Big Girls Do Cry
09.10.2011 
How in the name of Godot are we going to get fluent in French?
Richard’s about to return for his fall session at L’Alliance Francaise, and is not at all pleased with his progress to date. He's still in what he describes as the first-person pointing and grunting stage, although his pointing and grunting accent is superb.
I’m trying a different approach. Either an hour (minimum) a day of conversation in French, or an hour (minimum) of French film or TV show. You think getting into a French conversation is so easy? All the natives want to practice their English on me—English that is already fluent—but I bat them down, pretend not to understand English, or tell them they can practice their English on Americans who don’t want to learn French.
I’ve taken French classes, in high school. Madame Martineau was good for the grammar, good for the accent.
I’ve tried learning French online. Forget it. E-mail and Facebook, not to mention writing, are plenty on the small screen.
A film or TV drama—that’s my favorite way. Because nothing is better than a story. Some things are as good, but nothing is better.
Next is news. If you watch for an hour, the same news repeats, and you can scoop up new words when the same stories loop around again.
And sometimes an educational program gives you intensive familiarity with the vocabulary of one realm, food, for instance. The other night I watched a French journalist go from one location to another in Switzerland, interviewing food producers. She began on a farm high in the Alps, then swooped down to a chocolate factory in Zurich.
She was a perfect interviewer/hostess, friendly and subtly attuned to each person she interviewed, not so beautiful that she intimidated her interviewees, but a comely companion for bopping all over from valley to mountain and city to lake.
She spoke to a cheese maker and his family high on a mountain farm, to a bonneted chocolate maker, to a fisherman on Lac Leman, to a cherry grower (the dark are the best), to a German-speaking sausage maker who included the cherry grower’s cherries in his sausages, to the head of a finishing school where women from around the world learned to set a table à la Francaise and à l’Anglais. (To do it à la Francaise you put the wine glass smack in the center above the head of the plate-- metaphor for the reign of the grape in France?) The women were taught how to measure equidistant between the plates and line them up precisely the same distance from the edge of the table. The kind of thing you don’t learn as a young maenad in Berkeley.
Then there was the Frenchman who looked like a much taller Roman Polanski. He took the journalist on a river cruise, and talked eloquently about the smells of plants along the river in that sensual French way (she seemed smitten), then they disembarked, hopped on his Harley and roared up to his hillside restaurant where he cooked up something tasty for her. I know it was tasty from the sounds she was making, though I’m not sure what it was—I was distracted by the chemistry between the two of them. The moral of the story? You can look like a rat but if you’re humming that sensual tune, who cares, there’s magic in the air.
Then there was the two-hour history of feminism in France, from the ‘60s ‘til today. You think that women really haven’t come very far? Think again. This was an eye-opener. From the early image of a Frenchman opening a girlie magazine in the mid-‘60s (“Oh la vache! Oh, la pute!) to the ‘70s, which seems to have been the wake up call for Frenchwomen, when it seemed that every prominent Frenchwoman in the country signed a document insisting that women, and only women, should have a say in whether they have the right to choose an abortion.
Every Frenchwoman whose name you’ve ever heard from that era was interviewed in period footage, and spoke out with great dignity and conviction—and charm! Jeanne Moreau, Brigitte Bardot, Juliette Greco, Simone de Beauvoir, and many more.
Bardot by Jef Aerosol
Men were interviewed on the streets as well. The humorless, straight-jacketed types all said women should stay at home, they don’t belong in the workplace. The men you’d want to know, the ones with juice in them said, Why not, if they want to work?
(To control or not to control, that is the question. Which brings to mind that late medieval English story, Sir Gawain and the Lady Ragnell, about what women really want.
Those Celtic storytellers knew the answer to Freud’s question centuries before he posed it.)
Slowly, women are shown entering government. Slowly, women are hired as news anchors. A few here and there, including a smart, sassy, dimpled, smiling young Anne Sinclair, now Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s wife. (You know, the one who gave the NYC hotel maid such a gracious thank-you tip?)
And then, a woman anchoring nearly every TV news hour, and then… two evening anchors, both women.
**
And lastly, to get my daily French language dose, I’ve descended to watching an occasional reality show, a level to which I was never tempted in the U.S. Okay, maybe this is a concept that has already been embraced in the U.S., too, but I doubt it. I watched a show called “Belle Toute Nue.”
Here’s the basic theme: a woman with a zaftig figure comes on the show ready for transformation. To lose weight? you ask.
Mais non!
To become “bien dans sa peau,” to fully embrace herself as she is.
Her transformative wizard is a delightful, stylish, warmhearted guy named William. If he isn’t gay, he’s a terrific actor. And if he weren’t gay, I doubt that a single woman would allow him to take the liberties he takes with them.
There is a formula here. I know because I’ve watched the show twice. A woman arrives at William’s dressing room studio. He has a heart-to-heart with her about her body image. She cries.
One was a 19-year-old blonde who’d gained 30 pounds in three months because of an illness, and kept gaining. Another is a woman in her early 40s who won’t let her husband get physically close to her.
The stages:
Stage one: Confession.
William gently, lovingly asks the woman about her body image. She weeps. He asks her questions. She answers. He asks her to strip down to panties and bra and stand in front of a big three-way mirror. She is to go down her body, feature by feature, describing how she feels about each part.
Here. And here. She points to her thighs, her stomach. Again, she weeps.
But one of the women has to concede that she likes her eyes.
And the other likes her calves, sort of.
Stage Two: Lineup/Cattle Call
William leads the blindfolded woman into a room where five buxom abundant-bodied women in fetching lingerie (lined up according to size) are dancing to festive music. When they stop, the woman is asked to “take her place” according to size. Is she bigger than this one? Smaller than that one? She has no idea. She chooses a spot, slides in between two women.
No, says William. That is not your place. Try again.
She studies the women, fascinated. Again, she picks the wrong spot between two even larger women.
At last William shows her that, actually, she is the smallest of these women. And they’re all beauties. So perhaps (she thinks) she’s not all that big, that bad.
Stage three:
This is the part I can’t imagine seeing on an American “reality” TV show. But maybe I’m wrong. Readers, you tell me.
One day, as the woman walks through Paris, wearing camouflage clothes well chosen to hide her body, she bumps—serendipitously!—into William. To the young woman who works in a farmers’ market, he says, I was just on my way to shop for veggies—maybe you’d come along and give me some shopping tips?
They chat among the vegetables, and suddenly her hand flies up to her mouth. She has spotted the photo card among the eggplants—a photo of her wearing nothing but panties and a bra! Oh my God! she exclaims. And then—another photo! And another! In every vegetable bin, there is a big photo of her nearly naked body. And at the end of the market: Oh no! A giant poster of her, the same image.
William stops passersby to point at the poster and ask what they think of this woman.
Jolie. Sympa. Belle poitrine. Etc.
She listens while young and old, male and female appraise her, and mostly praise her.
Hairspray
Stage four:
A clothes shopping trip, of course. William is the personal shopper of most women’s dreams. In ten minutes flat, he’s discovered her favorite colors, and whipped off the racks dresses, a trench coat, blouses, jeans, beautiful shoes, belts. And lingerie. French lingerie. A fitter comes to get that bra just right.
Do clothes make the man? I don’t know, but they THRILL the woman. Dessert is a many-petalled long red silk strapless dress (it looks like a Valentino) that is smashing, and she looks smashing in it.
Stage five:
Hair and makeup, Parisian stylists and makeup artist. One woman goes from a hairdo that looks like a limp brown mouse died on her head to electric white-blonde Sharon Stone short. Transformed!
Another from nondescript blondie to blonde China doll, straight bangs, long bob. Dazzling.
Stage six:
The show. The climax. The reveal.
Knowing that the 19-year-old is mesmerized by the Folies Bergère dancers, William takes her to the Folies Bergère, where she is trained by their choreographer and taken on stage looking like a Seventeen magazine cover girl movie star showgirl, and—husband and friends in the theater audience—does a strip tease fan dance with the Folies Bergère dancers cavorting around her.
The married 40-something-year-old poses nude (tastefully) with her Sharon Stone hair and new violet glasses for a photo session, and stage show for her husband and family and friends on a revolving stage with other zaftig women flanking her.
The show succeeds in giving these women the feeling of being “bien dans sa peau,” which is the very thing that is so striking about Parisian women. It’s really a question of attitude, isn’t it? Just watch her walk down the street.
It also succeeded in teaching me some essential new French phrases like:
Il veut aider les femmes se débarrasser des complexes. (He wants to help women get rid of complexes.)
Vous ne sauriez croire combien un bon saucisson se marie avec quelques cerises. (You wouldn’t believe how good sausage and cherries are together.)
**
P.S. I can’t believe we missed this event right at the end of our street.
Reader Comments (15)
Hate to say it, but that reality show STARTED on US TV! It always ended with a nude photo shoot! Usually the underwear shot ended up on a billboard in Times Square. Sometimes the uptight Americans surprise us, right?
On the subject of language, my friend who's an American journalist living in Nice went to an immersion program in Villefranche sur Mer that she said was transformative. if you'd like more info, let me know.
Thank you, Sara:
I KNEW somebody would be able to inform me about reality TV. Until my recent French lessons I was unfamiliar with the genre.
You sent us into research mode, and we have since discovered that the show was created in the UK, where it was called HOW TO LOOK GOOD NAKED, and debuted in mid-2006. An American production company bought the rights, and it debuted in the US on the Lifetime Network, with the same title, in January 2008.
It then hopped to France in December 2008 as Belle Toute Nue, and there are versions in Sweden, Italy, Poland and the Czech Republic.
The great thing about all the versions of the show is that they teach people to accept themselves as they are. (Our motivation is still to learn French.)
Please do send us information about this other immersion program, though Richard is so presently immersed he feels like he's drowning.
XO,
Kaaren and Richard
What a way to learn French — Fantastique! I love the "Sur-Reality" show; true, only in France, certainly not in the good old provincial USA. I'm sure it is absolutely more amusing than anything here (which I'd call sub-reality). I would, however, take up arms with Mr. William at the secret photos taken then exposed in public. Still, fascinating... Yes, your vocabulary is becoming quite versatile Kaaren and I'm sure it is more fluent than when you arrived.
Was the event you missed up the street a "William" event? Again, only in France. All those women would be arrested here. — Now that's freedom.
I am delighted once again by the wonderful photo/illustrations of the story via Richards keen eye and selection of visuals. R, do you shoot with the story in mind or is it by chance you've got the perfect image? Such richness on display there in Paris. I'm drooling.
Wonderful you two.
XO,
Joanne
What a delight to read! I had the same problem trying to learn Spanish in Mexico. Everyone wanted to practice their English. You have a very French way of dealing with it. Is that what you mean by "bien dans sa peau?" It think you have it, whatever it is!
Joanne!
You're right: this is not a reality show, it's SUR-REALITY. That's the aspect that delights me.
It turns out that the Brits introduced this concept, American TV adopted it, and THEN it hopped to France. It might be an interesting anthropological study to look at how each country approaches the subject.
We agree with you that taking nearly nude photos without permission is so questionable that it could only have happened with the women's permission, the surprise, scripted.
But that Flashmob video we linked to is genuinely surprising, at least for the onlookers. And against a backdrop of the Seine and Notre Dame, all the women look joyful and beautiful. Quel bonheur!
Richard thanks you for the compliments on his photos. In ninety percent of cases, the text is written first, then he selects the photos from his gradually accumulating library. Every one that accompanied this last post he'd already taken.
If the post is pegged to a news event (maybe five percent of the time), he'll shoot to order, or the photos (like our dove babies) will drive the text. Occasionally he'll go shoot something on request, like Proust's cork-lined room in the Musée Carnavalet, if there's no way to illustrate the post obliquely.
Why don't you and Stuart come on over and feast on the images and food in this city--in person?!
Love,
Kaaren
Diane,
I think this has changed over the years. English is by now the language that everyone wants to learn. But Europeans have such an advantage, learning a second and third (or more) language from grammar school on. Since we have the disadvantage of being raised in a country that doesn't emphasize learning other languages, we think we have the right to ask for OUR language lessons in the Paris streets.
Insisting on that is not so much about being "at ease with oneself, being comfortable in one's own skin" as it is being serious about learning French. But yes, I do feel "bien dans ma peau" because it's the only home I've got. (Our skin as the package that the gift of life is wrapped in?)
Love, love, and thank you,
Kaaren (& Richard)
I agree with Diane. This was a delight to read. From the first line to the last image, it may've hit a new high for synchronicity between words and pictures. There's a word in Italian, "indovinato." Don't know if there's a similar expression in French. It means "guessed" but when something is "indovinato" it implies the thing was done with style and wit, as well as serendipity.
And the way I learned English was music. I listened and listened and listened. But of course I was seven, so....different brain.My very first records were Ricky Nelson's "Hello Marylou (Goodbye Heart)" and Dion's "Little Diane." (Which may be why I often agree with Diane.) Then of course I wanted Meet the Beatles, but my father by mistake bought me "The Buggs." (Same photo on the front, different guys, different songs. They must've worked fast.) By the time I finally got the Beatles, I'd grown accustomed to the Buggs.
And so it goes.
Dear Anna,
This means so much coming from you--we're crazy about your nonfiction voice. And leave it to you to give us a new word we've never heard: indovinato. I think it describes what "our" doves are doing one floor down, once again.
We had forgotten that your first language was Italian! And no wonder you became a rock and roll chick.
Honestly, there was a Beatles knockoff album by a band called the Buggs? Hilarious. If you want to see something adorable, get yourself invited to Diane's house and gaze upon her large photo of a little Diane talking to the Beatles. I think it was in Hollywood? An enchanting photo.
Much love,
Kaaren
P. S. to Joanne: Yes, the Flashmob dancing is a William Carnimolla event. You can see him on the boat with a bullhorn, and later, tall, blond, big glasses, in the center of the dancing women, calling out: "You are what, girls? You are beautiful completely naked!" It sounds better in French.
Hi Kaaren,
This was one of my favorite installments yet! The way you combined French media as a learning tool with the pain of acquiring a new language works exceedingly well. CreativeNonFictionEssay hybrid!! As someone (Amethyst Antioch Anna?) said in the comments, the art and text are especially well integrated!
You and Richard have moved past the initial visitor stage with all the adventurous glam of Paris, into the lonelier space of disconnect where so many messages are being exchanged in the culture around you, and (especially for Richard) too much passes by beyond comprehension. I remember this alienation so well as an exchange student in Sweden when I was 17 and 18.
There is such a wonderful three-dimensionality here in this petit recit.
Tell Richard to hang in there. Those quantum improvements in language acquisition occur when least expected, and they are definitely quantum, so it's very cool when we find ourselves comprehending more, and conveying more, and enjoying more of that alien world you are in now!
And as for this wonderful play,
Merci!
Scott
Dear Scott,
What a delight to hear from you! We both love knowing that you especially enjoyed this post.
And Richard appreciates your words of wisdom. In his words: "That's precisely my problem. Coming from a culture in which I knew the language intimately and completely, on levels gross and subtle, into a culture in which the average five-year-old communicates better than I, I'm frustrated, and sometimes depressed. Maybe this struggle is worth a full post sometime, but your Swedish experience is one from which I can draw sustenance."
All right, now let me just say that Richard is being too hard on himself. He understands more than he can express, as do I, and we're both making progress in understanding and speaking French.
In truth, we're NOT disconnected. We have friends from many countries with whom we talk easily in English, and if we come up against a stone wall trying to communicate in French, around 9 out of every 10 French people speak English.
What we so love to hear are the experiences like yours where you DID become fluent in another language. It's such a joy to begin again as if you're a child, in a new culture!
Love to you,
Kaaren & Richard
Thank you for admitting your "descent" into watching reality TV on occasion. You're not alone. I have found myself loathing my fascination with one in particular.
You, however, have the lofty purpose of learning a new language and about feminism. I love that the sex kitten Bridget Bardot was one of the advocates of women's rights, and the photos/art that accompanied the post. Being of a kinesthetic nature, I need the assistance of visually oriented photographers/artists like Richard to help me see the world. My Mom, being an artist, gets so excited about exploring new art mediums that she practically trips over her own tongue with excitement, trying to describe what she's doing now, and next.
While my hand reaches for the remote uncontrollably drawing me into the descent, I am in truth, also being educated in human behavior. The common denominator on the reality shows that create competition to win love, money, and/or the short-lived celebrity status, mirrors much of the collective. The biggest U.S. producer of reality TV shared in an interview that they purposely chose a variety of archetypal personalities, villain(ess), victim, hero, seductress, etc. and encourage the unfolding drama.
I've learned that the competitive environment brings out the spirit of, "I'll get you BEFORE you get me." The common spiritual principle found in the koran, torah, and bible, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,"goes out the window. This is how the majority appears to operate in the world. There are the rare participants who simply participate with resourcefulness, inspired creativity, a sense of inner abundance, while managing to share and be inclusive. Often times, they are the "winners" of the loot, but especially winners of retaining their integrity.
Thank you for the wonderful forum to investigate and delight in myself and the world. I think I will love, rather than loathe myself for my curiousity.
Dear Kaaren and Richard,
This post has such depth, wisdom, and - per Anna's note - style and wit! (As an aside to Anna, some of my international students from Japan have told me they learned English in school by listening to the Beatles. No one has yet mentioned The Buggs, though. :))
Kaaren, I so love hearing your reports about French television because you've taken the subject deeper, allowing us to experience a true sense of the culture, especially as it relates to women. And I love the complexity of your post ~ how a reality show about body image co-exists with the documentary about feminism (and also that lovely bit about food and flirtation!). I confess I am in awe of French women (yes, I know it's a generalization, forgive me...) and their equal sense of style and sense of self, even in a culture that retains some leftover sexist values (although what Western culture doesn't, apart from perhaps some of the Scandinavian countries?). Thank you for sharing this... I believe in many ways you are a Frenchwoman at heart!
And, Richard, your images are so beautifully chosen and photographed. I envy your days exploring Paris and all of its rich street art! (And I hope you'll be patient with yourself in your acquisition of French... have you written poems in French? Just curious...)
And three cheers for Lady Ragnell and Sir Gawain! A wise, sensitive man, and a woman who certainly was "bien dans sa peau"!
Love to you both! I am dying to come and visit you!!!!
dawna
Dear Marguerite,
You are so generous! I'm not sure we learn as much about human nature in watching reality shows as we do about a particular culture. But I do think to really have a sense of any nation's culture, including your own, you have to pay some attention to both its high culture and its low.
You are spot on about that competitive power stuff. It is something to behold, isn't it? And always seems to come from a sense of fear about there not being "enough" for everyone. What if everyone's biggest concern was to give a big enough gift to others? Wouldn't that instantly change our perspective?
Maybe we could come up with our own variations on the golden rule, like: Everyone wants gifts, so let's try to give them.
You've always had so much delight in you and around you, that I'm glad you're sharing it in THIS forum.
Much love,
Kaaren & Richard
Dear Dawna,
What a great message. Heavenly. We are grateful to you for your close read. I wonder if anyone else read Sir Gawain and the Lady Ragnell? I've read some online critiques of the story that totally missed its meaning. She doesn't want sovereignty over Sir Gawain or anyone else--she wants it over her OWN LIFE. This is a radical feminist tale written centuries ago. That Celtic strain in England and in France of great reverence for women is what came so alive in France in the '70s. The '70s were the Demeter/Persephone/Virgo decade, and France, I believe is a Virgo country, with its great sense of food, health, attention to the female body.
One of the great things about travel (as you well know!) is discovering the places that seem to resonate with your soul. Two places that have always felt like home to me are Paris and the Greek islands. I think it's related to the ancient matriarchal cultures in places like Crete, where women were valued as highly as men. When those places were conquered by patriarchal tribes, the people of the Danae migrated up through Spain and France and as far north as the British Isles. The troubadour literature reflects those ancient values, including reverence for women.
I was tickled by the experience of your Japanese students learning English from Beatles songs--just like Anna as a child in Italy! Our friend, Padraic, who is fluent in French, suggested listening to songs to learn the language. I like listening to stories, with pictures, so TV and films work best for me. But the minute I start reading a novel, I want it to be in English.
I wish you lived here. Why don't you just plan to come over next spring, and let it happen?
Love,
Kaaren (& Richard)