Une vie héroïque

The other night, I went out to see Gainsbourg : Vie héroïque, a film about the life of celebrated French chanteur (shant-oor: singer) Serge Gainsbourg, who during the mid-1900s shocked an otherwise un-shockable country with his sexual escapades, provactive lyrics and love of les drogues (leh dro-gh: drugs).  What I learned about Gainsbourg from the film?  He loved cigarettes (the French brand Gitanes apparently), famous beautiful women...and that's about it.  Oh, and he wrote some music. What I learned about France?  The more you break the rules, the more French people respect you.

I can only help but think that a majority of my American friends would have walked out of the Gainsbourg film shaking their heads and thinking "what a tragic story".  My Grenoblois (Gre-nobl-wa: people from Grenoble) aquaintances walked out of the film and immediatley started sucking down cigarettes, because if smoking three packs of Gitanes (gee-tan) a day will help make them at all as annoyingly famous and in-your-face as Gainsbourg, then so be it.

Les américains (lez amer-ee-kan: Americans) more often than not celebrate people who tend to overcome obstacles while working with the rules, not against them: Barack Obama, Superman, and the many faces of Tom Hanks rank in America's heart as lovable heros who are confident, honest family men who never forget to file their taxes.  In other words, they're safe.

In France, safe doesn't get you anything but a civil service job and a corner appartement overlooking an air shaft.  Being cunning, sexy, and provocative on the other hand might just get you a bronze statue in Notre Dame (no-tra dom: Our Lady) square.

I've come to find that the French really just find breaking the law as another form of fun and cheap excitement.  For instance, when the smoking ban went into effect in restaurants, "no smoking indoors" was taken as a suggestion meaning "as soon as your cigarette is hanging out the window, it's fine". Skipping out of work to go on strike is a weekly ritual, tax evasion a national right, cutting in line necessary for day-to-day survival at the la Poste (lah post: the post office) and being straight-laced an unforgivable treason.  Pollyanna wouldn't be considered wholesome Saturday morning cartoon material here, but rather an epic tragédie (traj-ed-ee: tragedy) of wasted proportions. 

And if you think anything has changed in recent times, think again.  The current French president got divorced and then went on to marry an ex-Italian supermodel and pop singer (while in office), former French president François Mitterand was buried while his femme (fam: wife) and mistresses stood side-by-side in tears, and eternally single, free-willed and free-spirited Coco Chanel is still worshiped as a saint for daring to allow women to wear clothes that were comfortable.

It isn't that French people don't know about the provactive lives of their héros (er-oh: heros), it's just that they'd rather adore a provactive asshole despite his inperfections than someone who pretends to be perfect.  After all, if someone seems perfect they're probably hiding something and shouldn't be trusted.  But when you're willing to admit you're screwed up, what could you possibly have left to hide?