lpara
03-13-2003, 12:02 AM
<span style='font-family:comic sans ms'>Suzanne Fields
March 13, 2003
The mousse that roared
Ridiculing the French is the new national pastime, with the focus on cowardice in the line of fire rather than cowardice in love. David Letterman's remark is typical: "The last time the French asked for 'more proof,' it came marching into Paris under a German flag."
An Internet competition for selecting a new French national anthem, to replace the blood-stirring "Marseillaise," comes up with several imaginative suggestions, including Roy Orbison's "Running Scared," Elvis Presley's "Surrender" and Donny and Marie Osmond's "I'm Leaving It All Up to You."
The French lover, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, nevertheless lingers in myth, movies and memory. But anyone who ever watched "Casablanca" (and who hasn't?) [buy movie] knows that Ingrid Bergman falls not for an effete Frenchman, but for Humphrey Bogart, the dashing American.
Charles Boyer, the quintessential French lover, squishes when he walks. Gary Cooper makes the earth (and the female heart) tremble. What we like about the contemporary French actor Gerard Depardieu is that he's the klutz who renders the whole idea of a French lover as ridicule.
"True, you can sit outside in Paris and drink little cups of coffee," observed P.J. O'Rouke more than a decade ago, "but why this is more stylish than sitting inside and drinking large glasses of whisky, I don't know."
English robustness has always been more to the American taste than French foppishness. (http://www.townhall.com/columnists/suzannefields/sf20030313.shtml)</span>
March 13, 2003
The mousse that roared
Ridiculing the French is the new national pastime, with the focus on cowardice in the line of fire rather than cowardice in love. David Letterman's remark is typical: "The last time the French asked for 'more proof,' it came marching into Paris under a German flag."
An Internet competition for selecting a new French national anthem, to replace the blood-stirring "Marseillaise," comes up with several imaginative suggestions, including Roy Orbison's "Running Scared," Elvis Presley's "Surrender" and Donny and Marie Osmond's "I'm Leaving It All Up to You."
The French lover, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, nevertheless lingers in myth, movies and memory. But anyone who ever watched "Casablanca" (and who hasn't?) [buy movie] knows that Ingrid Bergman falls not for an effete Frenchman, but for Humphrey Bogart, the dashing American.
Charles Boyer, the quintessential French lover, squishes when he walks. Gary Cooper makes the earth (and the female heart) tremble. What we like about the contemporary French actor Gerard Depardieu is that he's the klutz who renders the whole idea of a French lover as ridicule.
"True, you can sit outside in Paris and drink little cups of coffee," observed P.J. O'Rouke more than a decade ago, "but why this is more stylish than sitting inside and drinking large glasses of whisky, I don't know."
English robustness has always been more to the American taste than French foppishness. (http://www.townhall.com/columnists/suzannefields/sf20030313.shtml)</span>