This morning I watched the Google Superbowl ad entitled "Parisian Love". Initially, I found the ad to be sweet, charming, romantic and everything that is wonderful in the universe. I could hear my mind chanting "Go Love!". But then almost instantly, something dawned on me and it was as if my usually dormant cynical and bitter self awoken (which she tends to do around this time of year) and shouted "that ad was crock of bull". And then I thought about it some more, it's really not because I'm cynical and bitter that I didn't like the ad. It's because I've been living in France for the past two years that I was able to evaluate it with a bit more of a critical eye than someone who hasn't had a similar experience.
In case you were wondering here are the top 3 reasons why the ad didn't resonate so well with me:
1. Every male Anglophone expat in Paris knows that it's not so easy to impress French girls. If it were so easy then maybe the ratio of Anglophone men dating French women to Anglophone women dating French men wouldn't be as skewed to the latter. I'm not going to speculate here as to why this may be but feel free to discuss amongst yourselves.
2. Implying that one can impress a women simply by buying her chocolates is antiquated, overly simplistic and somewhat demeaning to women.
3. If it were so easy to find a job working in France having very little French skills, then I probably wouldn't get as many emails as I do asking me how to accomplish such a feat.
And in case you haven't seen it, here it is:
Monday, February 8, 2010
Parisian Love by Google - Not So Fast
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11 comments:
And why is it not that easy, tell me ? I thought too that it would be easy for you to date a French... May be they're too shy ? or to busy ? or to complicated ?
I've always thought that the reason there weren't many Anglos dating French women was because they're really chiante - ie. it was the Anglo men who didn't want to put up with such high maintenance women and not the other way around!! LOL
Ksam - I heard a similar description the other day from a Dane and a Swede when discussing French women. I also heard the same thing from a French male friend f mine.
Touring - I can only speak for myself, and I think the reason is that I'm too shy when I'm in social situations with non-Anglophones. I have a tendency to just shy away from the conversation and to not get involved. Unfortunately, I cannot speak for others :)
Hope you have a lovely Valentine's Day! Travelling
You wrote "Every male Anglophone expat in Paris knows that it's not so easy to impress French girls"
Yes. He knows that. That's why he was googling "how to impress French girls"
I love the video! Saw it during the superbowl and actually uploaded it to my own blog as well! Hope you're having an amazing time in Paris, it's my dream to move there so I'm working on it!!
i think this google commercial needs a definite suspension of disbelief! a cute bit of humor though, when they google 'truffaut' after 'truffle'.
Awww, but you have to admit it's cute. Yes, I agree, that things are never that easy - but it's nice to dream. I think that we get a lot of these images through the media (Google just figured out a more innovative way to show it). Love is never easy, but most of use still buy into the meeting prince charming and living happily ever after...
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