An email from a friend..France is still..France

[Danee]

This came down to me today and I loved reading it.  Have a read.

I get emails, oh do I get emails.  Today's was the third from my dear
departed husband concerning nudity on French TV.

(He and the kids departed in mid-July while I stayed home to watch for
$-signs on the big computer and monitor the limerick thread.  They'll
be back before long.)

For those unfamiliar, France 3 is one of two government owned
channels, and by far the most watched channel in France.  They have a
nightly news show called 19/20 which runs from (duh!) 19H00 to 20H00
every night.  That's the primest of prime time, and right smack in the
dinner hour of French families.

During the summer, France 3 always provides coverage of French beaches
and resorts to which the French and other Europeans flock from mid-
June to end-August.  Each such segment runs about five minutes.
They're all non-stop beach/resort scenes with interviews of
vacationers, local officials, and so on.  And they're all very matter-
of-fact:  they never hype the places, but just identify them, place
them on a map, show what's happening, and talk to those there.  It's
typical French TV which continually educates viewers about France and
what's happening in France.

And, every year, the naturist scene gets its fair share of the time.

A couple weeks ago, in prime time, during high season, they did a
segment on EuroNat, one of the four gigantic naturist resorts on the
west (Atlantic) coast.  It was just like all the other vacation-
oriented segments: it showed people doing whatever people were doing,
interviews with some of them, etc.  In this case, of course, almost
all of the people were nude including those they spoke to.  No titter-
titter-tee-hee, no blurring, no pixelation, no carefully contrived
shots to avoid showing body parts, and no lingering on any particular
class of body parts.  It was shot just as they do on textile beaches
and resorts.  You see the people as they are.  If a man or woman walks
towards the interviewer, you see the whole person walking up to the
interviewer.  During the interview, you see close-ups of the face and
chest of the person being interviewed.  If it's a woman, you see a
breast or two a ways below the woman's face, just where you'd expect
them to be.  And, of course, since these are all places where kids go
in large numbers, you see lots of kids in their entirety too.

A week or so before that France 3 did a segment on one of the naturist
beaches on the south (Mediterranean) coast.  Same approach.

Anyhow, to get to the most recent email, Spencer Tunick is in France,
in the Massif Central, a mountainous area in the center of France far
from any ocean, sea, or sand.  He's doing a shoot there.  As I get the
story through hubby, the town in question (which isn't much) has an
umbrella factory that makes high class umbrellas using some special,
locally manufactured black fabric. It seems Tunick approached the
factory owner, explained what he was about, and asked if he could have
some umbrellas for the shoot.  Says the factory owner, "How many?"
Says Tunick, "Oh, about 450."  And he got them.

The majority of the segment showed the shoot.  One scene, which hubby
estimates to have been about 45 seconds, was of nude people, men and
women, in single file moving toward the camera on their way to the
shoot area with Tunick shouting instructions on how to place
themselves when they got there.  The camera, it seems, was positioned
at hip level so the viewers got 45 seconds of belly button to mid-
thigh frontal coverage of 20 or so people walking by.  I can just see
the French viewers reaction.  There wouldn't be any.  They wouldn't
even shrug.

And, of course, the umbrella factory got prime time exposure of 450
black umbrellas above 450 nude people in a grassy field outside town.
Sales ought to boom this fall and winter.

This will be the first year in the last ten or twelve that I haven't
been in France during the mid-July to mid-August high season.  Every
year, I've seen at least one and often two of the kind of segments
I've described.  My understanding is that they always do at least
three.

At the conclusion of the Tunick segment, the talking head moved on to
some other topic without comment, facial or verbal, of any kind.  Just
another five minutes on what's happening in summer in France.  And
that's the way it was in the Massif Central today.

Fewer French women _may be_ going topfree on French textile beaches,
but hubby and the kids say the naturist beaches are packed.  And
French television hasn't changed.

We can all relax.  France is still France.

:-)

Jenny
(who really wants to see the Tunick photos of all those black
unbrellas)

[brandon]

In all these years of visiting France, they've never considered going to a naturist beach? They go to France just go to watch television?

[Danee]

In all these years of visiting France, they've never considered going to a naturist beach? They go to France just go to watch television?

I can assure you, you are mistaken.  You are taking what her husband said, out of context and making assumptions. 

[Cabding]

So france didn't explode? And the TV station didn't get sued? No snarky comments from the talking heads to hide their own inability to be comfortable with the human body? So it can be done! America can learn from France.

[Luke M]

That's awesome. I didn't think it would be positive.

[Jann]

So france didn't explode?

Mais non, but of course not.

And the TV station didn't get sued?

la même chose

No snarky comments from the talking heads to hide their own inability to be comfortable with the human body?

Be serious, this is France.  If there is something requiring such comment it is done with a raised eyebrow or a Gallic shrug.

So it can be done!

Yes, and it is done in other countries too.

America can learn from France.

Now we have reached some iffy ground.  We are faced with a monumental difference in culture.