I mean… Look at the news any day of the week.
Americans on the whole are incapable of understanding history at even the most surface level.
I think it’s the reputation that the French got in the second world war along with Charles De Gaulle having been a MASSIVE asshole.
Thing is, the French are actually insanely good at war and often do not care about minor inconveniences like “the laws and customs of war” or “the Geneva Conventions”. It’s why half the words of the English military lexicon are French.
From what I remember: France refused to join US war in Iraq in 2003, and around the same time I started hearing nonsense like “freedom fries” and “google french military victories and you get no results lolololol”, and it was all really fucking stupid. But some of that seemed to remain in popular culture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-French_sentiment_in_the_United_States
Yes I remember that. The phrase “cheese eating surrender monkeys” was going around. That was the point I lost all support for the war on terror. My opinion was very unpopular. To the point one meth head at work started trying to find a replacement for me. Took him about a year and I left. Right after that he got caught stealing funds and was off to rehab.
It was well before that. French were saddled with the white flag, from results in wwii, whether deserved or not
No idea. governing system idealism wise we should be like two peas in a pod. One of my I wish I had done differently was I wish I would have taken french rather than spanish. Partially because the sentence structure is more similar and partially because of canada. The other option would be german because I was stem and did some choral things here and there.
Note how anti-french sentiments in US only get serious when republicans are in power. Otherwise it’s just “hon hon hon stinky frenchman more baguette please we love you ❤️”.
Gerard Depardieu! Hon hon hon, baguette!
Yeah no Gerard Depardieu is a pretty big insult. I mean, it fits with the whole rapist pedo government but still.
What did you call me?!?
A silly English Kn…ight!
They folded like oragami in WWII, and the french have a reputation for cultural pomposity that dates back centuries so people give them shit for both. I don’t know of more than a handful of people who mean anything by it though, and the french/american cultural exchange is one of the most vibrant in the western world. Excepting politically right now (especially given the current trump BS), we’ve gotten along extremely well as nations for a long damn time and americans tend to tease their friends.
I’ve never heard the french complain about it - I have heard the french clap back with some equally devastating mockery of their own, though. Seems healthy enough.
I live in an area of the country that was explored by the French, so the names of many towns, rivers, etc are French. Locals seem to delight in butchering the French pronunciations as much as possible. Not a single one is pronounced anywhere close to correct. There is definitely an element of brotherly teasing to it.
It was the same way with Canada, too.
I don’t blame them at all for being pissed and questioning whether we actually meant some of our teasing considering what our fucking criminal pedo Nazi government has been up to for the past year and change.
Americans forget that France was basically our only European ally for a very long time, while we fought the British twice. Memories of what happened in WWII, though, remain strong and color American perception. It’s mostly harmless joking based on stereotypes. The French are far more likely to go their own way compared to the British, including in areas of culture, and that annoys some people. Hence, the “freedom fries” kerfuffle during the 2003 Iraq war.
Why do educated people tolerate stupid people when the world would be a better place without ignorance?
As a native American, I can say “fuck the french” with my whole chest. I get to keep a French last name on my birth certificate for the rest of my life as a consequence of their little colonial adventures.
Honestly fuck every single old world country right in the asshole. Every last syphilis carrying flea bag immigrant can fuck right off back across the sea with your horseshit. Anyone who cannot prove their family lived on this land back before 1200 AD is to be deported immediately after being burned with branding irons.
WW2 ruined their reputation.
The Fall of France and the Vichy regime were pathetic, but the French Resistance was legendary.
Same thing with the germans. They sent some of their best generals to train our troops but after ww2 we didn’t really want to be associated with their kind.
Unless they knew something about rockets.
Do most Americans give the French shit? I think most Americans don’t care one way or another TBH. Our country is famously self-centered and unaware of the rest of the world.
I do give my French friend a hard time sometimes, but it’s all in good fun. He does the same to me. I certainly do not look down upon him or his country.
The minority of Americans who do sincerely talk down about the French are ignorant and shitty, though.
Yeah this is news to me. Apparently I’m supposed to give French people shit? Sounds like a hassle.
Ignorance… that is usually the root cause
Muricans are poorly educated, half can’t read past 6th grade level and most do not read unless forced to.
In this particular case they make fun of the French for not beating the Nazis in WWII because they probably saw it in a meme somewhere but their history knowledge does not go far back enough to realize how stupid they look when they do this “seriously”
Short memories
Because “the revolution” to the French is not the one in 1776. Nor is it “the revolution” for most of the world. The French Revolution was the big one for most of the world.
That makes a cataract of meaning for the USA.
Americans and Europeans disdain the French over WW2 with little regard to the damage done to human life in France during WW1. There are still uninhabitable zones in France from the world military poisoning swathes of land in WW1 with shells, mines, munitions, and corpses.
They are both called WW for a reason. They are inextricably linked.
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Because WWII is the only history in America. And we’ve forgotten 3/4 of that.
And the other 1/4 is mythological silliness that makes it look like the US won everything by themselves.
American exceptionalism at work. Decades of being lead to believe they are the solver of the world’s problems and the centre of the “free” world. I’d also many don’t even know that the French were involved because US education is very good at altering history to make them look superior.
Europeans when Americans do that thing Europe did for hundreds of years…
You can both get fucked lol.
US history curriculum really doesn’t spend much time talking about wars (most of it is spent talking about exceedingly boring stuff, the exploration/founding of the country, first nations cultures and sociopolitical movements like the civil rights / the vietnam protest movement / cold war), but we for sure learn about Yorktown & as a result at least some about Lafayette
