http://paris.cafebabel.com/en/ A view on the French capital from a European perspective en Mon, 21 Jul 2008 00:30:52 +02:00 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Dotclear http://paris.cafebabel.com/en/post/2007/09/16/Rugby-world-cup-%3A-Haughty-Frenchy urn:md5:7749282b2aaf4f96ba6a575fee5affd4 Sun, 16 Sep 2007 19:11:00 +02:00 Jean-Séb 2.0 Culture <p>At the eve of the world cup championship, the infatuation of French people for rugby has suddenly exploded. The effusion of the press and of public leaders could even be compared to the liberation of an unspoken passion.</p> <h2>At the eve of the world cup championship, the infatuation of French people for rugby has suddenly exploded. The effusion of the press and of public leaders could even be compared to the liberation of an unspoken passion.</h2> <p>Faithful to its reputation of arrogant lady France has, in a day, suddenly presented itself as the legitimate ambassador of the “ovalie”, forgetting on its way that rugby was founded by an Englishman, Sir William Webb Ellis in 1823. These last few months, it wasn’t rare to hear or to read that “the French players were among the best in Europe” or that “the French team was, with no doubt, THE favourite European team”. These comments would have certainly been accurate some ten years ago, but they sound distressful today. To my humble opinion, this unprecedented support for the XV de France hides an affective hypocrisy that could only damage the image of French rugby. Once despised and considered as a brutal practice, rugby is now under the spotlights, and its players almost sacred as semi God. Such weirdness leaves me doubtful of the spontaneity of the public demonstrations we can attend today.</p> <h2>Loving rugby is cultural.</h2> <p>In France, and contrary to England or Scotland, rugby is more a “local” sport than a national one. It is in the South west that the identity of rugby finds its roots. French rugby was raised in this region and was nourished with its long going values and traditions, both inherited from a specific sociological background. Among these values, one could cite a strong collective spirit, the attachment to sports’ tradition, patrimonial transition, personal challenge, … The “rugby spirit” was then exported. Local teams gathered themselves behind the Nation so as to play with “the big ones”. This explains that there cannot be a proper “national involvement” in this game. Moreover, institutional recognition by the French rugby federation (FRF) came very late as the FRF, which was founded in 1910, was only registered on the IRB (International rugby board) in 1978.</p> <h2>Both media concern and change in public opinion perception were hard to come. Though, listening to Claire Chazal, PPDA and other broadcasters, it seems that French people have always believed in this sport and supported their team … But this is nothing more than buzzing.</h2> <p>For sure, rugby is fashionable. It’s been a couple of years since inscriptions in clubs dramatically increased and sports’ stores enlarged their “rugby” spots. But the most freaky is to see how much stemming goods exploded, rejoicing the marketing society. Just like soccer, which has been absorbed by advertisement and sponsoring strategies, rugby has been “seduced” by all this “show-off”. The Franco German TV channel Arte broadcasted an excellent report on that issue last September 4th (“Révolution ovale”). This documentary shows how “mediatisation” or “popularisation” of rugby, which is to say the broadening of its public, has modelled a new sport. More than a practice, the “ovalie” has become a label, which symbolic power has been biased to reach people’s sensitiveness. Just like a luxury product that they would like to bring to an upper standard, sponsors have stressed the gentleman side of the game to better sell its recent mediatisation. But the most worrying is that players themselves have surrendered to these rules. This came to such a point that the game itself is starting to change. The adoration of bodies and hyper proteined diets have modelled both the physical aspect of rugby players and the way of playing… Nowadays, Haka is even more popular than the New-Zeland team itself…</p> <h2>What would we be ready to do to please people? Is rugby ready to sell its soul to the devil ?!</h2> <p>Sophie Helbert</p> http://paris.cafebabel.com/en/post/2007/09/16/Rugby-world-cup-%3A-Haughty-Frenchy#comment-form http://paris.cafebabel.com/en/post/2007/09/16/Rugby-world-cup-%3A-Haughty-Frenchy#comment-form http://paris.cafebabel.com/en/feed/rss2/comments/17 http://paris.cafebabel.com/en/post/2007/07/13/KING-OF-THE-WORLD urn:md5:d02d1fc98cfa6ac82235f8a5a9365e4f Fri, 13 Jul 2007 18:33:00 +02:00 Jean-Séb 2.0 Culture <h4>A modest criticism not less subtle</h4> <p>Just like an omniscient narrator, King of the World tells the American imperialistic illusion, avoiding clichés. Have the sons of the Old Europe become the kings of the United States? After watching that film which title had already arrested me, I should say that the debate on “Communautarism” was rather poor and disappointing.</p> <p><img src="http://paris.cafebabel.com/public/paris/King_of_the_World.png" alt="King_of_the_World.png" /></p> <h2>A good bet for a modest production which still feeds pondering.</h2> <p>This one-hour fifty five docu-moovie was realized by three young Frenchies (). Those were as quite as the promotion of their piece was, which creates a total new effect on the European audience. In-between the experimental documentary ant the sophisticated realization of a Michael Moore production, King of the World is a sociological investigation in the road movie style. In the end, one evidence&nbsp;: Americans don’t think themselves as kings and queens of the world, they just don’t know about the world… One would easily reply the criticism is over passed. Saying that the American super power represents itself as the centre of the universe and despises everything and everyone has something of déjà vue, doesn’t it? Not at all. Indeed, this film manages to bring together the sharpness of an investigation and the subtle touch of cinema d’auteur.</p> <h2>A sensible criticism</h2> <p>Conducting some sort of vox pop on the Western side walks, the film-makers introduce us with the Yankees, as we call them. Interviewing these natives, whose forefathers simply were the pioneers of the American dream and who inherited from the Myth the Boarder, the film-makers give them the opportunity to speak openly. And through these confessions, we get the evidence of their deep credulity. Indeed, if we often blame the Americans of imperialism, we cannot whether prove they are able to rationalize their acting and their speaking. However, we don’t want to laugh at the afflicting bull breeder who says he doesn’t understand why people would ask the State to pay for the Health Care Service when in 1680 nobody asked for HCS and “still, everything was going fine”… Neither do we want to condemn the belly beer capped-guy for arguing that a country applying the death penalty is a “free country”. No, because these opinions hide an alienating social and an intellectual poverty. One should keep in mind that any American is a victim.</p> <h2>He is a victim of the Government which feeds a high level of ignorance, but he’s also victim of an individualistic system that doesn’t encourage to look further on.</h2> <p>As one of the film-makers said during the debate which followed the movie and which was dealing with communautarism, “these people are not used to talking about politics, it is still taboo; but we gave them the opportunity to express themselves on these matters and for that, many of them were thankful”. Then, the waitress working in Reno confesses that everything is done in the United States to make the richer getting richer and the poorer getting poorer. She, herself, is cumulating two jobs which help her paying for her rent and financing her daughter’s dental care. She’s very cynical about the American dream, but she seems resigned. And when they meet the Pastor of a jail in Texas, the film team is asked to move out of the prison&nbsp;: The Pastor wants to speek openly … and it seems that any truth is not good to say in this world. Speaking like he were making a confession, and expressing himself in a perfect French, he explains that the golden age of liberalism is finished. Liberty has become a chimera in the United States. Indeed, what is left of the first Amendment when censorship presses a church man to move into a car with a team of foreign journalists to be allowed to speak about the decline of his own country? Freedom of enterprise is not everything, and it seems that fundamentals have vanished. Nowadays, Americans play their own drama, and most of them realize it.</p> <h2>At first, the theme retained for the debate stroke us&nbsp;: “Communautarisms”. Anyway, the film doesn’t linger on discrepancies between ethnic and social communities.</h2> <p>As Paul Schor, a reader in History at the University La Sorbonne, explained, communautarism is not only about segregation of Indians or Negroes. It is, first, a body spirit, an identity that builds itself in opposition to the dominating representations. King of the World portrays the powerful America against which the popular America is trying to impose herself. In that sense, Middle class communautarism makes sense. As the investigations take place during the American election campaign of 2005, the film shows how much this community, though very heterogeneous, keeps united when they refer to their social conditions: Shall they be proud of it or ashamed, they commonly argue of being part of this America, and they all feel their society has shattered. The biker would die for his mate, but when he’s asked about 9/11 he doesn’t understand why his brothers can be killed by terrorist in the name of the United States dignity. For him, a real act of dignity would have been to bomb Irak. On the one hand, it is conceivable to die for another biker, but on the other hand it seems impossible to give one’s life for the democratic ideal. This statement proves that the American Nation, which revolves on democratic and unity values, doesn’t mean a lot anymore in the United States.</p> http://paris.cafebabel.com/en/post/2007/07/13/KING-OF-THE-WORLD#comment-form http://paris.cafebabel.com/en/post/2007/07/13/KING-OF-THE-WORLD#comment-form http://paris.cafebabel.com/en/feed/rss2/comments/8