October 31, 2019

Tagg Romney's son dresses up as Pierre Delecto for Halloween.


Funny. I laughed. But then I wondered: If blackface is wrong, is Frenchface wrong?

I asked the internet, and the first thing that came up was "Why it’s not okay to wear Frenchface (ever)" by kpopalypse (a blog about K-pop). A highly amusing read:
We’ve all seen it – k-pop idols wearing berets and hanging out in cafes, posing with antique furniture or standing around on rustic-looking street corners to give that “I’m a French person in Paris being all French and stuff” vibe....

It’s incredibly offensive because it is a caricature of a French person, meaning it exaggerates the French form to reinforce racist perceptions. Historically it has been used to perpetuate the fallacy that the French are an inferior beret-wearing cafe-frequenting too-lazy-to-go-to-war race....

Starting in the early days of cinema, non-French actors performing in movies would wear berets and hang around in cafes to impersonate French people and act out these racist stereotypes of French people. These movies were enjoyed by non-French people who wanted to dehumanize French people so they could continue to view and treat them as less than human....

Okay, look… I’ll be honest. When I was younger… I was really racist and would make racist jokes about French people in school all the time. In home group in class I’d wear a fake moustache and act like I was sipping a coffee or something and put on a fake French accent while we were waiting for the teacher. The whole class laughed at the time, and we all thought we were being hilarious, but since then I became all “woke” and stuff and now I realise that what I did was wrong....
CORRECTION: This post originally identified the guy in the costume as Tagg Romney. It's Tagg Romney's tweet, but the guy into the photo is his son Thomas.

35 comments:

tim in vermont said...

Reads like TItiana

Ralph L said...

Those are Tagg's teenage sons--not adults.

alanc709 said...

George Patton once allegedly opined that he'd rather have a German division in front of him than a French division behind him. Was that racist?

iowan2 said...

Black face is evil (what if I identify as Black) But drag queens are a cottage industry

Lance said...

The choice of a tuxedo struck me as odd. And sure enough, depending on which origin tale you believe, the tuxedo originated with Prince Edward VII in 1865 or with a group of fashion rebels at the Tuxedo Park resort in New York in 1886. So the Romneys can't even get frenchface right!

Source (WSJ)

iowan2 said...

French is a Race?
I'm not buying the New Dictionary, I'm to old to learn the new definitions.

h said...

And how offensive is PePe Le Pew!

tcrosse said...

Wearing French Face can get serious if you do it in parts of Canada.

Earnest Prole said...

Years ago when UPS first entered the European delivery market, they ran a hilarious series of American television commercials portraying the imaginary hazards of relying on European locals to get the job done. The French version showed a stereotypical French delivery driver slouching contemptuously at an outdoor cafe, smoking a cigarette and saying, roughly, “I’m bored. Ze bourgeois businessmen, zay can deliver their own packages!!!”

I don't see it on youtube but perhaps I'm a Bad Looker.

elkh1 said...

It's not a French face. It's Groucho Marx with sunglasses and a beret. Groucho Marx was Jewish, ergo, it's anti-Semitic in a very silly and sensitive era.

Lloyd W. Robertson said...

I taught at a selective liberal arts college where it seemed all the students dressed all in black and smoked Gauloises. (Yes, a few years ago). A few berets, probably no mustaches. But coffee, definitely. The racist bastards.

JaimeRoberto said...

How is it possible to dehumanize the French?

BarrySanders20 said...

A Cheese-eating Surrender Monkey costume might be OK because most people wouldn't know that you were making fun of the French.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

That's some decent parody. Nice to see some people pushing back against the ludicrous appropiation thing.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

Tagg? When did the Romney's cross breed with the Palin family?

Bob Boyd said...

If Frenchface is wrong, I don't wanna be right.

Jupiter said...

They fight with their feet and make love with their face.

JMW Turner said...

Folks, we're fast running out of categories of humanity to safely ridicule and impugn.

Lurker21 said...

I guess his striped shirt and beret are still in the washer, but what happened to his long bread loaf?

Joanne Jacobs said...

My husband has a Dracula costume -- he is especially fond of the fangs -- but I think it's wrong to appropriate Transylvanian culture. And I fear my witch costume, purchased before the woke woke up, might be considered hate-wear by Wiccans.

tcrosse said...

I have some French Canadian ancestors who managed to distinguish themselves in the War of 1812, even though it was a particularly stupid war. But they did manage to see off the invaders from the USA. The Royal 22nd Regiment, or rather the Royal 22e Régiment, or The Van Doos, were a bunch of Francophones who gave a very good account of themselves in both World Wars. As for the continental French, their gene pool got severely pruned in the 19th century, and again in WWI.

John henry said...

French face is illegal in some jurisdictions under sodomy laws.

John Henry

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

If blackface is wrong, is Frenchface wrong?

Hmmm. That one's a thinker.

I guess someone who doesn't see a difference between what we've done to Africans and what we've done to French people might think so.

gilbar said...

i don't understand?
Since The French are fundamentally French, why is it wrong to insult them and belittle them?
I mean, They're French! Aren't they?

Jupiter said...

"I guess someone who doesn't see a difference between what we've done to Africans and what we've done to French people might think so."

I don't recall having done much of anything to Africans, myself. Have you got one chained up in your basement or something?

Kevin said...

But then I wondered: If blackface is wrong, is Frenchface wrong?

If you ask the internet if specific thing is wrong, you'll probably be told "yes".

Wrongness is a currency nowadays, and some people mine it like bitcoin.

Gahrie said...

Folks, we're fast running out of categories of humanity to safely ridicule and impugn.

There'll always be White, heterosexual men...

Narr said...

932PMCDT. Last comment Gahrie's at 723PM.

I was openly American in France in October 2017, and everyone took it in stride, especially the cafe loungers and boulevardiers of Paris.

Many years ago I read something to the effect that the American impression of Frenchmen was calibrated by experiences with the sort of men who show up when a troop train pulls in.

And the historian John Lukacs observed in the 1960s or '70s that most American fathers would rather see their daughter marry a German than a Frenchman. I suspect he was right then, and maybe moreso now.

Narr
I do Frogvoice pretty well and Krautvoice really well

Icepilot said...

"I guess someone who doesn't see a difference between what we've done to Africans and what we've done to French people might think so."

'I don't recall having done much of anything to Africans, myself. Have you got one chained up in your basement or something?'

I'd add that no small amount of blood was shed in reparations.

Icepilot said...

Ergo, "transgender" is a propaganda term to hide the most evil of inappropriate appropriations, the opposite sex.

Kpopalypse said...

This post meets required standards.

Sweety said...

Interesting ^_^

Ann Althouse said...

"This post meets required standards."

Whew!

Thanks for visiting, Kpopalypse.

Jupiter said...

"I'd add that no small amount of blood was shed in reparations."

The blood wasn't mine, either.

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