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Leno seems to have put a damper on his anti-French rhetoric ever since Educating Jay, save one or two jabs. He still refuses to meet the French Consul General to this day.

As much as Leno grated our collective nerves, his monologues rarely reached the xenophobia of a Dennis Miller, Howard Stern, Robert Smigel etc.

Jay Leno however has never apologized for his historical relativism and revisionism : “Well, there’s nothing funnier to me than the French. The French Resistance is probably the biggest mythical joke that ever existed. There were four guys in the French Resistance. They couldn’t hand over the Jewish people fast enough. Oh, please, don’t tell me about the French. The French have all sorts of secret deals with Saddam and everybody else for two cents a liter. It’s an easy target.” – James Douglas Muir Leno, Interview with Nikki Finke, LA Weekly.

I do like the "Freedom Fries" title, and I agree it does imply the supidity/bigotry of French-bashing and further exposes the recipients as disconnected with reality.  However, if that title is not available, why not something as simple as the "Francophobe"?  I personally  the "French-baiter"  or "France-baiter", a reference to Nazi Julius Streicher’s Jew-baiting anti-semitism of WW 2, and directly implies what unabated bigotry eventually leads to.   Yes, the "French-Baiter" award would do nicely.

The Francophobe Award
The Gallophobe Award
The Gallophobes

How about pulling a “man of color” — Fries of Freedom! Now that one isn’t patented, is it?

Or else…

“Bashing with the Bigots: The french-basher award event you’ve all been waiting for!”

Or else, elaborating on poilu’s idea…

“The France baiters — can’t live with the French, can’t live without ’em!”

In as much as we want to push those French bashers to the edge of ridicule, I suggest, just like the others to use Freedom Fries award– it rings a bell internationally and is sunonymous to the dumbest French basher of all — Dubya Bush who happens to be one of the most despised people in the world… of course, along with his henchmen in the US Congress; the Freedom Fries award will confer ridicule on the awardee (the French basher) and his likeness to a fried potatoe!

What better way than to heap disgrace on French bashers than to be likened to a dumb, oily, fred potatoe!

Miquelon,

With all due respect "The French Bashing Prix" sounds to me like a prize that will be given to someone who can come up with the best French bashing joke — I think it might be looked at as an honour rather than the opposite…

To me (just my yen’s worth), the "award" should be conferred with heaping ridicule on the awardee/s for being a French basher!

Being a bit pedantic here — but what about Fried Potatoe Prize aka Freedom Fries Award…

No worries HillBlogger – All points are valid – Now the trademark issue, how do we get around it?

The trademark is for "FREEDOM FRIES"
But not for "Freedom Fry"
Freedom Fry Award ?

More email nominations

Mark Haines (CNBC)
Larry Kudlow (CNBC)

Willard Mitt Romney (R)

Miquelon,

If we can turn around the trademark issue and use a "derivative of the ridiculous "freedom fries,"  Freedom Fry sounds the best.

Btw, I’m looking at potential "nominees" across the Channel. There’s a couple of writers there who qualify… Will be mine digging past articles. (One of them writes for The Independent, respected for his articles on the injustices committed on the Palestinians but is an acknowledged French hater and I mean, a French hater!)

If your going to do this silly thing, take the "reward" element out of it and make the name insulting: "The Lowest Ignoramous  of any reasonable level of Knowledge Award" sounds reasonable.

I nominate James Joyner for French Fry award for his scumbag French basher role following the US invasion of and war on Iraq!

Amazing that people should buy such rubbish (particularly that interviewer) and be impressed.

No wonder so many Americans subsist on the knowledge of and use less than 75 English words throughout their lives, punctuating their verbal skills with the F word every other line!

With such a fellow writing and murmuring a script  enumerating faecal matters, one cannot but be surprised at how extraordinarily shallow lots of Americans have become!

A low life like this Randy Kagan needs to be swatted out of existence… 

Ooops, meant "subsist" (and not subsit…)

My first idea was that it should be named the "Freedom Fries Award". But I wholeheartedly support "The Frenchies". I Love it. The award couls be a little statue of a stereotypical french guy (tricot rayé, béret, moustache, baguette, éventuellement accordéon…).A very good idea, coming a little late (not that the french-bashing has stopped, but it would have been great to do it during the anti-french fever).

And I’m not sure humorists (Leno, Letterman, etc.), though having participated in French-bashing, are really French-haters. They are humorists, showmen, that is to say the whores of their public…Not everybody can be a Moyers.

I say “Freedom Fry Awards”. I’ll try to get a little ink drawing done for later of “Freedy”, our mascot! (He’s a freedom fry with an Uncle Sam beard and a Stars&stripes top hat)

Or — YOU may contribute to Freedy’s aspect! How do you think he should look? I think some pince-nez glasses would be nifty.

Zombie12toes – Yes the Leno/Letterman/O’Brien/Ferguson/Stewart might not be French-haters except for Leno – Many of them only parrot what their writers come up with, therefore I also want to work on a project where we contact the Writer’s Guild and raise some issues with them – But that’s for later this year.

Leno is a special case, given the depth of his anti-French corpus, and his blatant revisionist stance on the French Resistance, should be examined more closely.

I love Bill Moyers !

During the Anti-French fever as you call it – I refer to it as Official French Bashing (OFB 2003-2007), there were too many fires to put out (Subway, O’Reilly, Leno, Restaurants, politicians, writers…) – It might be more efficient to hold this "award" now as we are now  on the "long tail" of French Bashing.

The point of the award is to squash the remaining bashers, and also remind people what was said – and trust me, many would prefer we forget what was said.

André – I love the "Freedy" mascot idea !

I can’t forget the rage in his eyes when Randy Kagan was spouting his anti-French material – he had obviously stepped off the comedy wagon and entered the "I have an agenda and you will listen to how much I hate the French no matter how bad my material is" – It was pure anger.

I don’t agree however this reflects on all of America, but it is indicative of a certain mode of thinking among a patronizing shallow jaded elite. Comedy writers are a very neurotic lot, and some channel the neurosis very well, others just turn vile.

Gentlemen, I give you… Freedy the Freedom Fry! (Done with a Wacom graphics tablet and in just a few minutes. I could animate him if you wanted!)

http://img80.imageshack.us/my.php?image=freedythefreedomfryaf9.gif

Note: I just posted Freedy but the post didn’t show up. I hope he didn’t go to spam hell!

Awesome

Hahahah! Excellent, just excellent André! Really good stuff!

Freedy is BAAAACK:

http://www.swfcabin.com/open/1214294309

I guess we’ll be organising the name consultation shortly.

Adieu Carlin – I had the privilege of seeing George Carlin at Roy Thompson Hall some years ago. His material was offensive to many and all  yet it was truly thought provoking and amusing at the same time.

I still can’t believe that you guys want to do this. I don’t remember any anti-Polish, Italian, Jewish, Japanese or even Canadian trophy. I also don’t remember any anti-American award. This just puts France in a position to be the brunt of more inane jokes. It is harder to complain about French bashing when we offer up so obvious a target.

I understand what you’re saying Fred, but we don’t have a lobby, we don’t have a major pressure group, but we have public opinion and the tide has turned.

Trust me, most French Bashers of 2003-2007 would rather we forget about what they said and did, and reminding them will be a PR disaster for them. French Bashers are cowards first and foremost, they Bash Us for the quick a dirty laugh, but when all is said and done, they rather we forget it all.

Remember the adage of the old south : Forgive Yes – Forget, Hell No ! That’s what this award will be.

May I suggest a category: the "should have known better" award, for people who say something even if they know it’s false. I nominate John Byrne (a comic book writer and artist) who, in the last arc of JLA Classified drew a french police officer wearing a uniform I’ve never seen a police officer or a gendarme wear (in fact, it looked more like a pre WW I army uniform). The reason he deserves this award? He’s been in France before, where he certainly have seen how police officers are really dressed.

Bonjour,
Vous dites :
It’s as-if the French Bashing Lexicon has become acceptable prose for way to many writers and commentators.
Je pense que c’est le cas, des stéréotypes racistes ou xénophobes qui s’imposent comme des évidences.
Un exemple de xénophobie dans le monde des jeux :
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/322352
Cordialement

You mean you don’t want to give it to the world’s biggest anti-French (and black) bigot  Swill O"Liely, oops I mean Bill O’ reilly ?

OK, I would rather have a "top10" list of lies with its source named and a verified retort of a reality answer. This would get 4 to 10 bad boys listed (not sure about that, Bill has so many). I really think Fox is the primary source for a lot of this junk but, I want a few of our political types to feel some pain.

Kid Funkadelic, trust me, Bill would a contender !

Fred, there are other projects in the works. If only I could find the time !

Time to VOTE!

I vote for Freedom Fry — fry those bigots!

Sorry about the website going down this afternoon for a few minutes – had to upgrade the WordPress Engine so we could use the Poll Plugin. Awesome work by Lester Chan [http://lesterchan.net/] – We donated.

On another note, you can now register an avatar with gravatar.com and have it show up in the comment section.

Marc
good choices
as a PR guy, i don’t like THE FREEDOM FRY AWARD, it will backfire on you.  FREEDON FRIES WAS ALWAYS A STUPID WORD COINED IN STUPID USA….do not use that. Please!

Freedy the Freedon Fry is also POORLY WORDED AND not good, IMHO 

so i will VOTE for THE FRANCOPHOBE AWARD, that says it all. GOOD NAME 

PS : GALLOPHONE AWARD is too strange sounding..FRANCOPHOBE IS GOOD. BEST. to start with, i like THE FRANCOPHOBE AWARDS, it says IT ALL>>>> GO GO GO

i cannot stresss enough, how FREEDOM FRY AWARD will backfire on you and cause you more trouble. stay far away from that word, that term. it is very stupid. cute, but stupid name for this prize.

again

FRANCOPHONE AWARD, says it all….the media will pick up on this word, and explain to readerse what FRANCOPHOBE means, etc. so it’s a good learning tool….freedom fry award will BACKFIRE.

danny

Thanks for the feedback – Vox populi, vox dei. If anyone comes up with a better name, please use the comment section so we can add new options, in which case we’ll have to allow for multiple voting (2 votes per person).

Vote for Pedro !

About the Freedom Fry, Danny, I have an email alert for any news item with that comment, and it is now 100 % negative.

No, he’s not whipping up a special prix fixe menu or creating a French rebuke to the abominable concept of “Freedom Fries.”
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2008/06/famed_chef_cooks_up_beats_not.php

… tough love speech there was appreciation, applause and respect from the Israeli’s–and no sign of menu’s offering “freedom fries” in the Knesset cafeteria.
http://www.prospectsforpeace.com/2008/06/at_israels_parliament_a_french.html

We must remember the resulting “Freedom Fries, not french fries” attack on the French. The president’s attack dog, John Bolton, was sent in to tarnish the …
http://www.nwfdailynews.com/opinion/weapons_8877___article.html/bush_lie.html

Response to this active opposition started the boycott of goods like French fries, which quickly became “freedom fries,” thanks to Reps. …
http://media.www.dailyemerald.com/media/storage/paper859/news/2008/06/23/Opinion/Study.Abroad.Experience.In.America.Has.Been.Valuable-3384156.shtml

… in favour “freedom fries”, and the proud President of the Fifth French Republic was derided by the tabloid press as a “cheese-eating surrender monkey”. …
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/06/13/do1306.xml

More at News Google
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&q=%22freedom+fries%22&btnG=Search+News

Si ces arbres étaient “près de Rouen”, je crois savoir qu’aucun Américain n’a combattu dans cette région, qui était dans le secteur britannique.

Ce sont les Canadiens de la 3DI, 9th brigade (Scottish), qui ont pénétrés les premiers dans la capitale normande, le 30 aout 1944. Les Américains, à cette date étaient déjà au delà de Paris, ayant dépassé Leclerc et les Français Libres.

Des Américains sont passés par Rouen (et le Havre) bien plus tard. Il y en a eu beaucoup en traitement à l’Hopital de Rouen lorsque cette ville s’est trouvée “à l’arrière”. Bien entendu c’était la route normale pour tous ceux qui sont repartis aux Etats-Unis, en 1945 et plus tard.

Ces graffitis sont certes une curiosité, mais rien n’indique qu’ils soient l’oeuvre de combattants.
Faut-il classer monuments historiques tous les “Kelly was here” dans tous les ports d’Europe?

Les Canadiens – et les Anglais – ont été accueillis et fêtés chaque année à Caen et à Rouen depuis 1944. J’ai rencontré à cette époque le Général Crerar (qui a sa rue à Caen) et il  m’a fait l’honneur de m’inviter à déjeuner à Montréal en 1958 lorsque j’étais étudiant.

Je ne crois pas que les vétérans américains aient été moins bien célébrés dans l’Ouest de la Normandie, quelque soit l’opinion que la plupart des Français ont de l’Amérique d’aujourd’hui et de ses insultes. De toute façon leur âge, aujourd’hui, suffirait à leur assurer un accueil chaleureux.

Je n’ai trouvé qu’un site relatif à la libération de Rouen, qui a fait moins de bruit que celle de Caen. Par contre Rouen a été bombardé pendant toute la guerre , et de quelle façon . Il faut relire Pierre Clostermann – pilote de chasse et Français Libre – à ce sujet.

dday-overlord.forumactif.com/quizz-f41/enigme-sur-rouen-t12093

I voted for francophobe award.
Because francophobes is what this is all about and it is a clear cut, no ambiguity award.

Freedom fry award will get people confused and french-haters may even claim it as a badge of honor whereas francophobe carries a clear meaning of xenophobia and who wants to be associated with that ?

Janaka Yagirala; that guy/girl is, IMHO, more than deserving of the francophobe ward. What a disgusting piece of French hatred.

http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items08/180608-5.html

Barney – I saw that article in the sidebar, yes a pathetic piece. I have yet to investigate the context, I think this has to do with Sri Lanka / Ceylon  etc.

I must say, despite the comments above, I like a lot the Freedom Fry award. It’s fun, and makes this thing not too serious. Which I like, it sounds to me a bit like the Big brother award.

But effectively, I’m not sure it will be well taken, maybe that would make us appear arrogant one more time…it’s never that good to insist on mistakes to make fun of, not if you want to be taken seriously.