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The va-va-voom issue – who’s right versus who we are

People involved in political arguments often argue as if arguments are the entire point. Yet the current disputes within the USA, within Britain, and between the USA and “Europe” are as much about who we are, as they are about who is right.

Take France. Ruled by a bunch of sleazebags, right? Their “arguments” for not going to war against Iraq were, if that’s the way you are inclined to think, feeble in the extreme. X ergo Y and therefore it follows Z, blah blah blah.

But what if the real arguments now are not about who is right, but about who we are?

One of the oddities of British life is the extraordinary expensiveness and dramatic complexity of British TV car adverts. Something to do with a car cartel, I believe, which means there’s money to burn getting each buyer to step forward. And one TV car advert in particular goes straight to the heart of the France question, and the “who we are” question. I refer to the one that advertises the Renault Clio, by claiming that this car possesses “va-va-woom”. Various other things do also, like posh French-type birds posing in Mies van der Rohe style modern houses, while various other things don’t, like an over-coiffured small dog, and a strange looking character wearing nothing but a pair of stars-and-stripes bathing trunks and a cowboy hat, and waving guns.

This last one is so ghastly an apparition that Thierry Henry – the ultra-skilled black French footballer who plays for Arsenal (and France) with great distinction and who is in amongst all this, narrating with good humoured subtlety – just stares blankly into the camera. That’s all the comment we need. Those ghastly cowboys are just, you know, ghastly, while those (us) continentals are so suave and sophisticated and cultured.

It’s also a clever ploy to use a black man for all this, because smuggled in there (but totally deniable) is the suggestion that the cowboy is probably the type of hick who’d be bothered by Thierry Henry’s blackness, whereas you, oh viewer, are not, are you? Maybe I’m reading too much into things there, but I don’t think so.

What the advertisers are betting on is that there are a lot of Brits who think of themselves most definitely as on the French side of the France/Anglosphere confrontation, and who are willing to put large wads of money where their preferred identify is. And there surely are. This advert has been running for quite some time, and they’d have pulled it by now if it didn’t do the business. If Renault’s sold better by being smothered in Union Jacks and sat in by British bulldogs, then that’s what they’d have. Lots of Japanese companies sell stuff by waving the Union Jack and sponsoring ultra-British things like show-jumping.

Samuel Huntington (in Clash of Civilisations) saw all this kind of thing coming. He saw that whereas the communism/capitalism thing was about who and what was right (X ergo Y), now it’s all about who and what we are. This, for example, is what the Euro argument is really about. “Economic interests” have nothing to do with it. Who we are is what that is about.

And this is why, in this new world, “we” (whoever, exactly “we” are) need to go beyond the narrow logicality of political debate – beyond X ergo Y, into the territory of cultural affinities and coolnesses, the territory of who has va-va-voom and who does not.

This is why blogging is such a crucial addition to our persuasive arsenal. We can argue on our blogs. And, as part of and in among and in between the arguing, we can tease out the va-va-voom of things.

I never know with Samizdata postings whether there’ll be lots of comments, or some, or hardly any, or none. If there are comments on this, no doubt some will be easily summarisable: “I’m not French!!” But I’m hoping that others may be more nuanced.

63 comments to The va-va-voom issue – who’s right versus who we are

  • Kit Taylor

    I thought it obvious that the man in hat and briefs was a HOMOSEXUAL, and therefore unlikely to hold politically incorrect views on negro gentlemen.

  • Brian Micklethwait

    Kit

    No, I didn’t read it that way. Just vulgar and American. Homosexuals who like guns are a total impossibility here in Europe.

    Kit, forgive me asking, but are you an American or British? I can see how an American would clock this guy as gay, but I genuinely don’t think that’s what he’s intended to say to the British. I think he’s just a crazy Texan, something like that. A male stripper maybe.

  • jk

    I am American and (mirabile dictu!) will defend the va-va-voom ad.

    The fact is that there IS a split and Renault sees its demographic being substantively on the Continental side. A little jibe at the USA probably doesn’t hurt car sales to young Europeans (it would probably sell Renaults over here).

    Cars are sold on va-va-voom and there seems a legitimate play on what is considered European (Continental) style.

    Of course they are cheese-eating-surrender-monkeys, but they are CESMs with style…

  • junior

    Style with unshaven armpits….. or as Granny used to say, “All net curtains and no knickers”.

  • George Peery

    Brian, I greatly enjoyed your post. About half-way through it, my thoughts returned to Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations.” What you were describing, briefly, was much the same as Prof Huntington related (to a largely hostile audience) exactly one decade ago (the article — the book would follow in 1996). Somehow I wasn’t surprised when I reached the point in your post when you referenced Huntington.

    My 31 May issue of the “Spectator” finally made its way to America the other day, and I’ve just read an article it contains: “The Land of the Free,” by one Paul Robinson. No, Robinson is not writing about the USA (silly me); he’s writing about Canada (yes, that Canada). The article is a hagiographic treatment of the vast dominion, and that’s fine. But what struck me about this brief two-page article was its inability to describe Noble Canada without 13 explicitly negative references (I counted) to the USA. What a fitting verification (or confirming data point) of your thesis that its “who we are” that matters today.

  • Phil Bradley

    I can’t comment on UK car ads, but I think there is a lot to the ‘Who are we are’ argument.

    Europe was sold to the British on the basis of geographic determinism. We are constrained by our geography to be Europeans and hence we better get used to it. This argument fit nicely with the historical determinism mind-set of socialists, and for this and other reasons the Left wants and intellectually needs Europe. The main counter-strain in British society is the liberal/outward-looking/anglosphere/emigrant perspective. These are the people who feel more at home in NY or Sydney than in Paris.

    Much as I would like it, I don’t see Britain leaving the EU any time soon, but if we see serious economic and social problems, particularly in France then an economically growing and socially stable Anglosphere starts to look pretty damm attractive!

  • Brian,

    Aren’t you referring to ‘Cultural Identity’ here? Is that what you are hinting at? Or I am misreading you?

  • George Peery

    David, I can’t speak for Brian, obviously. But cultural identity, religious identity, racial identity, tribal identity, or national identity — these are all (at least to some extent) slightly different takes on the same issue: “us” versus “the other”.

    Perhaps you could elaborate.

  • George Peery

    David, I can’t speak for Brian, obviously. But cultural identity, religious identity, racial identity, tribal identity, or national identity — these are all (at least to some extent) slightly different takes on the same issue: “us” versus “the Other”.

    Perhaps you could elaborate.

  • Joe

    Brian… its not about “who we are”… its about – who we would like others to think we are ~ there is a subtle but very significant difference: This type of advert plays both straight and subtly to all our vanities. In doing so it makes us feel better about ourselves by making us feel we are better than others.

  • Kevin L. Connors

    Brian:

    As my personal affinities runs towards science, law, and politics, it’s too easy for me to sometimes think of you as the weak link in the Samizdata team. But when you are in your element, as you were here, you really shine. Excelent post – bravo.

  • Joe

    I mean’t to add: The vanity explains why the advert celebrates all things French:
    France = sheer egotism 😉

  • Amy Wolstenholme

    I am American and cannot comment on the Renault commercial as I have not seen it. I have noticed, however, what I would call a cultural disconnect in debate over the war on terror and over Iraq in particular.

    The most obvious example is the one that is apparently used in the commercial which I haven’t seen.

    Why do Europeans call us cowboys and expect us to be insulted?

  • D2D

    If some people are so shallow or stupid to be swayed into buying a Renault by equating America with a racist weirdo in a bathing suit waving guns or a African-European frog then let Europe have them. They can only dilute the gene pool in the Anglosphere. The way I look at this is that when, say, Alec Baldwin, and all of his socialist Hollywood buddies, finally move to France both nations’ IQ’s will signigicantly improve.

    Here in the states you have to look pretty hard to even see a Renault, and I live in Atlanta. Because everyone one who knows cars knows Renaults are peices of shit, always have been.

  • Brock

    Amy .. hahaha .. yeah, I just made a very similar comment at MeanMrMustard’s place. There must be a HUGE disconnect between Europe and the US if they think “cowboy” is an insult. I’ve only had others refer to me as a cowboy once or twice in my life (and that’s not easy, living in New York), but they were some of my finest moments.

    I haven’t seen this car commercial either, but the moment Brian described it, I knew it was supposed to be a jab at Americans. The really funny thing is, from the description, Americans wouldn’t even find it insulting. The Advert is clearly playing to the audience of people who think it would be insulting though, even if it isn’t.

    The same is true about the black commentator. In a USA where folks of African descent serve as CEOs of large corporations, in distinguished posts of government, top of the pro-Golf food chain, and in every strata from there on down, its really becoming an non-issue. Racial jokes and stereotypes are becoming passe (except in cases of good humor between friends), and not very welcome in the US. However, if the “sophisticates” wants to keep it up, that’s their business.

    I don’t know how much someone all the way over here in the US can really help the UK debate as to who you are, but I wish you the best of luck. I trust it is somewhat well because the debate is alive and kicking, and that’s what really matters.

    The only reason I fear for my long lost relatives in the home isles is because of your lack of Constitutional safeguards. I fear your Parliament may do something rash before the debate comes to any kind on epiphany.

    Keep up the good work Samiz-guys. And don’t forget to bring it up in the pub too. A lot of people don’t read blogs.

  • Amy Wolstenholme

    Ya, Brock, I get the urge to scratch my head everytime I hear or read the cowboy reference from a European commentator.

    Cowboys are virile, sexy and powerful. They do the right thing against incredible odds even if they have to go it alone. (insert visual of Gary Cooper walking down Main Street in “High Noon).

    Who wouldn’t want to be a cowboy?

    Durn straight our President is a cowboy… he is also a total hottie in a flight suit:-p

  • How I see myself is never how I truly look. What I attempt to project to others is not what I actually project. How others see me is not how I truly look.

  • veryretired

    Europeans, and like minded American intellectuals, use “cowboy” as an epithet because cowboys are physical, disinterested in subtle arguements, non-intellectual, and prone to shoot first and ask questions later. This is in contrast to cultured types(as are all Europeans, naturally), who are ethereal, very subtle, intellectual complex, and who always ask very sophisticated questions in all areas before doing anything.

    Much of this natural European superiority comes from centuries of superlative leadership in the political, intellectual, and moral spheres. Just remember they have had the advantage, over the last 200 years of our pathetically short existence, of the likes of Napoleon, the Houses of Romanoff, Hapsburg, and Howenzollern, and their attendent intellectual brilliance, Bismark, the Kaiser, Mussolini, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Chamberlain, Petain, and the list just goes on and on.

    The well known peacefulness, moral superiority, and subtle diplomacy of this group of intellectual types is is marked contrast to the US, which has had to suffer throught the depridations and crudity of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, the Adamses, Jackson, Lincoln, Roosevelt(Teddy), Wilson, FDR, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Reagan. The latter was so provincially cowboy-like that he even called the Soviet Union “evil”, and then helped bring about its collapse, thus depriving the Europeans of that oh so subtle game of playing both sides against the middle that they had lived off for several prosperous decades.

    It’s just no wonder they’ve become so cranky lately. I mean, just like Aunt Pitty Pat, one can only take so much of this unrefined behavior.

  • soon to be retired

    Thank you, veryretired, thank you.

  • on this cowboy point, isn’t there quite a strong cowboy tradition in Spain – and the south of France regarding say bullfighting? In the US I understand allusions to Bush’s texaness to be critique by they north eastern upper class. In the same way this clio add is intended to appeal to Brussels bupies (bureaucratic union instigating a European state) types i.e the upper class.

  • gek

    Uh. Those commenting on the positive images of cowboys would do well to first view the ad. I’m American, and to me, the one in the ad is definitely the gay rodeo cowboy who entertains at bachelorette parties. At best, it’s a professional wrestling cowboy character. I find it really hard to believe that British people would take this as anything like the John Wayne cowboy.

  • I don’t know if anyone is aware of it, but there’s an American group called the “Pink Pistols” which is made up of gay gun owners. You gotta love that name. (I believe Bill Quick is a member of it.)

    Here’s their home page (but it doesn’t seem to be responding as I write this, so I don’t know what’s going on with it).

  • Brian Micklethwait

    gek:

    The whole point of the cowboy in the advert is that he is, to a European, ghastly and vulgar and ridiculous. The gayness, to us is incidental. Its the ghastliness that is the point.

    You have to realise that to the target audience of this advert, there are no “dignified” cowboys. The John Wayne figure is a ridiculous fantasy self-image, indulged in by certain idiot Americans, and not a real person at all. To many Americans, “cowboy” is seen as a compliment. Not to the people who respond to this advert. To them, it is simply an automatic insult. A cowboy is an emotionally out of control, shoot first ask questions afterwards if at all, un-nuanced, irony-free zone, unsophisticated, lunatic, and if nuclear armed then a menace to humanity.

    In my previous comment I said that self-styled “Europeans” wouldn’t see the gay vibe. That may be wrong. They might. But insofar as they do, that would only point up the silliness of the cowboy figure, the mismatch between what those insane Texas/Americans really are, and how they think of themselves.

    The other thing I’d add, which I didn’t consider in the original posting, is that I would guess that such ideas are by no means totally absent from the USA. Reading lots of Democrat anti-Bush stuff, you have plenty of people in the USA who regard cowboy as an automatic insult – and plenty of Americans who self-identify as sophisticated, nuanced, “European” Americans. Not having been to America I can’t be sure.

    But be aware that all over the world there are people who also self-identify as “Americans”. If Green Cards were available to all in the world who wanted them, I dare not speculate about what would happen to the population of the USA. For starters, Samizdata probably wouldn’t stay British-based for very long.

    What we are talking about is a culture-war within the Anglosphere in particular, the West in general, and maybe even the entire world, between the riche and the nouveau riche (and all the less riche who identify with or aspire to join one or the other), you might say.

  • Interesting. This is a total sidebar. I’ve lived in Texas all my life. I’m twenty-eight. Before 2001, the last time I saw someone (in person) wearing a cowboy hat was… 1994 or 95?

    In 2001 I was at a restaurant with a friend from Connecticut and another from Bulgaria (international student). Guy with a cowboy hat walked in, sat down. My friends were just FASCINATED by this, and reverted to the kind of behavior that always used to piss me off when it was directed at me (for a different reason such as my hair during high school or my full leather riding suit). Not that they said anything loud enough for the gentleman to hear, but there were many looks and whispers. I, in turn, was fascinated by their reaction.

    I mean, a guy from the Northeast, and a guy from Eastern Europe, and they had quite similar reactions–a mixture of revulsion and delight.

    What are the kids being told about “cowboys”? (And when did one cowboy hat make someone a cowboy?)

    My mother is fond of using the term “cowboy” to describe President Bush (only it sounds like “coeboy” when she says it, having grown up in Minnesota). She especially used the word often in a derogatory manner months ago when North Korea was waving its missile capability in the air, to describe the way she perceived Bush’s foreign policy manner, basically blaming Bush’s attitude for that regime’s actions. (She’s changed a lot since becoming International Student Advisor at University of Dallas, indoctrinated into that NPR-listening, faculty-unionizing, profusely-bleeding-heart culture as she has been.)

    I don’t pay much attention to car ads here, but although I doubt we’ll see one disparaging the French even a lil bit, many of the ads (especially for the domestic companies, especially for their pickup trucks) do trade in overwhelming patriotic sentiment (which can seem inspiring or pathetic depending on your perspective).

    I’ve only heard one ad at all so far to even mention the French–a “Red Fusion” soft drink ad on the radio which features the line “but who cares what Frenchy says, this here’s America, and in America it’s all about bein’ the biggest, baddest, rip-roarin’, booty-shakin’, foot-stompin’, high-jumpin’, wake-up-the-neighbors, set-the-house-on-fire soda you can be!!!!!”.

  • Veryretired:

    Europeans, and like minded American intellectuals, use “cowboy” as an epithet because cowboys are physical, disinterested in subtle arguements, non-intellectual, and prone to shoot first and ask questions later. This is in contrast to cultured types(as are all Europeans, naturally), who are ethereal, very subtle, intellectual complex, and who always ask very sophisticated questions in all areas before doing anything.

    You need to change the last word in that paragraph to “nothing”.

  • Tony

    gek:

    I’ve seen the ad many times, and I have never thought it was some anti-american dig. I’ve always thought it was a bit disjoint as it seemed to be having a go at gay guys, who have serious disposable income, and might be inclined to buy a Renault.

    There was a bit with greyhounds chasing a rabbit that got changed, Thierry (sublime footballer – amazing) used to say “ask the rabbit” with a rabbit hand puppet on. That got changed to “Hey bobby!” – go figure that one out! (I can’t, but then I’m simplisme).

    Brian:

    I don’t know about there being no dignified cowboys in the minds of the audience Renault are trying to reach. I’d like to think they’re after my money (no chance of that!), and having watched ‘Coogans Bluff’ the other night, I thought that particular cowboy had some serious dignity!. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll tootle off and watch my DVD of “for a few dollars more” 😉

  • Kit Taylor

    Brian,

    I’m english. For my sins I grew up in an Independent reading household with parents that worked in the publicly funded arts sector. I picked the kind of soft, tolerant, middle class liberalism which time and good influences can gently pare down into healthy individualism.

    Speaking of the arts and cultural identity, why aren’t all artists libertarians? There’s the percieved anti-intelectualism of the right and issue of state funding, but look at all the great art funded by the free market. The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, XTC, Shakti, Bill Laswell…

    Here’s a fun little aside. I have a fantastic compilation of post punk/art funk/proto electro called In the Beginning There Was Rhythm. The sleevenotes contain this tidbit:

    “Whilst Punk was one extreme, the forthcoming Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government was the other. Gaining power on a tidal wave of Gree, Racism, Selfishness and Bigotry (or Family Values!), the immediate restructuring (or rather dismantling) of British Society led to a politicised youth.”

    So how did these punks rebel against the Thatcherite age? They set up their own music labels and record shops and a whole DIY industry of not just music making but also fashion and artwork (the era produced some corking album sleeves). They created a whole new “alternative” entertainment and graphic design economy that has created hundreds of thousands of jobs and pumped billions of pounds into the economy.

    Hooray for capitalism!

  • Phil’s mention of the geographical-determinist argument for Britain joining the EEC/EC/EU was interesting, because of course the geopolitical argument I (and I think he) would rather recognise is that Britain always loses from longterm involvement in Continental politics.

    It often looks to me as if EU membership is our punishment for helping Continental Europe in two world wars, and for having remained infuriatingly unscathed up until then.

  • The cowboy is a very standard gay stereotype (see The Village people) as anyone who understands gay culture would immediately get. The kind of cool trendy people the ad seems to be appealing to would be included in that, I think.

    The black guy isn’t rejecting this as being bad, he’s rejecting it as being not “va va voom”: it’s not subtly cool, it’s garish in-your-face loud camp gay stuff. “Va va voom” is basically “je ne sais quoi” and camp is “je sais beaucoup- plus de toi, peut-etre”.

    Also black guys and footballers are not known for their love of gay culture: we wouldn’t expect a black footballer to think that the Village People were cool. Just like we wouldn’t expect French folks to appreciate Lily Savage. Frenchness is partly characterised by its very herterosexual kind of sexiness. Whereas the Brits understand camp.

    I think this ad is selling cars on the basis of their Frenchness, with a knowing nod to all kinds of cultural ideas, but I don’t think this particular ad goes very deep. Frenchness is cute, sexy, charming and Renault has always marketed that (Remember “Nicole?” “Papa!”). “Va va voom” is style: the French are great at that. Substance is another matter entirely.

  • Kelli

    Good grief! There’s a Renault called the “Clio?” I’d no idea. I suppose it’s easier to remember (and spell) than Terpsichore or Calliope. So much for my nom de guerre. From now on it’ll just be Kelli.

    Just a quick comment regarding the substance of this excellent post (the proof of which is in the vavoomy commentary). While it’s hard to judge an ad I’ve never seen, it’s instructive in a cross-cultural context such as this to keep in mind that many (ok, most) Americans regard all aspects of French/Euro fashion as “gay,” so it’s not surprising that they cannot pull off even a semi-authentic cowboy image. This can be summed up in one word: Speedos. Americans will know what I mean. If the Brits need help, just ask.

  • Elizabeth

    I looked at the cowboy part frame by frame and agree it is suppose to be American, vulgar and distasteful (see the look on the guys face after the cowboy clip – as if “need I say more?”).
    Hmmm… They consider German car makers more competitive and are appealing to the cool more sophisticated yet relaxed British viewers.

    Good catch!

  • Holly

    Kelli is right. To many Americans, Euro (and especially French) = gay. Michael Lewis did a great bit on the difference between the way Frenchmen view themselves and the way Americans view them (“My gaydar is not finely tuned. But even if it were it would be of no use. The French male is a gaydar-jamming device.”) Anatomy of the French Male

    I live in Houston. I am a book readin, egghead television channel watchin, historical allusion gettin city girl, and I like cowboys. I see cowboy hats all the time and I own a very cute one in purple. I wrote a letter to the French Ambassador recently, and my last point to him was that cowboy is not, in fact, an insult.

  • Roxy

    Of course, supposed French cultural superiority is pretty much a given in GB as well as in France. The ad works for British cultural and moral relativists because it allows them to demonstrate their famous and fictional tolerance for all things foreign (save for those things American, logic not being their particular strong point, naturally enough.)

    In Britain, style has for many years been associated with the left and Conservatives are still struggling with this particular problem; but Libertarians everywhere have no such problem.
    They take good ideas about style and add them to all their other good ideas. Now that’s true style.

  • mark holland

    Kit Taylor,

    I reckon the sleevenote writer’s retrospective axe grinding shouts louder than his words. Words which are rubbish.

    If anything Punk *was* Thatcherite. You had songs like “right to work” which was actually against closed shops. “do anything you wanna do” by Eddie and the Hotrods was condemned by Julie Birchill in the NME as being individualist. No one could could think Johnny Rotten was anything other than he said he was, ie an anarchist. And in “Holidays in the sun”, of course, he tells us of the socialist misery in East Berlin – someone like Billy Bragg would have glossed that over! Even future Red Wedge stalwart Paul Weller famously said he was going to vote Tory in ’79.

  • Liberty Belle

    There are two car commercials on in France just now that I think are too clever and subtle to have been produced anywhere but England. One is for Renault, in which a man drives slowly and deliberately down his driveway and we don’t know why, and when he gets to the street, brakes, his electric window rolls down and he puts his sack of garbage into his wheelie, then reverses slowly back into his garage and the automatic garage door comes down. Very understated and funny. The other fails the effective commercial test because I can’t remember what make it’s for (although it’s aimed at men and I think they could tell you) but it just shows this car driving all over the city or the outback or wherever, and in the background, all you hear is a chorus of African men singing “Zoom zoom zoom”. No other words. It’s so clever on several levels (apart from the great music) that I thought it must be British-produced.

    Or you may have both these commercials in Britain and I’m not telling you anything new.

  • Tivo Fanatic

    What’s an ad?

  • Tivo Fanatic

    Okay, okay. Look, obviously I have not seen the ad, being (a) American and (b) a, uh, Tivo Fanatic. But I suspect you’re reading too much into this.

    Marketers market to segments all the time. Late 90’s VW ads in the US, for instance, were notable for their appeal to urban gays. Would you run that same ad in Texas and expect to sell VWs to Bubba? No, but that’s fine, as long as you succeed with the urban gays you’ve targeted.

    There’s nothing new in pitching an ad to a particular demographic (e.g. Midwestern males aged 25-34 earning $25-35K/yr) or psychographic (e.g. ironic young quasi-hip pro-EU Brits)

    I came across an ad for Canadian tourism in the NY Times, and I couldn’t understand a word of it. It made Canada seem like a horrible place full of horrible people; it actively turned me off the product. So I’m not biting. But someone else may, and if enough Someone Elses take the bait, then the ad is a success.

    And if not, well, ad campaigns (like new product launches) fail more often than not.

    IF (and that’s a big if) Renault’s ad sells cars to 1.8% of the UK population, can we draw conclusions about 100% of Britain? I doubt it. Perhaps the other 98.2% are actively turned off.

  • Liberty Belle:it shows this car driving all over the city or the outback or wherever, and in the background, all you hear is a chorus of African men singing “Zoom zoom zoom”. No other words. It’s so clever on several levels (apart from the great music) that I thought it must be British-produced.

    Could be. We’ve had that ad for a few years here in the US as well. It’s Mazda, they used variations on it for the Miata, the “6”, and one of their unibody SUVs (and probably the RX-8, my next car). The lad whispers “zoom zoom” and then the memorable tune starts up as the car skates across the Bonneville salt flats.

    Tivo Fanatic:Late 90’s VW ads in the US, for instance, were notable for their appeal to urban gays. Would you run that same ad in Texas…
    Dallas has an enormous gay population–but the point is taken. You’d have to use more targeted marketing than putting something on television, because of how such an ad would play to the straight demographic.

  • Tony H

    “many (ok most) Americans regard all aspects of French/Euro fashion as ‘gay’ ” — really, Kelli? I find this an extraordinary statement. My personal experience of the US is very limited, but as well as the perceptive and strong minded types who post here, the Americans I’ve met did not strike me as the sort of dimmos who might indulge in crass, sweeping condemnations like this – excepting that loud-mouthed bozo on the Eurostar last year telling everyone about his uncle’s ranch in Bolivia, that is. I mean, what is “French/Euro fashion” anyway? Some kind of cultural decadence that infects everyone from Hammarfest to Palermo, perhaps? It’s like denying the profound cultural & social divide between, say, a Boston aristocrat and a New Mexico, er, cowboy…

  • I would say some Americans may look at… mostly *French* men as marginally more effeminate than men from most other countries.

    I would say “fey”, not “gay”. But read the “Anatomy of the French Male” quickie posted by Holly above.

    Here’s one: I was mildly ridiculed by a few for my choice, in high school, of taking French instead of German, Spanish, Italian, or Russian (given the choice, I would have picked Japanese). That was way back in 1989. French was just seen as something you took for a “reason”, or at least something you had to defend. Go figure. It WAS Texas though…

  • saedavis

    My favorite pistol was made in Canada during the war. My favorite rifle was made in Switzerland just after the war (#2). I was in the navy and served in the gulf when I was too young and stupid to think of anything but the G.I. bill collage money. I live in Arizona.
    John Wayne was a drunken actor from Iowa named Mirriam Morrison. MIRRIAM! That drunken hatfag coulnt even use his real name. He was a fake and I dont like his memory But he said; “Life is hard, but it’s harder when you’re stupid,” and I respect that.
    I live with all this cowboy crap every day and it’s nothing but a style.
    George Jr. never did a days work In his life. I think he wants to bring on the kingdom of god by starting armageddon.
    Cowboy is another way of saying stupid.
    Dont confuse George with a cowboy. He’s a fundamentalist whacko.

    …..Peace and Love comming to a freefire zone near YOU!

  • Eric the .5b

    Is it uncool of me, as an American, to say that upon watching the commercial, I felt really let down by the dancing cowboy? I expected something actually intended to offend me.

    Instead, I got a flash of a sixgun-wielding man on a stage dancing in shorts and a cowboy hat – I couldn’t even register the coloration of his shorts. I raised my eyes just the same way as the pitchman did, without thinking.

    Unlike the woman in a man’s dress shirt (and apparently nothing else) and unlike the [French] poodle, no va-va-voom. Works for me.

  • S. Weasel

    Tony: what a peculiar thing to do, criticizing someone’s stereotype by appealing to other stereotypes. Just to keep your charicatures up to date for you, the Boston bluebloods are long, long gone (having been replaced by folks of Irish and Italian extraction with seriously gangster-y accents). And New Mexico isn’t as full of cowboys as grandmas these days (that hot, dry climate does wonders for the rheumatiz).

    And Europe may not actually be culturally homogeneous, but that’s certainly not the impression the EU’s PR flunkies are trying to put across. Invisible worker bees have been busily manufacturing the Euro brand, and it’s supposedly wall-to-wall sophistication and non-stop cool. Don’t blame us if our impressionable American minds respond so well to advertising…

    …and think Europeness is as gay as a flouncing huff in a satin dressing gown.

  • saedavis : “He’s a… whacko.”

    He is?

    saedavis : “I think he wants to bring on the kingdom of god by starting armageddon.”

    OH, mmmkay.

  • TomD

    An ad will exploit any characteristic to perform it’s basic function: to sell product. I see one primary focus to the ad, they are accentuating the products Frenchness. If that sells in GB, so be it, though it would be a disasterous ploy here in the US.

    The disturbing part of the ad is the cowboy image as an intended negative reference to the US. The assumption inherent in that image is that the viewer will naturally reject the US imagery and, thereby, be attracted to the French product. Now why would a French company think it beneficial to throw in an anti-American dig in order to sell a French product to Brits? Considering the cost of production and airing of the ads, the anti-American bit was carefully considered.

    Were they right? Does the average Brit more closely identify with the French to the exclusion of the US? Does that reflect positively to the French or negatively to the US? From my viewpoint, it’s difficult to come up with any extremely positive aspects to French culture or recent achievements.

    Like other American posters, I have difficulty understanding the negative connotations of the cowboy. To an American, the American cowboy image is of wisdom, a basic goodness and effective action in response to evil. They are tough and don’t take s*** from nobody. The image is of John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, the Rifleman, Chuck Yeager, the Lone Ranger, etc, etc. These are our folk heros and embody and define our values.

    Denigrate the cowboy, denegrate America, that’s the point I suppose.

    Does this sell in Britain? Does your public more closely identify with whatever in hell image springs to mind on the mention of the French rather than with the American ideal?

    If so, I think that you have a problem.

  • seadavis,

    That is by far the most cogent and persuasive argument I have ever encountered. You are not a looney at all. Not even a bit.

  • Brian Micklethwait

    TomD

    We have some people in Britain who do respond to an anti-American message of this sort, and don’t forget that you only have to sell a few cars to a few Brits to make a lot of money, car profit margins here being famously high. Why, I don’t know, after a lifetime of asking.

    This advert is not aimed at the “average” Brit, thank goodness. It’s aiming at the kind of people who are already disposed towards things French, because of their Frenchness, and that’s quite a few, but nothing like all of us.

    To everyone:

    Since writing the original posting, and since there is such interest here in the themes I alluded to (my thanks to all commenters), here’s a further point which may help to ram home just what a window on the British soul these TV car adverts are.

    British houses and housebuying are largely a matter of necessity, and heavily influenced by how easy it will be to sell your house after you’ve finished with it. So British housebuyers are cautious animals. Also, insofar as houses are advertised, they tend to be advertised one at a time, as and when they come up for sale. So there’s no money for mini-Hollywood TV epics in praise of different sorts of house.

    Which leaves cars. Cars are the most expensive mass-produced item that anyone in Britain ever buys, at one go. Are they not? I think that’s right. We may spend more on newspapers or restaurants, but not all in one unchangeable go. Add this to those profit margins, and you get a kind of identity politics in the various different car adverts on the TV here that may say more about those of us who can afford cars than any other sort of cultural artifact. But, as I say, you can’t conclude anything about all of us, from just one of the adverts.

    I’m confused about a lot of this, and all these comments haven’t resolved all my confusions by any means. But they have convinced me that these are matters we must continue to wrestle with. I think they’re important and illuminating (and entertaining), and I’m encouraged that so many other Samizdata readers seem to agree about that.

  • trollette

    Hey, drop the obsession. Europe will sort itself out, probably without the 3 decades of stagnation that characterised the Sick Man of Europe (you lot).

    PS I know you ‘re Libertarian, but can’t you discourage the use of the vile word ‘whilst’? – so sub-literate.

  • saedavis

    WWJD!

    World War Judgment Day!

    Staring George Jr as The Anticrist

    Comming soon to a freefire zone near you!

  • Liz

    I’m pretty sure Renault didn’t choose Thierry Henry as their frontman because he’s black, rather because he is very talented, and incredibly sexy. Far better to have him than a ridiculous, over-coiffed David Ginola-type. And yes, it had to be a footballer doing the advertising: Renaults tend to be “women’s cars”, so the advertisers are trying to appeal to men by using a footballer (and one who even a non-Gooner would admit is a damn good player!), as well as keeping in with Renault’s important women customers by being a “pretty” and tongue-in-cheek advert. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like it.

  • Paul Coulam

    The image of the cowboy in the advert is a copy of a photograph by French gay artists Pierre and Gilles who specialise in creating super realistic ultra camp images of kitch iconography. The whole ad is based on Pierre and Gilles type imagery, you cannot understand the ad without knowing their work, look them up.

    P.S. You have to be extremely hip and trendy to know of Pierre et Gilles.

  • mark holland

    Paul Coulam is right

    Pierre et Gilles: Le Cowboy

    I bow to your first class hipdom and trendyhood sir.

  • Jim

    saedavis: you know, they do have treatments for schizophrenia now…

  • Brock

    Whoa.

    And I mean it in the Keanu Reeves kind’a way. Whoa. That is about the gayest cowboy I have ever seen.

    It’s way “more gay” than anything I ever imagined, and it would never in a million years make an anti-US statement to me. It would just be gay tease porn. I wish I had seen that before making earlier posts.

    Anywho, Brian, I am not sure what you are trying to understand. What I do see is that some Brits in the UK have decided “who” they are, and its European. The advertisers are just trying to appeal to that. Clearly the folks here at Samizdata have made up their mind as to who they are as well, and its “Anglo”.

    What I know about Britain is limited to the Internet, Harry Potter (wicked good!) books and the week and a half I spent in London this April. I remember the children who decided to block traffic in front of Parliament, and the Brits I saw seemed tolerant of that. It was too bad no one took the time to teach them that it was rude.

    I also saw the UK Communist Party protesting. No one gave them the time of day. I was happy to see that.

    I guess I am trying to say that the UK, like the US, has an open debate all the time as to “who” they are. There are people who have made up their mind (about themselves, and about others) and won’t be moved, and there are people who are open to the discussion.

    Maybe this all seems stupid and obvious, but I don’t know what you are trying to figure out. People are just trying to figure themselves out most of the time, and for people who are too lazy to really look inward, the easiest way to do that is by putting others into little categories (jock, nerd, cowboy) and then defining yourself as NOT them. Its pathetic and ridiculous, but I know plenty of people who do it.

    Oh, and to Tony H. – I can totally see the French = gay thing. Its a little too strong maybe, but there’s definately a “Euro” look that is, well, not masculine as an American would see it. Just effiminate and ineffectual.

  • Jim

    Has nobody given thought to those poor souls who fell under the spell of this advertisement and went out and actually bought the product being advertised? They ended up owning Renaults. Perhaps even driving those Renaults. Let us feel some pity for them.

  • Tony H

    Hey Weasel, it was deliberate – surprised you didn’t get it. I mean, you corrected (somewhat pedantically) my reference to “Boston aristocrats” but clearly realised I was appealing to notions of stereotypes, and the absurdity of this – so it worked. BTW I didn’t imply that there were lots of cowboys in N.Mexico, but I’m sure you agree there are more of ’em there than in New England… Glad to hear about the grannies – do they all tote six-shooters and big hats, I wonder…
    As for the EU, this is a red herring – the thread’s about perceptions of national/cultural identity, right?
    I’m still genuinely baffled by the tenacity with which some Americans cling to this Euro/French/gay/effeminate thing. We have Weasel being (I sincerely trust) puckish when he alleges, tongue firmly in cheek, that “Europeness” (what the..?) equals “gay”, but now Brock says he understands the French/gay “thing” in the American mind. Totally fail to understand this – unless there’s some link with the tendency, until quite recently, for US films to portray Brits as either toffs or cockneys, nothing in between. I’d like to think the latter was just pragmatic film shorthand, rather than cultural provincialism. Entertaining tip for US visitors to France: after doing the Eiffel Tower, locate a gathering of CRS riot police and mince past them with elaborately camp gestures, while humming La Marseillaise falsetto…

  • On the cowboy/insult thing, I only ever knew one real cowboy. He broke horses for a living, and was a professional bull rider. In his late 20s, he went to law school, and that’s where we became friends. He was a pretty decent student at the top-20 school I attended, and he wrote on to one of the law journals. He was also on a championship moot court team. Among his charms were his great mate-ism — you couldn’t find a more reliable friend; and his ability to nail just about any good looking single woman who strayed into his live fire zone. Yup, a raging heterosexual. He’s a pretty good lawyer now too.

    As for selling cars, if Renault wanted to sell cars in the U.S., a monologue featuring Michael Moore would tap into the pro-French market quite nicely; they’d drop their Volvos in a heartbeat if Michael asked them to. If they wanted to expand to the BMW and Mercedes Sport Ute drivers, however, Moore would have to be slap boxing a chimpanzee. Like the Clio ad, this may not be comprehensible unless you share our cultural context.

  • D Anghelone

    John Wayne was Marion Morrison and his hots were for Latinas.

    I somehow believe that this guy would join the Navy for collage money. “Care for some Jacksons in your photomontage?”

  • Ami

    As much as it tends to offend Europeans, I’m afraid that the American perception from where I live is pretty much in line with what others have written. It’s hard not to learn this as a child. Watch the series South Park (most kids do) and take a look at the character Pip. Pretty much sums it up. Rather than defending himself with his fists we expect to hear him say “Mother, that child was rather rude and violated my person.” A French character would be even worse (sleezy type smoking a cigarette, named Pierre of course). German’s were at least considered to have some fight in them. I believe that perception is changing.

    100 Lenox Lewis celebs cannot undo one Pierce Brosnan.

  • “I’m still genuinely baffled by the tenacity with which some Americans cling to this Euro/French/gay/effeminate thing. We have Weasel being (I sincerely trust) puckish when he alleges, tongue firmly in cheek, that “Europeness” (what the..?) equals “gay”, but now Brock says he understands the French/gay “thing” in the American mind.”

    Didja read the “Anatomy of the French Male” link from above? Did you read my thing about learning French in high school? I’m not saying I agree with it at all, or really understand it. I’m just telling you the way things appear to be here. It’s not all of Europe, and it’s not something new. In addition, France’s military record, or perceived military history, tends to enforce the overall impression, especially here lately.

    Also, I don’t think it’s much of a problem.

  • Tony H

    You’re right, Kevin, it’s not a problem. But it is very curious. I just looked at the link you mention, “Anatomy of…(etc)” and was disappointed: instead of the well informed piece of editorial I was expecting, it was just some guy’s skewed ramblings based, apparently, on a brief holiday in France. Not at all the France or French people that I know, in fact a surreal distortion.
    French military prowess? We spent centuries fighting them, and it was a close call – Napoleon nearly accomplished what Hitler failed to do. WW1 & WW2? How about Verdun, and the Somme, the French role in which has consistently been sidelined by British historians. How about the stiff resistance from parts of Vichy forces (OK, OK, wrong side but..) during early WW2 in the Middle East against the British forces? Sweeping condemnations of other nations’ martial prowess are always highly selective, and always misleading.
    I’m sure you’re right about these widely held perceptions in America, about French/European characteristics, but the point about prejudicial misconceptions is that they need to be corrected if reasonable debate is to take place – n’est ce pas?

  • Your last sentence is the key. I’m just commenting on the stereotype that seems prevalent here. I don’t think it’s going away any day soon.

    The reason I say it’s not been that much of a problem is that Paris, and France in general, have always been near the top as far as desirable European vacation/tour destinations. Tons and tons of Americans visit France each year, despite *another* stereotype that holds that French people are, relatively speaking, rude to English-only American tourists. Now, tourism has been hurt somewhat in the last year–my step-mother and her three friends called off their Summer trip to Paris, for instance; but that will recover in time. Freedom Fries will turn back into French Fries.

    Just a sidebar on stereotypes:

    A few years ago, my roommate’s fiancee flew in from France. During her first hours in the US (Texas), Brian had to work, so I helped her by taking her grocery shopping (which took her ~2 1/2 hours). Her preconceptions about the US included things like not being able to inhale fully outside (because our air is so grimy and sooty), being afraid of accidentally insulting or annoying anyone (for fear of being gunned down), and having to deal with Americans who were all knuckle-dragging Jerry Springer guests. So I tried to disabuse her of some of her preconceptions and stereotypes. Funny stuff.

    I used to be “war arranger” in an Unreal Tournament clan and was responsible for communications with our opponents. We played clans from Germany, France, Holland, Sweden, and I think Belgium. It was always amusing to me to hear what they thought when they heard I was from [gasp!] Texas. Clearly most of them had a rather uhm, LOW opinion of Texans, but I was used to it and just pressed on with friendly negotiations and everything always turned out fine.

    These cultural stereotypes seem to rapidly evaporate in the face of talking to or hanging around a representative person from the culture in question.

  • I doubt many Americans or any Europeans know it, but many of the original cowboys were black. Here’s just the most famous, Nat Love. The article doesn’t mention it, but he is also credited with inventing the rather cruel rodeo sport of “bulldogging” (Google it).

    Latter-day cowboys include a friend of mine originally from the UK, who really went native after gaining US citizenship. He took up the sport of “cowboy shooting,” which means not shooting cowboys but shooting LIKE a cowboy in the movies — quick draw, BANG-BANG-BANG, broken bits of bottles flying everywhere … Very picturesque. Not a bad shot, for a Brit, whose generally bad marksmanship is at least partially responsible for our independence.

    But getting back to the original thread, the idea of “who we are” has a different meaning here than it does there. We here are not so much concerned with “who we are” as about “what we do.” We deal more in our common values than our common ancestry. The original revolutionists are my founding fathers, despite the absence of any of my actual ancestors from these shores before WWI. And any Brit can be a cowboy without trading his estuary Bri’ish for a Texas drawl.

    [sarcasm]BTW, wouldn’t the alleged equation of Euro = gay go a long way toward explaining their demographic problems?