity between the allies.
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Americans kids are making jokes about how french ancestors are freaking cowards and then are surprised to be hated for it. I wonder how you would react if nazis invaded your country, raped your wifes, killed your children, deported a part of the pôpulation in death camps, burned your cities and terrorized your people for 5 years?
But yea let's make shallow jokes about it and pretend it's not a big deal. I'm ok with that but dont ask to be respected by the people you are insulting.
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On January 22 2012 14:14 gds wrote:
Americans kids are making jokes about how french ancestors are freaking cowards and then are surprised to be hated for it. I wonder how you would react if nazis invaded your country, raped your wifes, killed your children, deported a part of the pôpulation in death camps, burned your cities and terrorized your people for 5 years?
But yea let's make shallow jokes about it and pretend it's not a big deal. I'm ok with that but dont ask to be respected by the people you are insulting.
Kids make shallow jokes? Outrageous!
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Americans bashing everyone else when they're the laughing stock of the world. It's nothing new my friend. But if I could put this
'bashing' on anything, it would be the fact that the French surrendered in WW2 so fast. It was a completely justified surrender, most people don't understand this.
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You have to keep in mind how wrong it is to say that all Americans think X, Y, or Z.
Regarding the OP video: when Mitt Romney is criticized for speaking French, it is people within his party who criticize him. For some people in America, France represents pretentious urban sophistication, which they vaguely equate with American liberalism, impractical idealism, and all things un-godly. Why? I'll leave that answer to someone else. But I suspect it has roots in culture and contemporary politics more than war history or tourist behavior.
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On January 22 2012 14:34 churbro wrote:
But if I could put this 'bashing' on anything, it would be the fact that the French surrendered in WW2 so fast. It was a completely justified surrender, most people don't understand this.
People tend to view it as a "France sucked" sort of thing when it's closer to a "Germany was OP" sort of thing.
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On January 22 2012 14:34 churbro wrote:
Americans bashing everyone else when they're the laughing stock of the world. It's nothing new my friend. But if I could put this
'bashing' on anything, it would be the fact that the French surrendered in WW2 so fast. It was a completely justified surrender, most people don't understand this.
laughing stock of the world? -_-
so much unjustified hate
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On January 21 2012 21:23 aTnClouD wrote:
Man everyone bash french people as much as they do with americans. They have so many people with strong nationalistic attitude that just pisses off everybody else. I have nothing against these people who believe their country is the absolute best (when it's not), I just think it's silly, but I understand why the world doesn't like these countries.
Thats actually really funny coming from an italian. First of, I'm french, and I actually agree with most of the stereotypes about french, yes when people come in France they dont feel welcome, french people dont make effort and very few even try to speak few english words. I've been all around Europe (well more than 10 countries so far), and yes, France sucks on that, but thats not what americans hate about us, 98% of them dont even know why they hate us, just like they hate arabs without even knowing them, so I dont really care.
But to Cloud, this seriously made me laugh, like I just said, i've been in many countries around Europe, and you know what place I could seriously point out that something was wrong? Italy, it is the only country i've been in where I really thought "Man, this cant be a coincidence anymore, people are hostiles, unpolite, rude and so fucking cocky around here", and that was in Milan, Venise, Turin. So yeah, french quite sucks (once again coming from a french), but Italia seemed worse, ahah, apart from that, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Denmark etc etc, you could clearly see a different mindset going on, I would be the first one to say "you cant say that seing so few people", actually you can, you can feel the atmosphere and tendancies quite clearly after a few days spent in a country. Fact is everybody hates french without even having good reasons, so whatever, glad I'm in the english speaking non narrow minded part of the french population.
But again, an italian pointing that out just, lmao
P.S: The fact that americans hate France because of the Irak thing is just pathetic, anyone with even a little knowledge about what was going on would have agreed with that decision, so yeah, you can bash all you want on that, at least our government didnt participate in an oil stealing war
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There are SO many people making blanket statements. I personally, along with many others don't judge people I don't know, especially Countries I have never been to, or researched. No Country is this or that, no one group of people all share the same likes and dislikes.
IGNORANT people are IGNORANT. Ignorant people are every where, and they are usually the most vocal, thus what you see and hear is all from the yelling idiots; the bad side. You often hear the bad that comes out of a Country, stop giving random %'s of people you think in a Country believe this or that.
The reason why everybody hates each other is because people make sweeping generalizations and assumptions about people, or topics they know nothing about.
I live in New York city, there are so many different kinds of people it's astounding. I have met assholes and scumbags, generous and kind people of every race, and never, unless I'm joking, do I make generalizations about Country's, people, race, etc.
This is part of the reason it'l take an Alien invasion to get the world to work together, we need a common enemy for people to forget their differences.
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On January 22 2012 15:06 GGTeMpLaR wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2012 14:34 churbro wrote:
But if I could put this 'bashing' on anything, it would be the fact that the French surrendered in WW2 so fast. It was a completely justified surrender, most people don't understand this. People tend to view it as a "France sucked" sort of thing when it's closer to a "Germany was OP" sort of thing.
Ahahah, I think that sums it up pretty well about the idiotic WW2 debate, "oh french were such cowards", oh yeah, it aint like not surrendering would have caused the death of potentially millions of civilians, I love when a nerd comes up with statements such as those, it's so fucking stupid that it becomes funny
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I love France. I have some cousins living over there, and I was amazed by the art, wine, and food over there. Man, here in America, it's really damn hard to get really good quality cheese. I got to go there again, because bread plus cheese and wine is enough of an excuse to visit. I remember eating something good that was like a meatloaf, think it was called a terrin or something.
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On January 21 2012 21:48 Nightshake wrote:Im french and I live in France. And this country has a lot of dumb people. Education and political system suck hard, and a lot of people are just unsociable and always unhappy. Not to mention, the arrogance of French (well this is characteristic and not that bad as every country has people with a main default). But it's a beautiful country, and you can meet great people. And there is a reason why French culture is so well-known. The thing is that Americans think that French are cowards who didn't take part in the WWII. Well, we got attacked by a huge ass army with a crazy dictator. Pétain, the Maréchal at this time (the commander of the army), decided to cooperate with the nazis. And that's why people don't like French. I'd like to say that after WW2, Pétain got executed for cooperating with the nazis. Edit : found btw : http://aproposfrance-usa.blogspot.com/
It wasn't that you guys got attacked and lost, its how much the French bragged about the Maginot Line prior to World War 2.
The Maginot Line was the series of fortresses and defenses on the Western border of France built following World War 1. The French claimed it to be impenetrable and well.....history speaks for itself. The Wehrmacht just plowed through the Ardennes on their way to Paris. France was a large domino to fall in the war because Germany found itself gazing across the channel at London (and eventually bombing the shit out of it)
So I guess to put it into a word, arrogance.
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French are arrogant, Americans are stupid, Italians are nationalistic, Kiwis are idiots, Icelanders are narrow-minded, Canadians are jerks
can someone close this thread? Arrogant/Stupid/Nationalistic/Idiotic/Narrow-Minded/Mean people are everywhere in every country, everyone needs to stop generalizing
+ Show Spoiler +
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I approve of the above post, this thread really won't lead to anything besides the perpetuation of said generalizations.
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On January 22 2012 12:10 LegendaryZ wrote:
I'm actually pretty surprised at how seriously some people in this thread are taking the issue. I bash people of all races and nationalities all the time and of course it's not because I seriously believe any of it. The entire reason these stereotypes are funny is because everyone KNOWS they're a baseless load of shit to begin with. Some of you guys need to develop a sense of humor...
The fact that Gingrich considered that attacking Romney for speaking French was an effective tactic for swaying voters suggests to me that quite a few people do take that seriously.
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On January 22 2012 16:25 xAPOCALYPSEx wrote:
can someone close this thread? Arrogant/Stupid/Nationalistic/Idiotic/Narrow-Minded/Mean people are everywhere in every country, everyone needs to stop generalizing
Yeah, my thoughts too.
Any thread not about WWII where people start discussing WWII to back up their points is sure to be a dumb thread.
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TL;DR
Why so serious? The "bashing", is a joke, a joke! There are nice people in France too. Worst-xenophobic experience for me ever was in South-Korea, yet I think Koreans are nice people (met many there), so don't make wrong generalizations!
"French bashing" is never really serious for the majority of americans. Bashing foreign countries exists everywhere, it makes you feel all better inside as one's country citizen. Let's be honest there, we all have fun at the expense of the others!
It all comes down to a cultural shock of some sort. I'm French myself and typically, the french have a long history of opposing against US policies, but I'd say it's not specifically anti-US, it's more like a broader rejection of globalization and parts of the modern way of life. For example, most french would rather live a peaceful and happy life (working as less as possible with a "good enough" salary) rather than work more to turn a greater profit. That alone seems bizarre to many of my foreign friends. It's not laziness, it's just that our views about life priorities are different.
But the french being the very vocal critics they are, of course, when they aren't happy about stuff, they'll go to great lengths to tell it to you "in your face" even when it's unwanted (that's how we are educated as children, we have to be critical, we have to voice our concerns so it's only natural some will go overboard without thinking twice)!
Don't judge yet, cause the majority of educated french citizen will still be nice and good buddies to have (if you can overcome the silly and atrocious Frenglish accent that is)!
The political drive behind bashing campaigns is "French oppose the US quite often" => "you frequent/eat/speak French = you like/agree with the French = you don't support your country enough". No need to be a rocket scientist to see how weak that logic is... (but shallow arguments like that are used in France too! Sarkozy is often criticized as "pro-US" even nicknamed "Sarko, the American"), it's just an under-handed political tactic to imply a politician is not focusing enough on his own country.
Still, for those highlighting rude/xenophobic behavior in France, It's quite rare I believe and mostly a result of the language barrier (French are terrible at English, not because they don't want to be good, but rather because teachers are just god awful). Yet, if you ask me, it's silly for native english speakers to expect every foreigners to speak English fluently, let alone, in some other country.
When I went to South Korea, I can assure you it was waaaaay worse than in any other country I've been too! Let me explain : I happen to be half-chinese, so I often got mistaken as a "local" (or half-korean) and most people would expect me to speak in korean too, and myself being able to speak only in English, I got the cold shower (felt more like Ice Cubes shower) too many times to count (heck, a few taxi drivers even nearly kicked me out of the car! wtf?!). Compared to this all foreigners that "looked foreign enough" (I'm looking at you blondies and blue eyed handsomes caucasians), this was hell! You had it easy guys! People helping you out of the blue, progamers giving you free goodies, all people looking your way! Don't give me that "French are unwelcoming" shit... lol
It took me 2 weeks worth of Korean basic learning and practice (proper conversation introductions, excuses, directions, explaining where I'm from, how and why I like Korea, etc) before I could enjoy traveling across places or asking strangers for help without them being rude. Am I now bashing koreans? Nope (they have imba girls with atomic-sexy bodies so "make love not war" is all good for me)!
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why isn't this thread more moderated/closed? It's so full of useless hate/stupid posts that it's almost depressing.
It could have been interesting though, to learn about how politically significant can a X-bashing be in America. Polls, how many voters care, etc
I'd actually be worried if I live in a country where bashing a candidate based on something like that could be of political value.
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Were all judgmental and arrogant assholes. Closing.
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EPT
