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Home Front: Politix
Excitement in France over Obama victory
2008-06-07
Cheeze. First Jerry Lewis. Now this.
Posted by:Fred

#6  Kevin - it doesn't matter if the French love Jerry Lewis or not, it's Conventional Wisdom now. Just like Bush being dumb and no WMDs in Iraq
Posted by: Frank G   2008-06-07 22:53  

#5  Â¡No Pasarán! The political Messiah of the early 21st century, a cross between John F_ Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr
Posted by: anonymous5089   2008-06-07 14:46  

#4  Actually, it was coined by the "blood & soil" french nationalists, and adopted by a part of the french rightwingers & conservative, to describe the seemingly non-sensical and counter-intuitive adoration/rejection based on race of liberals and of general western culture at large.

I'm just an hapless follower, because precisely, it is so fitting.
Posted by: anonymous5089   2008-06-07 14:44  

#3  A5089, if I had my way, you'd get Grand Officer in the Legion d' honneur just for coming up with the word "ethnomasochist"!
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo)   2008-06-07 12:47  

#2  I think the movie which got JL that honorable mention by les chaiers was "Dr. Jerry and mister love", thinking about it.
Posted by: anonymous5089   2008-06-07 07:06  

#1  Cheeze. First Jerry Lewis. Now this.

O, Esteemed and Rightly Feared Site Owner, Jerry Lewis never has been, and still isn't, famous in France, though I'm sure you're well aware of that.
I haven't seen a Lewis movie in France for over...? Well, apart from those probably shown on movies-dedicaced sat channels, I think I've seen two of his on television in my entire life.
And should you ask who is "Jerry Lewis" to the man on the street, you'd get a "huh?".
This is an another cliché, steeming from the fact that he had been hailed by Les cahiers du cinéma, an "influential" movies mag read by almost nobody but which was/is supposedly an authority on the matter (if only because it's treendishly leftist and avant-gardiste and uber-intellectual), as an "auteur", that is as someone who had a vision and implemented it from the start to the directing; this was due to a movie he had just made and which I don't know. Note that many other US directors were hailed as auteurs, some probably more rightly than others (like John Ford or Hitchcock).

Also, he had the Légion d'honneur IIRC, or a medal like all those the Republic LOVES to give, but then again, any at least-remotely-famous Us actor coming to France gets one, De Niro did, Stallone did,... not to mention any popular singer, or any soccer player.

As for obama, I'll comment more succintly.

Obama is black + hardcore leftist + the french Chattering Class is ethnomasochist and leftist (again, in 2002 only 6% of polled french journalist defined themselves as conservative) = obama is the "America that the Chattering class loves (not white and which hates America and american values).
Posted by: anonymous5089   2008-06-07 07:04  

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