TF1: On Obama, pretty pictures, little depth.
– By Scott Sayare –
PARIS — The talking heads fell silent, as if swept away by the beauty of the strings, the triumphal harmonies, the graceful bombast of American political theatre. As they watched Obama, live, bundled against the Washington cold, as he smiled to the no-doubt familiar tune of “Simple Gifts,” the French commentators basked in the warm bliss of ignorance.
They mentioned, of course, that the music had been arranged by John Williams, who, they noted, also wrote the score of Star Wars, a French favorite. And YoYo Ma was deemed of particular interest insofar as he was born in Paris.
But what TF1 failed to examine, and what one imagines few French thought to consider, was the song itself, and the complexities that its identity would have injected into their understanding of the occasion.
‘Tis a gift to be simple,
‘Tis a gift to be free,
‘Tis a gift to come down where we ought to be.
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true, simplicity is gained.
To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed.
To turn, turn, will be our delight,
‘Til by turning, turning, we come ’round right.
Elder Joseph Brackett’s 1848 Shaker hymn is a classic of American moral values. The Shakers, of course, were separatist Protestants marked by the puritanical quality of their religious beliefs, which included strict celibacy and constant productivity. The song is a longtime standard for American schoolchildren.
To know this might complicate the meaning of Obama’s inauguration for the French. They view Obama as a citizen of the world, a man of irreproachable perspective, “The One” (Maureen Dowd’s spot-on sardonic moniker for the new President), or perhaps even more so, one of them. To consider the possibility of a flawed Obama, a fundamentally American Obama, would wreck the party mood.
The French obsess over, and over-simplify, the racial significance of yesterday’s events. One TF1 commentator heralded Obama’s election as less a historic symbol of hardships overcome than a victory over the
“racists, of whom there are still a certain number in the US, who do not accept the notion that a black man be President.“
Of course, hidden beneath such a simplistic, misguided analysis lies the unfortunate belief that France has resolved its racial tensions by ignoring them (the government has gone so far as to outlaw the recognition of race as a category even for census purposes). Indeed, overlooking complexity seems to be a cultural standard; complexity is messy, inelegant, esthetically displeasing.
And so the French and the French media choose to paint a glorious picture of the Obama in whom they want to believe, the defender of the Rights of Man. They see him in broad lines, disregarding the subtleties that define a pensive, complicated man.
Describing ex-President Bush’s departure aboard Marine 1, Maureen Dowd writes today:
It was like a catharsis in Greek drama, with the antagonist plucked out of the scene into the sky, and the protagonist dropping into the scene to magically fix all the problems. Except Barack Obama’s somber mien and restrained oratory conveyed that he’s no divinity and there will be no easy resolution to this plot.
One fears that Obama’s “somber mien” was lost on the French audience, for whom the new President’s carefully intoned words were drowned out by a halting, often inaccurate real-time translation to French.
Some French claim that the idealistic excitement that initially swept this country after Obama’s election has given way to a more moderate view of the ex-Senator and the change he might effect.
“Everyone was dreaming a little. Now people are more realistic,” Samuel Solvit, who heads a French Obama-supporter network, recently told the AP.
But earlier yesterday, the French broadcast had already missed yet another prime opportunity to understand something deeper about Obama and American politics as the evangelical Rick Warren delivered the inaugural invocation. Warren’s role in the inaugural ceremony has been mired in controversy in the US. Not so in France, where the pastor received a single, somewhat disingenuous comment: “The American electorate did not understand his selection, because he is an ultra-conservative.“
No mention of the fact that Obama himself had chosen him for the prayer. No mention of the betrayal felt by many in the American electorate at his selection, or of the reassurance felt by others. Indeed, the French seem to conceive of the “American voter” as universally redeemed in 2008, after the incomprehensible mistake “he” made four years ago, when “he” reelected Bush. And so, for the French, Obama remains a pretty picture, a glorious symbol.
There was, though, one moment of seeming insight into the reality of things during yesterday’s broadcast. Toward the conclusion of the inaugural ceremony, the commentators reflected on the religiosity of it all. They were fascinated, slightly confused outsiders looking in on rituals that seemingly contradict their vision of Obama, of a reformed America. It was, it seemed, the beginning of a recognition that Obama is an American at heart, and as such fundamentally, if subtly, différent. In their perplexity, though, the presenters couldn’t muster much meaningful analysis. Perhaps they’ll need a few more days to think on it.
When true, simplicity is gained. Perhaps so in a broader sense. But in the realms of politics and cross-cultural interactions, in real life, reality is a disappointingly messy affair.
