La vie française: Miss France and Star Academy

Aaaah, French television.

It's actually quite a fine way to practice my listening skills, or, should I say, my lack of listening skills. The first thing that I watched on French TV was actually the movie Philadelphia dubbed in French. This is funny because I haven't even watched the movie in English. Gotta get on that when I get home, since I sort of understood the sentiment of the movie, but did not catch any of the dialogue.

But, anyhoo, I was initiated into more genuine French culture with the Miss France pageant, which took place last week. First of all, they really made no attempt to show that they were picking chicks for their minds. Well, there was one "Q&A" session, if you can really call it that, since most of the girls responded in less than a sentence (yes, that's possible!). Most of the (very very very LONG) program consisted of complicated dance numbers and quite a lot of prancing in bikinis (multiple bikini segments).

Besides the obvious question of "Why Miss France and not Madamoiselle France?", the pageant also raised the following questions/concerns:

(1) How many freakin' regions (equivalents of states/territories) are there in France, anyway?!? (A: 45, including a bunch of those tropical former colonies)

(2) Is everything on TV now, even in France, in a "call in your vote for your favorite contestant" format? (A: In France, yes...read about Star Academy later...)

(3) What is the French concept of beauty, anyway? (A: below)

So I must say that the French stereotype of having very beautiful women (i.e., Audrey Tautou, Brigitte Bardot, Emmanuelle Beart, etc.) would be largely true as far as the Miss France pageant is concerned (in real life, France is like anywhere else!). However, the women were not as stick thin as the crazy, Stepford-type pageant contestants in the US (read: good). I mean, they were still skinny and Stepford-like, but many of the contestants had a little meat on their bones, so that's kind of cool. One weird thing I did notice is that a good percentage of the contestants (seriously, like 15% and up?) were noticeably large snozzed (read: big nose! Really!) or a bit cross-eyed/lazy-eyed. This includes Miss France 2002. Very weird - this cross/lazy-eyedness being OK. Oooookkk.

Miss (Mlle) Languedoc won. Ah, where the hell is Languedoc, you may ask. It's the southernmost region in France proper and is very California-like, apparently. They supposedly make a good wine, too. Heee. Indeed, Miss France 2006 is very California-like and quite pretty, but oddly not the most beautiful one there. Whatever.

Note: Miss Aquitane (the region of which Bordeaux is capital) was kinda butt. Appropriately, she did not make the top 10.

So, the French concepts of beauty was reassured by my viewing Star Academy, which is the equivalent of American Idol...plus more! Each Friday night, there's the competition and voting combined in one show. BUT, every night of the week except Friday, it gets all Real World and Big Brother-like with a behind-the-scenes reality TV concept, with the contestants being filmed at their house (the Château), at their practices, at their activities, etc. This hour-long treat each night really appeals to the voyeuristic side of, well, every French person in the country. The show is incredibly popular. Let's watch the contestants struggle with learning their songs! Let's watch them dress up like Santa Claus and visit a local elementary school! Let's watch them entertain guests at the Miss France 2006 celebration ball!

Did I mention that the contestants have to know how to sing and dance?!?! And it's Star Academy because the contestants (called the élèves) have professeurs who teach them everything from dance, voice, fashion, and the like. That's because the contestants must sing quite a few songs! A few with fellow contestants (in the choreographed group numbers that the French seem to love so much), solo, with a famous accompanist, and in a highly choreographed solo number with dancers. Crazy.

The grand finale at the end is between one female and one male. The girl finalist was chosen last week. It's Magalie (pick her out of this table of contestants here...scroll all the way to the bottom, and she's the first one in the last row)! She actually won by a big margin, which is appropriate since she had the best voice out of the three female finalists. However, she is also the biggest girl, and, compared with the two pretty/slim chicks (Ely and Emilie, Rows 2 and 1, respectively) she was up against, I thought that she wouldn't win on a superficial level. At least, in America, she wouldn't have won. Furthermore, the frumpy wardrobe with which she was outfitted couldn't have helped matters. However, I have a newfound faith in the French after her victory. Maybe they really care about talent rather than looks, which is more than I can say for us Americans (hello, almost every single reality show star!).

So the la demi-finale garçons (literally, the boy's semi-final) is this Friday. Oooh, I can't wait. It's head-to-head between Jérémy and Pascal. Jérémy specializes in love ballads, has a dog named Alto who lives in the Château, and has hooked up with some other contestant who was kicked off long ago. Pascal is a Frenchman of the lazy-eyed variety (he wears tinted Bono shades to hide this...but it's obvious!) and is more of a rockeur than Jérémy. Apparently, he's the favorite to kick everyone's ass...well, I guess just Magalie's ass if he actually wins the demi-finale.

Sadly, there's actually a reason why the French aren't really known for their singers. I doubt that Pascal, Jérémy, or Magalie could make it into the finals of American Idol (seriously, not to be mean, but no way in hell). OK, I think Magalie could, but then Simon would probably say something like, "You sound like an American Idol, but you don't look like one." The boys kind of suck, but c'est la vie.

Sidenote of the Day
French computers (at least the ones available to students) suck. I'm currently unable to post amusing pics...and I'm working so hard to take them!

Fun in French
Another fun group writing assignment conceived in class. This time the assignment was to give advice to a guy named Eric who wanted to break up with his girlfriend, but didn't know how to do it. My group's dialogue (translated into English here):

"Dear Eric,
We are pleased to give you the following advice:

(1) You must provoke your girlfriend with something she really doesn't like. It's evident that she will be disgusted with you and want to break up.

(2) You can tell her that you have changed your sexual orientation, and then introduce her to your new "boyfriend" (a friend playing along).

(3) Throw a cake (for example, a pie with a lot of cream) in her face.

(4) Tell her you want to become a Catholic priest or, better yet, a monk."