b. Cultural influences

          The US are the kings of entertainment, they dominate the music industry, as well as the cinematographic industry. More than that, they also influence the way we eat and what musics we listen to. Today, people all over the world (and especially in France), watch and listen to American works, maybe even while eating fast food.                                                                                                                                         Julie and I went to the US for a Youth Exchange, which means that we spent a year on the other side of the Atlantic. Julie went to Plano a city near Dallas, Texas, and I went to Ketchikan, a smaller city in Alaska. People often asked us if we experienced a big culture shock, by going to a totally different country, but the funny fact is we did not. We already listened to the same musics as the locals, and watched the same movies, we also knew who were the biggest celebrities in the country… We did not discover much about this aspect of the American culture. But why is that? The thing is we already included the American products to ours lives even at the time we had not left yet.                                        

 Picture of our trip to Hollywood :

       The US domination on the movie-making industry is explained by the Hollywood expansion. Indeed, inventors in the United States and Europe had become interested in the idea of making pictures that moved. In 1889, Thomas Edison built the first motion-picture camera and named it the Kinetograph. It was designed in a way that one person at the time could watch the film through a peephole viewer window at the the top of the device. In 1894, he created the first motion-picture studio in New York City, and people could watch movies for 25cents. Then in 1895, the French Lumiere brothers showed the first simple moving picture in Paris, thanks to the Cinematograph, which is a new kind of camera they created, and it could be used as a projector and printer as well. American businessmen and artists hurried to explore the possibilities of the new technology. Soon, theaters around the United States began showing short movies. In 1909, some of the largest American movie-making companies joined together. They legally stopped other companies from using the new technology. So, independent movie producers moved away from the Atlantic coast, the center of movie-making at that time. Independent movie producers wanted to go where eastern lawyers would not make trouble for them. They also wanted to go where there was warm weather and sunshine throughout the year. Hollywood was perfect. In 1910, D.W. Griffith produced the first long movie shot in Hollywood, it was called “In old California.” It was a silent movie, and it helped Hollywood to make a name for itself. Then, in 1927, “The Jazz singer”, the first feature movie with synchronized sound came out. By the 1920s, Hollywood had become the movie capital of the world. The Golden Age of this amazing movie factory started at the end of the silent movie era in the late 20s to the 60s, because at this time thanks to the “star system” huge celebrities like Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, James Dean or Frank Sinatra were born. According to the magazine Variety, last year in 2015, US movies took a 54.4% of the french movies industry market. By seeing this percentage, it is easy to conclude that French people do like American movies. The truth is, this is exactly what Hollywood moguls are focused on. Indeed, in North America the success of a movie will be measured on dollars, meanwhile in France it would be measured with the numbers of viewers. So, because the US want to do good business, they will do everything they can to do so. We can notice that quite a lot of differences between the French and American cinema exist. For example, according to the University of Bergen (Norway), here are the seven biggest differences between the two different cinema industries: 

In this way, Hollywood producers are more focused on the commercial value a movie can get, when in France cinema is considered as an art, so the artistic values are highlighted, and the final work will need to be analysed, criticised, twisted and formed by the viewers. Furthermore, another argument that could justify the Hollywood domination is the amount of money spent on a scenario. France is accused to have weak ones because it only represents 3.4% of a cost of a film, meanwhile in the US it can go above 12%. Incidentally, lots of French movies are remade in America, and it is pretty often that the producers change the storyline, to better it or to adapt it to their goals which is to make money, thus movies like “Three men and a baby”, or “Dinner for Schmucks” have seen their storylines changed by American productions who added more action or even violence. Moreover, it is absolutely normal in France to watch a movie that has been dubbed or even watch it with subtitles, it sort of became a routine or a part of the culture, but Americans totally dislike this. And this could explain why Hollywood is so big in France, because it targets a  bigger public.            

      Yet, in 1993 France introduced a political concept to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) called the “cultural exception.” It is aimed to treat the culture differently from other commercial products. Thanks to this law, the French movie-making industry is able to fight the Hollywood hegemony. Indeed, the law compels the National Center of Cinematography and the moving image (“CNC” in French) to collect a tax on the income of the entries a movie gets (11% of the ticket price) as well as a sales tax on VHS and DVD (2% of the selling price). It then redistributes this money to help the screenwriting, the production, the diffusion, or the exportation of French’s works. Also French TV channels are compel to fund a part of the French movie-making production (3.2% of their revenues, 9% for Canal +). Through this law French cinema is the most prolific in Europe.   

      Moreover, something that we could relate with the Hollywood and the French cinema industry’s expansion is that both country have a ceremony that award the best movies of the year on different categories. The first show of that kind was the Academy Awards (or Oscars) created by Louis Mayer, the director of MGM (Metro Goldwyn Mayer) in 1929. By organizing this big event he wanted to get the cinema talked about worldwide. 46 years later, in 1975, the César Award had been created on the American model by the journalist and producer Georges Cravenne, with the goal to get the French movie industry get talked about. Both ceremony are broadcasted on TV, and every awarded person gets a statuette and makes a speech. Every year, million of people follow these events.

     Besides the American movie industry taking over France, their music industry also have a big impact. Indeed, they shape the way we listen to folk, hip hop, punk, pop, and many more other genres. Anyone who ever stayed in France for even just a week, will agree that American songs are really popular. You can hear them on the radio, on TV, while shopping… Everywhere. The United States’ music is really recent, and contains varied genres. This American influence on what people listen to, started around 1920. It started with the Jazz, which arrived in France in 1917, then the Rock in the fifties’ and more recently the Rap in 1982. The big waves of immigration in the US helped its music to grow as the migrants came with their own musics and backgrounds. For example, African slaves were taken to America, and they brought with them their musicals traditions. Black people’s struggle led them to find release in their music. Natives American also left their print on the today American music, with some typical rhythm instruments and songs. That particular mix between musics from totally different origins has helped the industry to blossom and built American music diversity and uniqueness.                                                  Because it exists tons of different music types, everyone can find a kind of music that matches them. Thus we can say that everyone is concerned by the American musical influence. The thing that we need to understand now is, how the US musics did to take over the world, and more specifically, France. Firstly, musics were being broadcasted in Europe, which means that country like France have been listening to American products for what seems to be ages. This American hegemony has impacted a lot Europeans’ tastes, and this is one of the reason why they keep listening to songs released by American artists. Also, the biggest records companies (like the “Big Three” composed of Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Music Group), specialized magazines (Rolling Stones, Billboard), and musical television channels (MTV) are American. Thus, the US more or less controls all of the means of communication which makes it really easy for them to spread their musics. Furthermore, because of the language barrier, many people in France will not understand the lyrics of English songs, which means that a song in a foreign tongue will only be judged by its musicality when a French song will be judged by its text and musicality. This way, the addition of a criterion will make French songs harder to like. French artists know that, so they started to include in their songs some English speaking part. For example, last year for the Eurovision contest the French representative, Amir, sang a song in French with English choruses and he won the sixth place. Such a good score had not happened since 2002, so again, this shows that people prefer songs in English or with at least a singing English part. Something else that plays a key role, is that the most affected people by this American influence is the youth, because they are really fond of musical “hits.” Lots of teenagers listen to the radio like NRJ, FUN or even Skyrock so they are immersed in American variety. So, to fight against the US musical imperialism the “cultural exception” claims that the French radios have to broadcast at least 40% of French songs, and half of them has to come from new talents.

        With the music and the cinema industry imposing themselves in France like colossuses, the population is confronted to a lot of English. According to a recent survey, French would be composed of 10% of anglicisms. It is not sure if we can say this can be considered as the language's evolution or if this degrades it. To understand this phenomenon we have to go back in history. From 1066 (when William the Conqueror conquered England) to the XVth century French was actually influencing on English a lot. Even now, numerous English words like “chief”, “abbey”, “forest” or even “mustard”, come directly from the old French. We have to wait until the end of the XVIIth century to see this tendency being reversed. But if the reversal took place pretty late in history it has never ceased to increase. During the XVIII and XIX centuries, the England’s political, cultural, and social influence as well as its economic power caused the propagation of new terms of vocabulary in various fields. Thus, the words “jury” and “parlement” became a part of the political language, just like “wagon” in the technological language, or even “boxe” and “jockey” in the sports language, or “club” and “snob” in the everyday language, through the food’s name like “bacon”, or “muffin”... During the XXth century it is the  American influence that has taken over from the England’s influence and accentuated it. In fact, after World War II, the US became the most powerful country and decreed its technology, celebrities, and of course its language to the rest of the world. In this way, English has become more of a service language than a cultural one. Indeed, it is the most used language in the world, as well as the official language of seventy-five countries (Ireland, Australia USA…) Also within the European Commission, 72% of the texts are written in English meanwhile only 14% of  the texts are in French. We often hear that English is the businessmen's, savants’, and headstates’ language, as they use it for  their researches and to communicate. Consequently, in French we can distinguish three types of anglicisms. Firstly, there are the ones which are part of the everyday language, “football”, “weekend”... these words even entered the dictionary. Secondly, there are the ones that are still being criticized and can be replaced. For example, “parking” is directly borrowed from the Shakespeare’ language, but the meaning we give to it is typically French. Indeed, British people would say “carpark” and American people would prefer “parking lot.” Thirdly, there are the “cool” ones used by all the teenagers. The “slang” as it is called (which is the reduction of the words “short language”) is spreading over the youth thanks to countless social media like Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter… The English slang became really popular and words like, WTF (What The Fuck), OMG (Oh my God), LMAO (Laughing my ass off), LOL (Laughing out Loud), BFF (Best Friend Forever), Bruh/Bro (brother), YOLO (You Only Live Once), fake, friendzone, BAE (Before Anything Else) are used by tons by teenagers. Many laws, like the “Toubon law” are aimed to protect the French language, respecting three principles : the improvement of the language, the obligation of using French, and the defense of French as the Republic’s language. For example, some people have the job to translate the anglicisms to find an equivalent in French. This  way, in the media, they have to use demanded words instead of others like “film biographique” for “biopic”, “date limite” for “deadline”,  “téléachat” for “teleshopping”...   In commercials, if any English appears on screen, the French translation has to appear as well.  The SCA (Superior Council of Audiovisual) controls if the law is respected, and if not they can punish the offenders.

                                                                              Example of commercial, that has been translated 

          Not only do the US manage to get their music, and movie industry, as well as their language recognized worldwide, they also have an influence on the way we eat. McDonald’s, Domino’s pizza, Burger King, KFC, Subway... Over the past few years we have seen an increasing number of fast-food restaurants, that are coming straight from America, opening in France. It changed the way French people eat because as in America, people who do not have a lot of time to eat at lunch go eat in fast-foods or can pick up their meal at the drive-thru. As well, fast-foods are way cheaper than restaurants so it is more accessible, especially for teenagers. Since the early 70s, American fast food franchises are present into the international market, due to international businessmen willing to bring American concepts to their homeland. Franchising enables the companies to have the same benefits as in the US: the franchisee has the right to use the company’s trademark and operating system while maintaining control over operating standards. Like so, thanks to the franchisee’s knowledge of the local market and to the franchisor’s standards: items on the menu will be added or modified to satisfy the customer’s tastes, with the same quality and service than in the original restaurants. This concept works pretty well in Europe, and more specifically in France, where four of the French’s favorite fast food are American. McDonald's hold the first place, then comes Burger King, then there is KFC and finally Subway. These four fast food restaurants are also among the ones which have the most locations in France:

                                                    Chart realized with the informations found on the restaurants' websites                     

           By means of the franchises, some of the most well known fast food restaurants have a greater number of units outside the US, than they do within the country. For example, we took an inventory of 14,344 McDonald’s in the US, and 21,914 internationally, same thing for Burger king, where there is 7,126 restaurants in the US, and 7,246 restaurants in the rest of the world. This shows the success of franchises concept, because it allows the expansion of the numerous fast food restaurants abroad. Europe is actually a big consumer of fast food, because for example France is one of the country with the most McDonald's locations. With the UK and Germany they are behind the restaurant chain’s greatest amount of revenue, and highest margins. Thus, it is really easy to see now that everyone has included a part of the American way of life, to their own life. However, the population the most concerned is the youth. The United States are, for many teenagers, a dreamed destination, because they love what they know about the culture. Nevertheless, France’s culture remains really traditional since the Republic has done its duty to protect it.