Primetime-Less in France

I didn’t realize I was addicted to American television until I had been in France a few weeks. I find myself watching shows from the States I never wasted my time with before I moved. American TV programs here are not up to date and can even be one to two years late, if not canceled years before. It doesn’t matter if I have seen the show years before moving here; if it is an American show that hasn’t yet been dubbed into French, I have to watch it. I never watched “The 70’s Show”, for instance, but I will plop myself in front of the TV when it comes on here. I don’t know if it’s just the pleasure of seeing something in English or the familiarity of an American setting with all of the inside jokes that I get but my husband doesn’t. I even watch “Friends” about a group of people I have nothing in common with, many years younger than me. I never cared before if Ross got together with Monica. Or is Monica his sister? I don’t know, and don’t care. I just have to watch it.
You can watch American soap operas here, too, but they are dubbed in French and they are 2 to 3 years old and I’ve heard that the American production companies make a huge amount of money selling these old soap operas and shows from the 70’s and 80’s. One I sometimes watch is an old one that I believe has been canceled for a while. A soap opera is something that can be watched without knowing French. The meaning of what is being said is telegraphed very clearly by facial expressions. I didn’t watch soap operas in the States and haven’t found them very interesting to watch here but sometimes one will come on and I will watch just to look at the clothing being worn or the interior decorating. I will watch just about anything except the old reruns of Dallas-shown here every Saturday night, or Starsky and Hutch in which even the theme song is dubbed into French with strong French accents singing “Starky and Hutch”. Just can’t watch it anymore.
My husband, and many other French people, told me that if I watched French TV it would improve my French. This is not true. I sit down to watch a French TV show and get my brain into the Zen mode it has to be in to really listen hard. I focus all of my energy on the TV screen. I become one with my TV and will myself to comprehend. I hear a few words I know - they leap out at me so I can hardly focus on the rest of the sentence. I hear some words that are familiar to me, that I keep hearing a lot, but I still don’t know their meaning. If there are subtitles written in French I learn some new grammar and usage. Soon, though, I stop listening and start watching the action of the characters on the screen. You can learn a lot about what is going on just by watching without understanding a word so I always get the big picture. However, it isn’t long until my brain clicks off and I am no longer actively listening. If I have picked up any French this way, I am not aware of it. I think watching television can help someone learning a language hear how to pronounce a word they already know the meaning of.
I’ve always loved watching American football, especially college football. I didn’t think I would get to see it in France but was surprised and happy when they started showing football games, although a day late. The commentary is in French and even I can hear that the announcer has an American accent. What is great is that all of the commercials and time outs are eliminated. You can see the total game in an hour! I had to learn to really watch and not let my mind wander, as you can in the States, or I would miss big plays and suddenly a team would be ahead by 14 points and I had missed the 10 minutes or so when it occurred.
It probably will come as no surprise that televised sports are different in Europe. There are hundreds of soccer games. My husband will watch a championship game between two countries and I will think there will be no more soccer as is true in America when the Super Bowl is over - no football until September (well, OK, August). The next night there is another championship game. “I thought the season was over,” I will say to Maurice only to find out that this is another league, another country, between French clubs, amateur clubs, a different age group - it goes on and on. I don’t think there is even a time during the year when they are not playing, although Maurice assures me there is. And, when one of the soccer players gets injured, I am amazed at the acting that goes on. They writhe on the field, rolling back and forth, holding some injured body part. I’m thinking they will definitely need surgery. Men run onto the field with a stretcher and carry the injured player off. Sure I have seen the last of him I am surprised when he runs back on the field, fresh as a daisy, one minute later. These guys could get jobs in some opera company with that acting ability.
Then there is rugby. This is similar to American football but they don’t wear helmets or padding and there is seldom a time out. The ball they play with is larger than the American football and white for some reason which brings the question to mind as to why the football is brown in America. The players get into this big circle and sort of ram into each other and the ball, which was in the middle, ends up in some player’s arms and he starts running. Right before he is tackled he throws the ball behind him - never a forward pass- and they keep trying to get to the goal. It was rather interesting at first but it becomes mind numbingly boring after a while. There is lots of passion in the stands, as with soccer, with colored smoke billowing out and chants and songs being sung. We went to a live game here in Paris once and at the end of the game the man next to me had tears of happiness in his eyes after his team won. It was his life.
Depending on the season there are hours of tennis, especially the French Open and Wimbledon but, in the early matches, you won’t see an American player unless they happen to be playing a European opponent. In the winter every type of Nordic event imaginable is seen, even those cross country events where they basically go around in circles or carry rifles stopping periodically to fire at a target. A lot of swimming events is featured year around. And there are endless hours of curling, that strange sport on ice where fat discs are started down a bowling alley type lane and people with brooms violently brush the ice before the disc effecting its progress in some way. I think it is a little like shuffle board but haven’t really figured out the rules. I see a lot of sports unknown to me that I only occasionally had seen before on televised Olympic games.
The game from Provence, petanque, with little metal balls being thrown reminds me of horse shoes that I played as a child. There is a lot of intensity seen in the faces of the people playing and those watching. Since I know a little about horse shoes I’d like to try this game sometime. I just don’t want to watch much of it on television.
We saw every moment of the Tour du France, especially with Lance Armstrong, a fellow American, racing. I thought watching men biking would be boring but incredible shots are shown of the country side so it’s like a mini travel guide as a helicopter flies overhead sometimes showing the riders and sometimes a chateau they are passing. I still smile at a shot, by a ground crew, of a group of men sitting in their chairs at the side of the road along with hundreds of other people waiting for the Tour to whiz by. The men were watching a portable TV in front of them. I assumed when the bikers approached they would be up and cheering with everyone else but they stayed in their chairs focused on the television even as the riders went by. I also enjoy various spectators. One man dresses up as Satan with horns, a cape and a tricorn and races along the riders as they pass. You see him every day and every year. There is always at least one streaker running naked with the flag of his country wrapped around his shoulders and this year I saw a line of naked men with their bodies painted in the colors of Spain’s flag and their hands covering their “privates” as the riders poured by.
Why do I know so much about sports televised on French TV? Because I watch so much of it. It’s something I can watch here that I can totally understand without knowing one word the commentators are saying. It requires no effort from me.
Shows in France aren’t interrupted with commercials every seven minutes or so as they are in the States. The commercials are all saved up and shown at the end. In some ways this is good but on the other hand ten minutes of commercials seems like a really long time. I’m not sure which is more annoying. It is nice to watch an American show the whole way through without interuptions. The commercials themselves are similar to those in the States although you will see a lot more nudity, topless with women, and more simulation of sex. I enjoyed one commercial where there were two leperchans speaking in French with an Irish accent. And there are also a lot of the horrible infomercials, some of them imported from the States and dubbed in French. They must make money but I sure keep on clicking when I come across one.
I was surprised at some of the inane shows I’ve seen in France. I guess I expected a more sophisticated level of television, and it is here, but there are also some really juvenile game shows that I can’t believe anyone can stand to watch. There was also something called “The Loft Story” where a group of young people lived together under the watchful eye of the TV cameras. They could not leave the premises. One by one they were voted off the show with the final person winning one million Euros. They all became celebrities. I hated this show and couldn’t understand the fascination with the people on it. My husband’s son would go to a special web site set up so they could be watched at anytime, day or night and he would watch such fascinating things as these people sleeping or sitting around a table eating. I just didn’t get it. Even Maurice would sometimes watch it. When he did this, I left the room. That’s how crazy it drove me.
We get CNN here and I sometimes watch it but it has a strong European slant which I haven’t developed much interest in yet and America is seldom focused on unless there is a crisis such as September 11th or the Stock market plummeting as this effected the European market as well. I try to watch the French news every night but I have the same problem with it that I had in the States with local news which is that only a part of it is really news while the rest is human interest stories. A little of this goes a long way with me. When a story is started and some sappy music starts playing in the background I know it’s going to be some more fluff with the news announcer using this special tone of voice that lets you know how sad or moving the story is. I often have to ask Maurice what was said after watching some news stories. I can usually guess, but not always.
I am hoping being in France will get me over my addictive television watching. I do spend a lot more time reading and I have a feeling that the computer is going to become my new addiction as I correspond with Americans, read American news, and just, in general, get my American “fix” that I sometimes need.