Things I've Learned While Abroad: T.V. Watching

In the past four years living my French life, I discovered over time one rather life-changing epiphany: I don't need a television to be happy.

Yes, from being absolutely broke living on my own with no space having access to the Internet/buying DVDs to get my T.V. watching fixes changing one country for another, I have since learned that I can dedicate my valuable free time for other lofty activities such as cooking, exercising and browsing the Internet for hours on end.

Still, on the rare occasion in which I do have access to a television set, be it from visiting friends or staying at a hotel room, I've noticed that, for some reason, American T.V. shows are very popular in France provided they are dubbed, and it seems that the homegrown French programming is limited to French "Dancing with the Stars," French "Master Chef," French "The Voice," and French "Un Dîner Presque Parfait."

Oh, wait. That last one is probably 100% French.

From what I have noticed, it seems that as far as French programming goes, the most popular or memorable "shows" appear in the evenings as short sketch comedies that are meant to take up space before the major dubbed American ones and the eight o'clock weather forecast are aired. Sketch shows such as the famous Un Gars, Une Fille, Very Bad Blagues,




and Scènes de Ménages (which  I discovered is also available in a Dutch version called "Ik ook van jou") are often the highlight of French T.V. watching.


There is also a brief, nightly political "news" show featuring rubber puppets mocking French politicians and world leaders (Guignols de l'info). I do believe this is similar to the British "Spitting Image."





The French also have their histrionic soap operas (Plus belle la vie, which I once mistakenly referred to as "Poubelle la vie" in front of my students) and mind-numbing crap reality T.V. shows (infamously, Jersey Shore-esque Les Ch'tis à Wherever the Fuck in the World  or the even more cringe-worthy Les Marseillais à Miami), but I fortunately never developed a taste for watching them. After a ten-minute bout of French reality T.V., I find myself with the need to purge the stupidities that I had placed before my eyes and gravitate to the more cultural and informative Arte channel. It's like PBS, and PBS is usually a winner.

I've also come to realize that now that my T.V.-less life provides me with a limited access to commercials, I am more tranquil and less self-conscious about my flaws regarding the forced need to purchase make-up, clothes, perfume, shoes, cars, and erectile dysfunction pills.

But I do have to say this: I like the French way of showing commercials as opposed to the American style. In France, you will more than likely watch an entire episode of NCIS without once seeing a commercial break. And when you do have commercials, they are all clumped together to be shown in one lengthy slot of time. I have to appreciate the lack of interruptions and the consideration shown from giving me a cue as to when I can take a comfortable bathroom break without needing to rush back to the couch within two minutes.

Meanwhile, I've discovered that without the commercials coming in seven-minute installments, American T.V. shows are actually quite short, particularly if it is an episode that is supposed to last at least half an hour. Really, a traditional 30-minute show just manages to graze the 20-minute mark, allowing for the remaining 10 minutes to be dedicated to advertisements.

Every time I go home for a few weeks to visit my mother, I realize how bothersome it is to enjoy anything with an important plot and subsequent climax while it is constantly cut by repetitive suggestions bombarding me to part ways with my hard-earned cash.

Allow me to demonstrate what it is like to watch a T.V. show in the United States, complete with commercial breaks.

I never did find out who Shaneequa's Raxacoricofallapatorian baby daddy was.

While I don't advocate living a T.V.-less existence for everybody, I can say that living without this one distraction has cleared up my general time and mental well-being.

Still, I do like me some Doctor Who and am still waiting for France 4 to air the last Christmas special... *bawls*

Barb the French Bean

Lost in Translation: French T.V. Commercials

Sometimes, being an anglophone in France has its disadvantages. I have so spoken about my trials and tribulations about having my native tongue be butchered and badly used with the excessive possessive Apostrophe S and changing English movie titles from their original titles to another English title for French audiences.

In my case, my trained American ears cannot help but capture the often-in-English background music that is incorrectly used in French T.V. commercials.

What I mean by "incorrectly used" is that while said music would have its merits if presented in a neutral situation, such as listening to its catchy beats on the radio, when it is used for purpose of selling merchandise, the message depicted in the lyrics simply doesn't correlate with the product being pitched to audiences.

I'll present three examples of what I'm talkin' about.

Now, who doesn't love chocolate, I ask. With the exception of my mother, almost everybody does. (Seriously, her idea of "chocolate" is a Snickers bar, which is roughly 0.0000001% chocolate. It's insane.)

Still, despite a profound human love for the sultry, divine chunks derived from cocoa beans and its butter, the products still need to be marketed to people by the manufacturers and corporations. One vivid example is the Kinder Bueno hazelnut chocolate ad.




Any French person who sees this ad will chuckle at the situation of sharing the last Kinder Bueno bar with tennis star Jo Wilfried Tsonga and think nothing of the background song that is used in the end.

However, I, as an English speaker, know for a fact that the song used is Lily Allen's 22, which is about a grasshopper-who-sang-all-summer woman in her 30s whose life is depressingly "already over."



Thus, due to the fact that I understand the song's lyrics, the commercial's fairly innocuous message for consumption takes an inadvertent negative turn: Your life's over, bitch. Eat chocolate!

Either way, I can't eat Kinder Bueno hazelnut chocolates because I have a nut allergy. Welp.

Then there is the Elle & Vire crème fraîche commercial about how the rainy weather in Normandie is ideal for producing the best dairy products.




What the hell does it have to do with love fools? If anything, I may be facing a problem with all of that constant rain pouring from the sky, and that the weather itself is beseeching me to love it, love it, say that I love it and need it. Rain, rain, go away...

Also: this particular ad claims that it is not raining in the area between the Elle and Vire rivers in Normandie while demonstrating that it is CLEARLY FUCKING RAINING. WTF, France?


As a final example, I present this ad for a perfume called "La Petite Robe Noire" (The Little Black Dress).



The background song is about boots. BOOTS. The song is about BOOTS, people! GAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!

*insert a flurry of facepalms, headdesks and cartoon lip blubbering*

In short, as long as French ads improperly use songs in English, I will continue to yank the hair off my scalp.

Barb the French Bean

To My Annoyance...

The screaming lady from the commercial still keeps coming up on tv every 5 seconds.



My supposed "best" guy friend keeps being hot and cold with me.

My ex-boyfriend appears every now and then making it nearly impossible to forget his betrayal.

Lovebugs seem to enjoy having sex on my head.

I want to go to an event, but I hate that I always go alone.

I feel like crying over the stupid men in my life (and I'm single).

One of my roommates criticizes my cooking and I want to bitch slap her sometimes.

Someone once said that they liked me and there is no effort on their part to show that.

Someone said they missed me, but STILL does not make an effort to see me.

I'm getting worked up over trash. Lo que no sirve se bota (Translation: what is not of use, you throw it away).

I look pretty for nothing.

I miss French Bean, but she will not get Internet until she is fully settled in.

I get hit on by desperate fools.

I feel like killing every lovebug and if not torturing works. It's always fun to see them clinging unto my car for dear life.

I keep counting calories and working out and I STILL do not see any results.

I want to be famous, but my writing is still amateur.

I had a guy feed me a fake story of his break-up with his girlfriend, all so he can get into my pants.

I woke up at 7:30am and I had nothing to do.

People still make signs with misspellings.

My lady best friends make better "boyfriends" than all the real boyfriends I've ever had.

I do not want to be friends with benefits, but I am an addict to it.

I end up getting hurt in friends with benefits.

There is a thread coming out of my top and I have no scissors to cut it off.

This post has no drawn pictures by me.

This post contains a video of the very thing that annoys the hell out of me. fml.

Hanny the coffee bean

(note: the video of the crazy lady is not mine)