Does this qualify as French-Bashing ? Are there anti-French elements in the video, or have we become too sensitive ?
AT&T [AT&T Alter Ego – Hotel No Offer VI – WSFT-4879] : “Family misses the opportunity to stay at a decent hotel in France because they don’t have at&t coverage there. They end up staying at a crappy hotel instead…”
Yes, some “soft” french bashing here:
France as a underdeveloped country, where only AT&T has coverage (“look, if you take AT&T, you will have coverage EVEN in France !!!”)
A little, here… Quite mild I think…
I mean, come on, mexican hotels are almost systematically depicted in the US media as mere ruins, run by thieves and assassins, and infested with mutant cockroaches…
Still, it could have been any hotel/motel in the USA. I’ve seen Amercian motels that I would not enter without wearing a HAZMAT suit.
I think I stayed in a place like this on the edge of Vegas. Anyway, I am always amazed at the faux-french actors they always use with their pretend French accents. Either nobody French is in acting in the US right now, or nobody French would want to partake in this, or possibly the ones making this ad are concious of the anti-French overtones and had no choice but to hire a faux-french actor.
This commercial is hurtful; it reinforces the prevalent stereotype among Americans of French people as stinky people with substandard hygiene. The underlying anti-French view in that commercial is that in France, dogs can wipe their butts on carpets and it’s fine because French people are dirty dogs themselves!… This commercial stinks and whoever created it has without a debt anti-French sentiment. AT&T can kiss my French ass! I will never do business with them ever again.
I believe what’s worse is that the (supposedly French) lady (the one showing the hotel room to the Americans) says “Vous allez voir le television?” – That sentence has at least 3 errors in it…
I think they are saying “Vous avez voir le television”, meaning that it’s even more wrong than what you put. I actually googled it trying to find this video to see if that was really what they put in the commercial.
I love France but I think that this is the funniest AT&T ad yet. The dog is a riot!
There are bad hotels in every country. The most offensive part is the bad French grammar.
“Murdering French: Is It Antigallicism, Or Is It Just Rank Ignorance?” One could write an Op-Ed on that topic. The opening scenes in Rush Hour 3 include a ‘Chinese’ actor trying desperately to sound like a native French speaker. The performance weakens a good interrogation scene with a fluent actress in a nun’s habit. There is no question that it was not deemed essential to the production to cast the role properly. Which is a shame, considering all the tongue-in-cheek French-American humor on display, especially with Yvan Attal and Roman Polanski having a great time hamming up the usual stereotypes. But back to the point: what really disturbs me is the shameless display of rank ignorance, both at the executive level at AT&T, and in the churning bowels of the advertising agency. Culturally, those people are yahoos with sheepskins, all craft and no culture. Shades of Allan Bloom…
[…] also something to say about the Brad/no-star-hotel commercial, namely that it seems to be French-bashing. I didn’t […]
No!, as usual these silly commercials regarding AT & T. There is one on Spain right now. Also America is behing Europe when it comes to cell phones.