Parisians shattered my stereotype about them. How typically rude
When you think of France, what exactly do you think of? Pretentiousness? Croissants? Perhaps Serge Gainsbourg smoking (although not for long since a nationwide smoking ban has just been announced). For me, it's Owen Wilson walking beside La Seine. But that is perhaps a result of watching Midnight in Paris at 16 instead of going out and doing normal teenage things like getting drunk and vomiting on my friend's sofa.
Maybe you think of the kind of Parisian disdain that has long been the nation's stereotype. It's a portrayal that Netflix's wildly successful Emily in Paris has leaned into, to the point where a character in the show's third season says: 'The French are just Italians in a bad mood.'
On a recent trip to France and Italy, my first time visiting, I was curious to see if this claim rang true. Like many, I arrived in Paris full of assumptions: that the French would be aloof and allergic to tourists. My partner and I expected to be made fun of for our attempts to order coffee, over-reliance on tote bags and out-of-style sneakers. Instead, we got the most welcoming 'bonjour' I had ever heard.
It was at a boutique store that neither me nor my partner had any financial right to be in. And yet, the 'assistante commerciale' was unbelievably gentle. She helped us find something in our budget (a key ring) and complimented my girlfriend's jacket, asking if it was vintage (it was).
On the metro system, I thought that would be the moment we would finally meet the sinister Parisians who pushed and shoved … And yet, we didn't. Even when we went to the rooftop bar of the gorgeous department store Printemps, I thought about how 'touristy' my partner and I must have looked as we were taking photos of our coffee, and the Eiffel Tower. Instead, a local simply said, 'It is a beautiful view, huh?'
Loading
Around the corner from our hotel in the 9th Arrondissement, there was a bar run by a gentleman called Robert. I couldn't understand why he was so kind. My girlfriend whispered to me, 'Your hair is looking a lot like Paul Mescal's these days … Maybe he thinks you're him?' He took us through his bar, showing us the kitchen, offering shots, conversing throughout, as if we were not just locals, but friends (or as the French say, 'poto', a loose translation of our term 'mate'). He was being like this well before I told him that my name was also Robert, a revelation that, as you can imagine, called for even more celebration.
I asked him about the stereotype of the French, the whole notion they were 'Italians in a bad mood'. Robert was not surprised by the perception, but remarked that this social flaw was actively being 'dealt with' by the younger people of the city. His view was that the old French stereotype is a result of the older, more 'conservative' generations. He said he employs many people who were not born in Paris, let alone France, and how this growth in both diversity and community has opened the potential for a kinder, more inclusive cultural shift.
I found the pinnacle of this shift in the Latin Quarter. Across La Seine, the 5th Arrondissement, is home to a buffet of different cultures, all intertwined and connected. There are pizza restaurants owned by off-the-boat Italians that serve every type of pork under the Tuscan sun, right next to a Halal kebab shop. It is a fascinating area, not too dissimilar to Melbourne's Sydney Road, albeit … no offence, a little prettier.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Age
4 hours ago
- The Age
Lifting the mask: Squid Game's villain Front Man reveals (almost) all
There's a superb moment in the third and (ostensibly) final season of Squid Game when our hero Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), aka player 456, comes face to face with masked villain the Front Man. As the person in charge of the sadistic, bloody and fight-to-the-death competition removes his mask, Gi-hun realises he is in fact Oh Young-il, player 001 in season two, a man Gi-hun had thought of as a colleague, a co-conspirator and a fellow rebel – until the awful moment he realised he was actually just a traitor. Gi-hun is, understandably, furious. And not for the first time, the mild-mannered former autoworker finds himself with a knife in hand, and the opportunity to wreak vengeance. But is it in his nature to do so? For the Front Man, the question is both academic and inconsequential. 'Go ahead,' he taunts Gi-hun. 'If you kill me, it will make no difference. Someone else will take my place.' And in that line, we have creator Hwang Dong-hyuk's central and deeply pessimistic thesis: it's the system that's the problem, more than any individual. It is brutal, self-perpetuating, and essentially unbeatable. And as the final series of six episodes drops, we finally get to see how Netflix's massive breakout hit from Korea will end. 'Even though it's taken to the very extreme and it's portrayed in a very dramatic way, I believe Squid Game is a metaphor for the current society we live in, a condensed version of society,' Lee Byung-hun, the respected Korean actor who plays the Front Man, says through a translator. 'I think through that scene and through the overarching theme, we just wanted to raise the issue of unfairness and the other challenges that need to be addressed in the current society. 'Of course, the show is packed with a lot of entertainment and excitement. There's never a slow moment, and you're glued to the screen from start to finish because of all the intensity,' he continues. 'But at the end of the day, I think the series is trying to tackle the theme of loss of humanity. To what extent can people lose their humanity, what's the lowest point we can reach, and how do we find momentum to create a better world? I think this series creates room for us to have that conversation.' For Lee, the role offered a unique set of challenges. For starters, he's not playing one character, but three – Front Man, Oh Young-il and Hwang In-ho, the older brother of policeman Hwang Jun-ho, who was shot by the Front Man at the end of season one (but not, it transpired, fatally). Loading For another, a good chunk of his time on screen is spent with a mask over his face. And that, he admits, presented some issues. 'As an actor, you're really used to expressing your emotions through your facial expressions, your gaze and dialogue. But here my emotions had to be hidden. At first, it was a little frustrating, but as we went along, I found that acting behind a mask was also strangely fascinating because it had the viewers guessing what his expressions would be behind that mask. And as the viewers find out more and more about the Front Man, they get even more intrigued about which face or which emotions he might be having behind that mask. So I thought there was a weird charm to that.' Oh Young-il, player 001, reveals his backstory to Gi-hun in season two. He had a wife with a life-threatening medical condition, and she was pregnant and determined to go through with the birth even if it killed her. He borrowed money for treatment, but it wasn't enough. Eventually, he took a loan from a 'vendor'. When that was discovered by his employer, the loan was seen as a bribe, and he was sacked from the job to which he had devoted his life. 'These games,' he tells Gi-hun, 'were my last hope.' Is any of it true? 'Everything he's saying in that scene is a fact, except for one thing,' Lee says. 'The wife and their child passed away years ago. But aside from that, everything that he's saying is genuine, authentic Hwang In-ho.' Playing those scenes meant performing a subtle dance between the 'true' Hwang (who, like his brother, had been a policeman) and the invented Oh (whose name subtly echoes that of the old man creator of the game, Oh Il-nam, who wore 001 in the show's first season). As his brother discovered in the files hidden in the island complex's storage facility in season one, Hwang In-ho was the winner of the 2015 edition of the games (blink and you might have missed it). Now, in season three, we get a flashback to In-ho's time as a genuine player – and it offers some insight into his state of mind in the present day. 'When he first joined the game as a player, Hwang In-ho could have had some shred of compassion or hope left in humanity,' says Lee. 'But I believe the current Hwang In-ho is closest to the Front Man, who has zero hope in humanity and the world, a true pessimist.' When he enters the game as Oh Young-il, he tries to assume the persona of 'the most average person'. Lee concedes he had trouble envisaging how someone so bereft of faith in humanity could reconnect with that, until writer-director Hwang Dong-hyuk encouraged him to loosen up, to allow Young-il to be seduced by the pleasure of playing the games. Loading 'It added an eccentric, even a creepy, eerie, touch,' Lee says. 'I guess it all started off as an act. Take the pentathlon, for instance – I bet he started off acting and performing those emotions, but at a certain moment in time he got really immersed in those games, and once he was in the moment, he started feeling fear, joy and relief for real. Once he was in the moment, those emotions that he felt when he was actually a player in the game back in the day were really brought back.' What about his relationship with Gi-hun? Does he actually care about him, in a positive or a negative way? After all, he does spare him at the end of season two, though you could read that as an act of cruelty rather than mercy. What is really going on here? 'I think Gi-hun's success or failure or even death doesn't really matter much to the Front Man,' he says. He sees some element of himself in Gi-hun perhaps – of the self he once was – and 'he wants to break Gi-hun's spirit. 'You just wait and see, you're gonna make the same decision as me.' So he just wants to observe Gi-hun from his side, to see what happens.' Is there, though, a part of him that maybe hopes Gi-hun doesn't go down the same path, as a demonstration that not everyone is corruptible? 'As I was playing the Front Man throughout season three, that was what I had in mind,' Lee admits. 'I believe there were a lot of mixed emotions in his mind, like envy or jealousy … because he is a little ashamed about how he compromised and gave up at a certain point, but Gi-hun manages to hold on to his hope and humanity very persistently. Loading 'So even though the Front Man wants to break Gi-hun, I do believe there is a little shred of compassion left in him that still believes in human beings and just hopes that Gi-hun is right. So I believe one part of the Front Man is at least rooting for him. So I tried to express that, slightly.' Assuming Gi-hun survives to the end, do you think he would go into the game a third time, perhaps as player 001? Do you think he would choose survival at all cost? Do you think he might even take on the role of the Front Man himself? 'This is not a spoiler, this is just me speaking as a viewer,' says Lee. 'If I were given a choice between Gi-hun just participating in the game once again as a player with a different number and Gi-hun becoming the Front Man of the game, I think the latter option would be much more fascinating to watch.'
Sydney Morning Herald
4 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Lifting the mask: Squid Game's villain Front Man reveals (almost) all
There's a superb moment in the third and (ostensibly) final season of Squid Game when our hero Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), aka player 456, comes face to face with masked villain the Front Man. As the person in charge of the sadistic, bloody and fight-to-the-death competition removes his mask, Gi-hun realises he is in fact Oh Young-il, player 001 in season two, a man Gi-hun had thought of as a colleague, a co-conspirator and a fellow rebel – until the awful moment he realised he was actually just a traitor. Gi-hun is, understandably, furious. And not for the first time, the mild-mannered former autoworker finds himself with a knife in hand, and the opportunity to wreak vengeance. But is it in his nature to do so? For the Front Man, the question is both academic and inconsequential. 'Go ahead,' he taunts Gi-hun. 'If you kill me, it will make no difference. Someone else will take my place.' And in that line, we have creator Hwang Dong-hyuk's central and deeply pessimistic thesis: it's the system that's the problem, more than any individual. It is brutal, self-perpetuating, and essentially unbeatable. And as the final series of six episodes drops, we finally get to see how Netflix's massive breakout hit from Korea will end. 'Even though it's taken to the very extreme and it's portrayed in a very dramatic way, I believe Squid Game is a metaphor for the current society we live in, a condensed version of society,' Lee Byung-hun, the respected Korean actor who plays the Front Man, says through a translator. 'I think through that scene and through the overarching theme, we just wanted to raise the issue of unfairness and the other challenges that need to be addressed in the current society. 'Of course, the show is packed with a lot of entertainment and excitement. There's never a slow moment, and you're glued to the screen from start to finish because of all the intensity,' he continues. 'But at the end of the day, I think the series is trying to tackle the theme of loss of humanity. To what extent can people lose their humanity, what's the lowest point we can reach, and how do we find momentum to create a better world? I think this series creates room for us to have that conversation.' For Lee, the role offered a unique set of challenges. For starters, he's not playing one character, but three – Front Man, Oh Young-il and Hwang In-ho, the older brother of policeman Hwang Jun-ho, who was shot by the Front Man at the end of season one (but not, it transpired, fatally). Loading For another, a good chunk of his time on screen is spent with a mask over his face. And that, he admits, presented some issues. 'As an actor, you're really used to expressing your emotions through your facial expressions, your gaze and dialogue. But here my emotions had to be hidden. At first, it was a little frustrating, but as we went along, I found that acting behind a mask was also strangely fascinating because it had the viewers guessing what his expressions would be behind that mask. And as the viewers find out more and more about the Front Man, they get even more intrigued about which face or which emotions he might be having behind that mask. So I thought there was a weird charm to that.' Oh Young-il, player 001, reveals his backstory to Gi-hun in season two. He had a wife with a life-threatening medical condition, and she was pregnant and determined to go through with the birth even if it killed her. He borrowed money for treatment, but it wasn't enough. Eventually, he took a loan from a 'vendor'. When that was discovered by his employer, the loan was seen as a bribe, and he was sacked from the job to which he had devoted his life. 'These games,' he tells Gi-hun, 'were my last hope.' Is any of it true? 'Everything he's saying in that scene is a fact, except for one thing,' Lee says. 'The wife and their child passed away years ago. But aside from that, everything that he's saying is genuine, authentic Hwang In-ho.' Playing those scenes meant performing a subtle dance between the 'true' Hwang (who, like his brother, had been a policeman) and the invented Oh (whose name subtly echoes that of the old man creator of the game, Oh Il-nam, who wore 001 in the show's first season). As his brother discovered in the files hidden in the island complex's storage facility in season one, Hwang In-ho was the winner of the 2015 edition of the games (blink and you might have missed it). Now, in season three, we get a flashback to In-ho's time as a genuine player – and it offers some insight into his state of mind in the present day. 'When he first joined the game as a player, Hwang In-ho could have had some shred of compassion or hope left in humanity,' says Lee. 'But I believe the current Hwang In-ho is closest to the Front Man, who has zero hope in humanity and the world, a true pessimist.' When he enters the game as Oh Young-il, he tries to assume the persona of 'the most average person'. Lee concedes he had trouble envisaging how someone so bereft of faith in humanity could reconnect with that, until writer-director Hwang Dong-hyuk encouraged him to loosen up, to allow Young-il to be seduced by the pleasure of playing the games. Loading 'It added an eccentric, even a creepy, eerie, touch,' Lee says. 'I guess it all started off as an act. Take the pentathlon, for instance – I bet he started off acting and performing those emotions, but at a certain moment in time he got really immersed in those games, and once he was in the moment, he started feeling fear, joy and relief for real. Once he was in the moment, those emotions that he felt when he was actually a player in the game back in the day were really brought back.' What about his relationship with Gi-hun? Does he actually care about him, in a positive or a negative way? After all, he does spare him at the end of season two, though you could read that as an act of cruelty rather than mercy. What is really going on here? 'I think Gi-hun's success or failure or even death doesn't really matter much to the Front Man,' he says. He sees some element of himself in Gi-hun perhaps – of the self he once was – and 'he wants to break Gi-hun's spirit. 'You just wait and see, you're gonna make the same decision as me.' So he just wants to observe Gi-hun from his side, to see what happens.' Is there, though, a part of him that maybe hopes Gi-hun doesn't go down the same path, as a demonstration that not everyone is corruptible? 'As I was playing the Front Man throughout season three, that was what I had in mind,' Lee admits. 'I believe there were a lot of mixed emotions in his mind, like envy or jealousy … because he is a little ashamed about how he compromised and gave up at a certain point, but Gi-hun manages to hold on to his hope and humanity very persistently. Loading 'So even though the Front Man wants to break Gi-hun, I do believe there is a little shred of compassion left in him that still believes in human beings and just hopes that Gi-hun is right. So I believe one part of the Front Man is at least rooting for him. So I tried to express that, slightly.' Assuming Gi-hun survives to the end, do you think he would go into the game a third time, perhaps as player 001? Do you think he would choose survival at all cost? Do you think he might even take on the role of the Front Man himself? 'This is not a spoiler, this is just me speaking as a viewer,' says Lee. 'If I were given a choice between Gi-hun just participating in the game once again as a player with a different number and Gi-hun becoming the Front Man of the game, I think the latter option would be much more fascinating to watch.'
The Age
4 hours ago
- The Age
How SBS evolved from ‘clogs and cooking' into our most innovative broadcaster
For some Australians, it was the soccer that first prompted them to watch SBS. Others came for its flagship World News bulletin; current affairs programs such as Dateline, Insight and Living Black; or cult hits including South Park, Queer as Folk and Fat Pizza. And for many teenagers, its racy international films served as a reliable drawcard (and a gateway drug to the appreciation of arthouse cinema). But for Julia Zemiro, SBS was a lifeline to her home country. 'I was born in France and did all my primary education at a French school in Australia,' says the popular presenter, who has hosted several series and specials for the broadcaster including RocKwiz, Who Do You Think You Are?, Great Australian Walks and the Eurovision Song Contest. 'To have all those French films and TV shows was incredible. There was French radio but to see those images on TV made you feel even more connected.' This month, the Special Broadcasting Service – affectionately dubbed the 'Sex Between Soccer' network by viewers – marks its 50th anniversary. And there is much to celebrate: over the course of five decades, it has evolved from two experimental radio stations (2EA in Sydney and 3EA in Melbourne; EA standing for 'Ethnic Australia') into a radio network broadcasting in 68 languages, as well as six television channels. In 2014, its share of the TV audience was 5.2 per cent; last year, it was 9.3 per cent. And its SBS On Demand service has grown by 18 per cent over the past 12 months, with almost 2.25 million active accounts logging into the platform in April alone. 'SBS has been a constant companion of multiculturalism in Australia,' says the network's managing director, James Taylor. 'I'm reminded of the Noel Pearson Boyer Lecture from 2022, where he spoke about the story of Australia resting on three pillars: our First Nations heritage, the British institutional foundations and the multicultural gift of migration. I like to think that SBS sits at the intersection of these pillars by brokering understanding, belonging and mutual respect.' When SBS was launched by the Whitlam government in 1975, it had a narrow aim: to inform non-English speaking Australians of the Medibank public health system, now known as Medicare. Indeed, it was intended to operate for just three months, until its success prompted the government to acknowledge the value of a permanent multicultural broadcaster in a country with a booming migrant population. In 1980, SBS expanded into television, with the Fraser government appointing former ABC chair Bruce Gyngell as its first chief executive. 'I was horrified with the concept they had,' Gyngell later recalled. 'It sounded to me like a typical sort of ethnic station with dancing and clogs and exotic cooking and not much more than that. The sense of culture seemed to be totally absent.' What Gyngell wanted was a channel that would encourage migrants to feel embraced by their adopted country – and to foster a greater appreciation and understanding of their cultures among Australian-born citizens. Loading 'If SBS had never existed, we'd understand so much less about ourselves,' says Jenny Brockie, who hosted the acclaimed Insight program between 2001 and 2020. 'It encouraged us to celebrate our differences while recognising that we're all part of a community, which I think is its biggest contribution. And at a programming level, SBS has been a real innovator; it's a place where a lot of risks have been taken.' Insight is a good example: under Brockie, it evolved from a magazine format into a discussion forum. Each episode is devoted to a single topic, from domestic terrorism to the pain of betrayal, with a studio audience – as opposed to a panel of talking heads – sharing their views and experiences. This might seem like a recipe for Jerry Springer-style conflict but in reality, Insight is among the most thoughtful and illuminating programs on Australian television. 'Every single person in the room is nurtured by producers through extensive conversations over a long period of time,' says Insight's current host, Kumi Taguchi. 'We don't do gotcha moments; if somebody says they don't want to discuss a particular part of their experience, we never cross that line. We're transparent with our guests about who else will be in the room, and the fact there will be differing opinions, which helps build trust and understanding. About 80 per cent of the work is done behind the scenes before people even get into the studio.' 'We were allowed to be a bit more bold than we might have been on a commercial network.' Julia Zemiro Long before Taguchi joined SBS, she was an avid viewer of the network. 'It brought a new kind of quirkiness and irreverence to our screens,' she says. 'Everyone would talk about the late-night world movies, and it was the only station at the time to show South Park. I really like the way it pushed those boundaries.' Loading Zemiro agrees. 'We were allowed to be a bit more bold than we might have been on a commercial network,' she says. 'As a viewer, you'd see things that were a bit sexy or dangerous. SBS showed soccer before anyone gave a shit about soccer. We could say things like, 'Colonialism isn't great' or 'These animals are suffering and we need to do something about it'. And with [music quiz show] RocKwiz, they just let us go for it and be creative, which is pretty rare.' Of course, SBS – which receives about one third of its funding from commercial sponsors and the rest from taxpayers – is not immune to the difficulties facing free-to-air broadcasters in 2025. This is largely due to technological advances, which spawned direct rivals such as Netflix, Stan* and Disney+. (Meanwhile, Google and Meta now account for an estimated 70 per cent of digital advertising spend.) But technology has also been a boon for the network, allowing it to maintain its multilingual programming while reaching new audiences through SBS On Demand and additional channels such as Viceland, World Movies, Food, WorldWatch and NITV. Karla Grant, a Western Arrernte woman, joined SBS in 1995 as a producer and reporter on ICAM, the network's first Indigenous affairs program. In 2002, she created the acclaimed Living Black, which she hosts to this day, and she is one of the main presenters on the National Indigenous Television channel, which became part of SBS in 2012. Loading 'SBS has been a leader in terms of Indigenous programming and storytelling, giving First Nations people a platform and a voice they don't have anywhere else,' Grant says. 'But NITV and Living Black also play a huge part in informing and educating our nation about First Nations issues, history and culture, which is something we want to share with the rest of the country and the world. It's an important role and I think we do it well.' Among the reporting Grant is most proud of is an investigation called Taken, which examined the growing number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children being removed from their homes by authorities. 'Everyone talks about the stolen generations as though they're a thing of the past,' she says. 'In fact, it's still happening today. We did a story about kids in detention, and how one boy had to drink from the toilet in his cell because the guard wouldn't let him have fresh water. A lot of people wrote to me saying, 'We had no idea this type of thing still happens, but it's an appalling breach of human rights'.' Over the past three decades, Grant has also told countless positive stories. Loading 'We shine a light on all the great things that are happening in our communities and the people who are making huge contributions to our country' she says. 'It's entertaining but it's also educating people at the same time.' The same could be said of many SBS dramas. East West 101, which was set in a major crime squad, explored issues of race and justice; Deep Water was based on unsolved gay hate murders in the 1980s; and New Gold Mountain captured the racial tensions of Victoria's goldfields in the 1850s. There have been warm-hearted comedies such as The Family Law, based on Benjamin Law's memoir of the same name; the groundbreaking documentary series Struggle Street, which detailed the reality of living in poverty in Australia; and the hit reality show Alone Australia, in which survivalists attempt to live by themselves for as long as possible in the wilderness. Among the network's best-known former presenters are newsreaders Lee Lin Chin and George Donikian; Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton, who hosted The Movie Show between 1986 and 2004; and sports broadcasters Damien Lovelock and Les Murray. Craig Foster, who spent 18 years as SBS's chief football analyst, believes the network's purpose was best described by Murray, who died in 2019. 'Way back in the '80s, it was Les who rightly said that SBS is [an affirmation] of the value of pluralism and multiple ancestries,' Foster says. 'It didn't matter whether you spoke Turkish, Greek or Italian – that should be celebrated.' Foster recalls the semi-final between South Korea and Germany at the 2002 FIFA World Cup with a particular fondness. 'There were hundreds of thousands of people watching that game with immense passion,' he says. 'And it was SBS that not only understood that fact, it celebrated it. In effect, what SBS was saying is, 'We are all connected through this game and we respect you as equal Australians. Your parents might have been looked down upon, but we want you to know that we love it when you speak different languages and we love it when you wear your ceremonial dress. In other words, we get you'.' Anton Enus, who hosts the World News bulletins on Fridays and Saturdays, echoes this sentiment. 'I came here from South Africa in 1999 and SBS really helped me embrace this nation that was new to me,' he says. 'As a migrant, you also want to feel connected [to your home country], so you're always looking for someone who sounds like you or speaks your language. But another great thing about SBS is that it teaches you about other cultures you might not have any direct connection to. You might start watching an Italian movie and before you know it, you're completely sucked in because it's something totally different to what you'd get from Hollywood or the BBC.' For managing director Taylor, this is the raison d'etre for the network. 'I regard SBS as a national broadcaster that tells the stories of all Australians,' he says. 'The Australia you see when you tune into any one of our channels or platforms is the same Australia you see when you walk out your front door.'
