Rasmenia

It recently occurred to me that I haven’t made fun of any French weirdness in quite a while. I mean, it’s been like, 2 whole blog posts ago. It’s not that I’d stopped noticing, having grown accustomed & become part of the weirdness. Okay, okay… I may have become a wee part of the weirdness, but that doesn’t mean I don’t take notice of it.

One thing that has been a constantly baffling source of amusement here is the French titles for American movies. This isn’t something confounding only to Americans, either. There are plenty of savvy French movie goers who understand the absurdity & hilarity of the French titles, but those bizarre titles keep showing up, anyway.

It often seems that there is no rhyme or reason to it. After seeing countless movie posters, TV spots & theater signs, there is no discernible pattern to this madness. Believe me, I’ve tried to make sense of it. I can’t do it.

Sometimes, they keep the original English title. However, there are many cases where this is impossible, as the English title is an idiomatic phrase that makes no sense in French & has no equivalent, creating the need for a new, hilarious French title.

The Crystal Trap	58 Minutes to Live
A Day in Hell	Return to Hell

What amuses me most about the French posters for the Die Hard franchise is, the phrase “Die Hard” gets larger with each poster. I think that’s a good sign since “A Good Day to Die Hard,” the 5th movie in the series will be called: Belle Journée Pour Mourir. That translates to a Beautiful Day to Die, so, hey… they’re getting better.

Other times, the title is still in English, but has just been changed to some other English words that have nothing to do with the original title.

You probably already figured out that the first one is “The Hangover.” This is one of the most ridiculous French titles I’ve ever seen. In spite of the fact that there is a French expression for a hangover (gueule de bois) this movie was retitled in a way to associate it with the 1998 movie, Very Bad Things. The two movies are completely unrelated, but both are about a group of guys who go to Vegas before one of them gets married.

If you’re lucky, you haven’t seen the second movie, titled “Guess Who?” in the States, is a shitty remake of the 1967 Spencer Tracy/Sidney Poitier classic, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” Evidently, when they released it in France, they cut right to the point & said, “Fuck guessing. It’s a black guy & a white guy.” Which, to be fair, is often enough to let ticket buyers know they’re in for some wacky hijinks.

As we all know, sex sells, which is why there are several instances of movie titles getting a little bit of sexing up for French audiences.

No Strings Attached

Step Up

Cruel Intentions

My favorite is the sexing up of “Cruel Intentions”, which most people know is a horrible, young 90′s American version of “Les Liaisons Dangereuses,” a French novel written by an old-timey French guy named Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. Yeah, sometimes they inexplicably give weird, sexy titles to their own stories.

It doesn’t happen very often, but some of the biggest laughs come when the French & American posters seem to be for two very different movies… even though once you hit “play,” you still get the same boring shit.

Before the sexy Photoshop

The Harvests of Fire

Sometimes, the new & improved French titles just like to ask questions.

Is There a Cop to Save the Queen?	Is There a Cop to Save the President?
Is There a Cop to Save Hollywood?	Is There a Pilot in the Plane?

The inquisitive title isn’t just for zany comedies, either. It also works for cheesy horror flicks.

Vampire? Did You Say Vampire?

The recent remake of Fright Night didn’t get this clever title. It kept the same title as the American release, which is a good example of the fact that this is something that seems to happening a bit less in recent years. However, I kind of feel like they should have changed the title to “106 Minutes of Colin Farrell in a Wife Beater.”

You know, to sell more tickets.

And speaking of horror movies…

The Claws of the Night

The Teeth of the Sea

One thing that I see a lot of is a title that’s been changed & effectively gets the point across, but just sounds dull & doesn’t stand out as a unique title.

My Best Friends

Friends Forever

The Escapees

To be fair, that Adam Sandler nonsense where he filmed himself hanging out with his friends could have been called anything & it would still be horrible. And though it won’t surprise anyone, it may still be worth mentioning that the French DVD cover for “Bridesmaids” does state that the movie is a “feminine Very Bad Trip.”

There are the movie titles that in my mind, are amusing, but seem a bit misleading.

The Kites of Kabul

Just think of all those people sitting in the theater, expecting to see a nice movie about kites who ended up sitting through 2 hours of people doing things & talking about stuff.

Animal House

Hey! It’s a movie about an American college! Probably all American colleges are like the one in this movie. As you likely already know, anything you want to learn about another culture can be learned from watching movies. Sure, go ahead & laugh, but just like many Americans, thousands of French people watch American movies & believe those things to be an accurate representation of our lives.

Then again, it probably isn’t so far-fetched.

There are many, many more, but that’s enough for now. You get the idea. Besides, all of these is really nothing compared to the French titles of some American TV shows.

I’ll get to that later.

Before I even get started, let me warn you that if you get squeamish when it comes to chatter about doctors poking around in lady bits, then this post will not interest, amuse or inform you in any way. You’ll likely be too preoccupied with all of your squeamishing to to focus on reading, so… off you go while the rest of us talk.

Like a great many people, I’ve never cared much for going to the doctor. Any doctor. For anything. I’m not afraid of doctors, but in the past, I usually had to feel as though I were at risk of coughing up my aorta, or maybe shitting out a spleen or several yards of intestines. Even when I had broken bones, I was reluctant. I didn’t mind carrying my broken wrist with my good arm if the alternative was sitting in the emergency room. A busted eye socket… well, I didn’t even go to the hospital. Luckily, I didn’t end up paying for my stubbornness with a weird, crooked face.

Admittedly, a weird, crooked face can be quite endearing.

As I got older, I realized this is fucking stupid. I had a good job with fairly decent medical insurance, so it made sense to take better care of myself. At least as much as my insurance would let me.

But that was nothing compared to the socialized medicine in France. With socialized medicine, there is no reason whatsoever not to see a doctor when something hurts, snaps, makes weird noises, or when you have demon possession vomit & rapid-fire machine gun poo.

My first doctor visit in France was in Paris. I didn’t speak any French at all, so like most English-speaking expats, I found an Anglophone doctor. She was British, I’m American, so we could chat about those French quirks that only Anglophones find amusing or irritating. Communication wasn’t a problem & she seemed nice enough, so I decided that she was worthy of poking around at my body & my lady bits with cold, metal tools.

“Alright, then. Go on and drop your trousers,” she said.

“Um… right here? Now?”

“Yep.” She laughed. “Go on, then.”

Wait a minute. What was this shit? Where was the nice assistant in the lab coat to lead me into a small room with a paper-covered table? Where was the 5 to 10 minutes of alone time for me to strip down & where in the hell was my giant sheet of tissue paper to cover my nakedness?

After a mild jibe about my American modesty, British doc had me on display on her table.

“Oh, sorry,” she said, “I’m out of swabs. I’ll have to make due with something else.” I watched her come at me with a tongue depressor. I’d like to say that she vanished from sight, but since I didn’t have that nice barrier of tissue paper, she had nothing to vanish behind, leaving me with a front-row seat to my pelvic exam. After a brief moment of scraping my insides with a stick, she popped her head up & said, “Sorry ’bout that! The bleeding should stop by tomorrow.”

What. The. Fuck.

I got dressed, got my shit together & a few minutes later, I was sitting across from her at her desk again. We were in the middle of the usual post-exam small talk when she suddenly stood up, turned off all the lights in the office & said that I would have to go, as she had a party to get to & didn’t want to be late.

Yes. She kicked me out of her office.

Okay, so that was only one doctor. I decided that day to find a new general practitioner with an ample supply of cotton swabs.

Or one that looked like this. Whichever I could find first.

However, with the free health care, I found myself going to the doctor for every ache, pain, sniffle, snuffle or discomfort. I began to feel like a hypochondriac, even though I’ve never been like that at all. And with free healthcare, you don’t see your regular doctor for everything. Migraines? Here’s a note. Go see a neurologist. Allergies? Okay, here. Go tell it to the allergy specialist. Oh, you wear glasses? Go see the opthamologist. All of this has made it possible for me to get acquainted with all sorts of colorful characters from the French medical profession.

Like the crazy dermatologist in Paris who screamed at people on the phone, snapped at my husband repeatedly, then was soft-spoken & kind to me when no one else was around.

There was also the nurse at the pathology lab who scolded me repeatedly because I peeked under the wad of cotton on the inside of my elbow after having some blood drawn for a routine blood test.

Most recently, it was the dentist who splatters my face with water & my own saliva so much that I always make sure to wear my glasses to our visits, just for the eye protection.

Is this to say that all French doctors are crazy? No. But, there are differences. The appearances aren’t the same. I haven’t seen a lot of those white smocks & lab coat looking get-ups. The environment in their offices & waiting rooms isn’t as sterile, or reeking of pine cleaner. And yes, their bedside manner is different. Absolutely. Even the ones who seemed batshit crazy ultimately solved my problem – quickly & efficiently, without insisting on more tests, visits & procedures. They’ve all seemed to really know their shit, so if they are insane, it seems to work.

The only disappointment I’ve had with any doctor in France has been with the Anglophone doctors. I hate to say it, but that’s been my personal experience. I’ve been to one other since the tongue depressor incident – an American opthamologist in Paris. Both of these docs overcharged, made me feel like a number & didn’t solve my problem.

So, I gave up on that. Now it’s all small-town French doctors for me.

It’s been a few years since I was splayed out on that English doctor’s table in Paris, so recently, I had to go in for my routine examination – with my new, small-town French doctor. I talked with her using my ridiculous imitation of the French language as I watched her remove the metal stirrups from a cluttered storage closet, then fasten them to her examination table.

By now, I’ve abandoned my American modesty at the doctor’s office. I’ve given up hope of ever getting another sheet of tissue paper. Now I just drop trou & hop up on the table.

“Okay,” she says. “You make a fist.”

“A fist? Like this?” I hold up my fist. Until now, I’ve never been told to make a fist in the middle of a pelvic exam. I briefly wonder if this is some European, turn-your-head-and-cough sort of thing for ladies.

“Oui.” She nods. “Now you put it under your butt.”

Oh. Of course.

So, there I was, propping up my ass with my fist, sans tissue paper, thinking that no matter how fucking bizarre this might feel, at least she knows her shit. At least I’ve got excellent medical coverage & she has a plentiful supply of cotton swabs.

Wave a hand full of these in my face & I’ll love you forever.

If you’ve ever suffered through any humiliation or ridiculous incidents at the doctor’s office, please feel free to share. We’ll only laugh at you a little bit – mostly we’ll be laughing with you.

Mostly.

In July of 2005, I went to see Batman Begins at the Holiday Twin drive-in in Fort Collins, CO with a friend of mine. We’d been bouncing around in anticipation for several months waiting for this movie to come out. Leaning forward in the front seat of my Oldsmobile, we shoveled snacks into our faces & geeked out. She was one of my geek girl friends. Getting excited for superhero/fantasy/action movies, standing in line to see them, then jabbering excitedly about them afterward was something that connected us.

Many people have been brought together by things much less awesome.

We weren’t on Myspace. We didn’t have Facebook. We talked in person, over plates of food & big glasses filled with adult beverages. We chatted at the office where we both worked. It didn’t matter much that she was a Conservative, Christian gun owner from Texas, or that I was basically the exact opposite of all those things.

Sure, we gave each other shit about it. We made a lot of jokes. We also asked each other a lot of questions & somehow, it worked out fine.

Fast forward to 2008. I’ve left Colorado to live in France. The sequel to Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, had been released. I saw it at a movie theater in Paris with my husband. Barack Obama was about to be elected president. Like many of my friends, I had an account on Myspace, which I was getting fed up with. I joined Facebook in 2007 & preferred the clean, quiet of Facebook, as opposed to the glittery, .gif-ridden shouting & bickering of Myspace.

It was right around this time that the pro-Sarah Palin posts from my Conservative Geek Girl friend started showing up. We’d kept in touch through various places on the Internet since my move & up til then, most of the posts I saw were geeky & personal fragments that I was interested in seeing. Yes, I want to see your vacation pics. I am interested in looking at entire photo albums of your new hairdo, or that weird thing on your cat’s neck. Yes. Absolutely.

Or, whatever’s going on here. Yes. This is interesting.

What I wasn’t interested in seeing was right-wing propaganda from websites stating that the U.S. should put Arabs & Muslims in interment camps.

I feel very strongly about this because I detest hateful, racist bullshit. It also hit too close to home. My last name is Arabic. I chose to take this name when I married my half-French, half-Arab husband.

So there it was… the first friendship I had that crumbled as a result of social networking stupidity.

Could we have talked it out? Maybe. If I were more of a talking-out kind of person & could rid myself of doubt – if I could look at her without wondering if she would be okay with my husband being put in some fucking interment camp.

Nah, for me, it’s sometimes easier to just tell someone to stay the hell away from me. I know many people say that “life is short” & “don’t burn bridges” & some other clichéd shit about how it’s bad to sever friendships, but I feel that life is too short to spend it being surrounded by ignorant, bigoted shits who piss me off.

If you disagree, then you’re more patient than I am. Good for you. You’re nice. I’m mean. You’re the winner. I’m okay with that.

Since then, I’ve fired more friends. Some them I didn’t know very well. When someone I never have any contact with is posting horrible things online & our only common link is that we both come from the same shitty little town, it’s easy to unfriend them. It’s also unlikely that they’ll care or even notice. They’ll just continue posting their nonsense.

Other times, it was people I’d known for 20+ years. Just because you went to high school together & got into some trouble together back in the day, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re still friends – or that you even like one other at all.

In the past 5 years I’ve been on Facebook, I’ve discovered where almost all of my friends stand on every single issue. I know who is for or against gay marriage. I know who thinks Obama is a gay, Kenyan-born Muslim bent on destroying America. I’ve been preached to, bitched at & insulted. I know who thinks being Palestinian or pro-choice is evil. I’ve heard why I shouldn’t eat meat, wheat, Oreos, Chick-fil-A, daisies & yellow snow.

And it works both ways. I’ve been deleted by at least two dozen people. Maybe it’s because I’m a godless, foul-mouthed, carnivorous, Obama-voting, pro-choice lover of gays & Palestinians & that I live in a wicked, socialist country like France. If none of those are reasons why, I have to assume it’s because of all the fart jokes & if you can’t handle fart jokes, then it’s probably for the best.

I try to refrain from the initial impulse to delete someone. That ‘hide’ button on Facebook is an excellent feature. But, a friend of mine recently pointed out: if I have to hide posts from people & I can’t stand anything they say, how can I call them my friend?

I think there’s a lot of truth in that, but it doesn’t seem reasonable to delete someone every single time I see a post that irritates me. So, I hide them. And sometimes, forget that they are even there at all. So, I guess when that happens, we’re not such good friends, right?

I’m not under any illusions about myself. I know I’ve posted things on Facebook or Twitter that someone didn’t like. Over the past year or so, I’ve refrained from sharing certain things on Facebook because my group of friends, while mostly like-minded thinkers, is still rather diverse, so I don’t want to force all of my opinions on everyone & don’t feel like dealing with the backlash & bitching.

I prefer to reserve most of that for this site, which people can visit only if they want to.

And there’s my main problem with the obnoxious & constant political & religious posts on Facebook – the assumption that everyone on your friend list wants to be force-fed your belief system & opinions. Go shout about those things on a personal blog, or on Twitter. Why fight with former classmates in front of your coworkers & relatives?

Filling everyone’s news feed with an endless stream of shitty Facebook memes about politics & religion will not convert anyone, or convince people with opposing viewpoints to come over to your side. This is like flashing a bunch of bumper stickers at someone instead of using your words. We don’t all live by the same set of social standards. Your rhetoric will not prompt me to start voting Republican, or to be okay with religion. (Yes, it works both ways, but this is my rant, so we’re looking at it from my viewpoint.)

Of course, if you tell an obnoxious poster to shut it, they’ll likely come back with something about their Freedom of Speech. This isn’t about your fucking 1st Amendment rights. It’s about common courtesy, recognizing the varying ideals of your friends, acquaintances & family members & making an effort not to inflame them.

I’m not saying people shouldn’t discuss things, but one of the nice things about Facebook is that not only can you hide what you don’t want to see, you can also hide what you don’t want others to see. Try putting more energy into playing nice & being courteous & a little less into trying to to shove your belief system down everyone’s throat.

Now here we are. The third movie of this Batman trilogy has been released & we all know what happened in Aurora, so I won’t even get into the details of that. Suffice it to say that being from Colorado, a huge fan of Batman & Christopher Nolan’s movies, it hit close to home. Reading the news hurt. Watching my Colorado friends trying to locate friends & loved ones hurt. Wondering if all of my friends were okay… it hurt.

It still hurts.

Before victims had been identified, before families had been notified, the rotten, repugnant ranting had started with people spouting off about their own political & religious agendas. The trolling & conspiracy theories popped up. My level of disgust & disdain is hard to articulate, but I can tell you that I’ve been making good use of that hide button recently.

I said to my husband, “It’s so damn annoying, all of this shit cluttering up my news feed: guns, the 2nd Amendment, religion, politics… aren’t you getting sick of it, too?”

Olivier, he shrugs. “I guess I would, but I don’t see much of that. Most of my friends aren’t Americans.”

I thought about this & he’s right. The people I have to hide, who do the most shouting, are Americans. So, Americans, why are we shouting like this? Why do we have such a useless fucking need to be right & convince others that our belief system is best? Why do we feel the need to make spontaneous announcements & sophistic arguments about what we think & why others are wrong for thinking something different? Unless the goal is to alienate a certain percentage of the people you’re acquainted with, I really don’t get it.

Would you go to a party with all the people you know & start randomly shouting about religion & politics, or would you just chat, laugh, have some snacks & a few cocktails?

Sometimes I miss the days when my news feed was filled with vacation photos, status updates about someone’s day, what they’re eating & whatever the hell that thing is on your cat’s neck.