Cultural Differences, round 2

How do fairy tales end in English? “And they lived happily ever after.” How do they end in French? “Ils se marièrent et eurent beaucoup d'enfants.” (literal translation: they got married and had lots of kids) Somehow, in my mind, having lots of kids is not necessarily the logical equivalent of living happily ever after... as a translator, this brings up an interesting issue: most of the fairy tales present in US culture were written by Europeans, so it would appear that an English-speaking translator at some point in history made the choice of translating “they got married and had lots of kids” as “and they lived happily ever after.” Why they would do this is an fascinating question, but not one that I’ll go into here and now…

The World Cup Coke commercial that I referred to in a previous post: a cartoon (the French love animation, particularly “BDs” or bandes dessinées, adult “comic books” that are taken very seriously here) where we see a series of various unlikely couples listening to or watching one of France’s games (unlikely, as in a cactus and a balloon, for example). The last of these apparently “mismatched” couples is… a husband and wife… They are lying in bed, watching the game on TV. France scores, and ecstatic, the husband leaps out of bed and starts doing a victory dance in his boxers. He is promptly joined by the wife’s lover, who ‑ unable to contain his enthusiasm ‑ leaps out of the closet, where he apparently has been hiding since hubbie came home. After a brief exchange of “what the hell?” looks, they continue celebrating the goal, dancing around together. Check it out on Coke’s French website; http://secure.coca-cola.fr/index.jsp
Could such a commercial exist in the US? Hello? The company that wanted to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony? That asks us to have a Coke and a smile?
I get into this discussion frequently with the French. Many mistakenly believe that I am saying that there is less infidelity in the US than in France. This is not what I am saying. All I am saying is that I think that infidelity is considered acceptable and “normal” behavior in France. It obviously happens in the US, too, perhaps just as often as in France, but in US culture, cheating is looked down upon and generally condemned. It almost always results in break-ups/divorce. It’s something to be ashamed of, kept taboo, not flaunted and vaunted or simply accepted as the norm as it is here. The only American couple that I have ever heard of surviving infidelity is the Clintons, and I think strident political motivation is the only glue holding that one together. Infidelity is not considered acceptable or routine in the US. I’m not saying this is right or wrong or that Americans are better people. I’m just pointing out my perception of a cultural difference. I can provide numerous examples of how this normalcy/acceptance is portrayed in French culture, especially in advertising... a mind-boggling number of ads where someone is having to sneak out of the house because the legitimate spouse or live-in has returned or one partner is shown covering up their cheating in one form or another… Or how about the name of a leading dry cleaning chain? 5 à Sec. It’s a play on words. A “5 à 7” is a euphemism for having an affair (usually implying a man seeing his mistress right after work, at 5 pm, before heading home to the wife at 7…) Countless more examples exist in garden variety French TV, films and music. Obviously, there are also plenty of movies/books/TV shows in the US that address the issue of infidelity, and songs as well (who doesn’t love “Me and Mrs. Jones”?) but again my point is HOW infidelity is portrayed. Mrs. Jones has to be “extra careful” while Madame Untel wouldn’t necessarily have to exercise the same discretion… This leads to two reasons as to why I say that Jérôme is not typically French (and why I love him so much): 1) fidelity is of utmost importance to him, he has never cheated on anyone and would never tolerate anyone cheating on him; 2) he is the only French person I’ve ever met that hates BDs too.