• kerrigan778@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    6 days ago

    Okay, a few things, “French” is a nationality, the nation of France is a country with several different and very distinct cultures and ethnicities. Also the origin of this meme is most likely BRITISH and not American, both from the spelling and also because hating the French with no actual leg to stand on is a very British thing. The rivalry goes back MANY centuries and stems from so many things including the mutually incestuous royal families competing over Empires and more recently from how France shook down during WW2 (far more complicated than usually portrayed in British humour) and just from competing in sports. Some anti French sentiment exists in the US of course, partly from WW2 and “War on Terror” propaganda but mostly because of people growing up on British comedy especially Monty Python and Top Gear and parroting things and also because Paris is notoriously unwelcoming to tourists and for many those two things are their only real experience. To everyone, lighten up, and not everything, especially hating on the French in a nonsense and silly fashion, is about America.

    • ClockworkOtter@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      6 days ago

      Just to note, in the UK it’s specifically the English who have a historical fascination with shitting on the French. Scotland has the Auld Alliance with France so you get far less of it north of the border.

    • Simon_Shitewood@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      5 days ago

      The rivalry goes back nearly 1000 years, with William the Conqueror’s takeover, after which he almost immediately went back to war with France. We say frogs, they say rosbif. We say Agincourt, they say Dunkirk. There’s a mutual history that makes it an actual rivalry rather than just randomly hating on the French.