Of Vice and Frenchmen

France Television launches its new series, written by women about the male condition.

By Terri Simoneau (Paris, Feb. 23, 2012)

 When I saw ads for France Television’s new series premiering February 22, 2012 “Des Soucis et Des Hommes,” I thought it might have potential as something new on the dusty French TV scene.  I use the word ‘dusty’ in a nice way, because I in fact do find things to enjoy on the national network channel, which is funded primarily by a television tax and state funding. 

The title of this new show was appealing, first of all, being a play on words from Steinbeck’s novel “Of Mice and Men,” which translates to “Des Souris et Des Hommes.”  (The name of the series translates to "Of Worries and Men.")  The commercials were light-hearted and portrayed the program as a new take on everyday trials and tribulations of men, rather than women, perhaps a bit like the American program “The Paul Reiser Show,”  without the neuroticism – or at least not of the same kind.  I guess I’ll be honest, I was intrigued.  Intrigued to see how much it would compare to an American sitcom, among other things.

  

Similar to Paul Reiser’s five-buddy version, there are four men as the main characters.  One happens not to be a white Frenchman, but a man from French Guyana who moved here as a child, Edouard Montoute, playing the role of Hervé, a rich and successful lawyer with a beautiful blond wife and a to-die-for house.  Thankfully the French have not yet reached the point of Reiser’s quickly cancelled comedy with its improbable diversity:  in his case two Jews (Reiser felt the need for a sidekick?), a black man, whitebread , and something different – a British Iranian.  Hmm.  Got quotas?   There must have been a gay guy in there somewhere – I only watched an episode or two.  Probably the white guy.    Everyone’s gotta have something.

To achieve such diversity in the French version, we would need a North African, at least, in addition to Montoute.  But French audiences might recognize such manipulative techniques – or are they completely blind to the ‘need’ for them?   In any case, seeing minorities on French TV can be a rare experience.  Very few newscasters or TV presenters are anything but French or North African, minorities are not included in many commercials and the homosexual scene is just barely making an entry in French shows.  But perhaps the French do not address these differences by expressly including them in society, which they think would be artificial, and instead let things happen naturally.  After all, this is the country where Affirmative Action was pitched as “Positive Discrimination.”  How can discrimination be positive?  Oy veh… 

Back to our French sitcom.  The other characters are Paco (actor Frédéric Quiring), a construction foreman whose emotions get the better of him as he typifies the French grande geule or loudmouth, next, Stéphane (Laurent Bateau) who plays a brilliant surgeon with (ah, here it is) his cheating Asian wife (she says it’s just so he will pay attention to her), and lastly David, a zen-seeking, lady-killer Qi-Gong practitioner.  

Do these characters exemplify France today?  Paco is a ‘papa poule’ or father hen, who protects his younger kids to an extreme, especially since there have been sightings of an exhibitionist outside the school grounds bothering the children.  Paco’s wife leaves home in the first episode.  We are not quite sure why, but think it has something to do with his overprotective nature with the younger ones, while undermining her authority with the older child.  Hervé hides his financial problems from his wife because he doesn’t want her to fret her pretty little head.  David is the French lover.  Stéphane is the balding intellectual whose attractive wife is frustrated not to be getting any.

Written by women and called a “family series” by the French entertainment magazine Premiere, this leads me to the most difficult aspect I had with the program.   Nudity.   At 9 pm last night, I sat down with my 13-year-old daughter, thinking this would be safe enough.  Not even 20 minutes into the 45-minute show we see female frontal nudity.  Later, we see a fully exposed male derriere as the Asian wife is being thrust against a hospital locker room wall  by her lover, an intern there under (hierarchically) her husband.

And speaking of threesomes, there is even one of those:  two women and a man (David, bien sur) on a couch, nude, albeit a bit fuzzy.  But the idea is there for my daughter to witness in this family sitcom, a one-night stand among parents who’ve met at the local school.  A nice introduction to the adult world – at minimum material for discussion later on.  Obviously, she will not be watching this with me again.

So what are we to conclude about this Made in France show?  Is it decidedly French?  There is no doubt it is definitely not American.