Sarcasm is the Golden Rule

In American English, the Golden Rule that parents tell their children is “do unto others as you would have done unto you.” This biblical refrain is often mentioned in a shortened version (“do unto others…”) and everyone knows this little short cut and how the adage actually ends. Despite the lack of widespread usage of the archaic word unto, we all know that it means treat other people how you yourself would like to be treated. At the movie theater Silence is Golden. Other than that, I can’t really think of any other sayings that involve the word golden, and are mantras to live by that are oft repeated to children. Obviously, the US as a nation doesn’t really practice Do Unto Others, especially not where foreign policy is concerned. I doubt we’d want the Iraqi military to invade us, steal our oil and kill civilians, but these are still sayings that children learn about how to behave and there’s always an element of idealism and social hypocrisy involved in educating the young and naïve, as we don’t really want to reveal too much about the way things actually work.

I’m not sure what the Golden Rule is in France, as I have never been a French child lied to by French adults, but here’s a theory: sarcasm.

Consider this. I had a screenplay-writing former French professor and I foolishly lent him the film Supersize Me because it’s a fun documentary and French people are fascinated with how fat Americans are and think we’re just an entire nation of walrus-sized lard tub people. Obviously, some of us do cook vegetables, can’t remember the last time we were at a McDonald’s and don’t weigh 400 lbs and actually exercise and wear between a size 36 and 38 (this is between a 6 and 8 in the American system) which seems just fine to most people, except that in Paris this IS walrus lard tub huge, since all Parisian women weigh about 4 kilos and never eat but only smoke and use weirdo slim-fast like regimes they buy at pharmacies called cures minceurs. I don’t even know anyone who eats at McDo even once a week in the US, but then again, I also don’t know anyone who voted for Bush and he’s a 2-term president.

Anyway, my ex professor had Supersize Me for quite awhile, and each time I emailed him normal sounding inoffensive emails asking for the film back, he always either ignored me completely or ignored the general request and responded to some minor often vaguely flirtatious point instead. Apparently, writing something like “hey, I need my film back, can you drop it off? Thanks” might sound ambiguous to the French, or maybe it isn’t quite clear what I want, because I am being nice and uninsulting. At any rate, it didn’t seem obvious and important enough to Guillaume to rearrange his entire life enough to walk 3 arduous blocks down the street and slip my film in my letter box.

What we had here was the famous Cool Hand Luke failure to communicate.

Finally, I’d had enough of disrespectful Frenchman attitude—would he treat a French woman like this? Who thinks it’s ok to abuse someone’s good will generosity that much—AND blow them off when they attempt to reclaim their own property? Would he be this rude to a man?

Probably, in fact. Something almost comforting about Paris, in a dark and bitterly ironic way (dark and bitter irony is probably extremely comforting to French people), is that it seems like a city of equal opportunity poverty, rudeness and general hatred. I sent old film-hoarding Guillaume a final email and decided that if this last attempt at written communication didn’t work, I would consider having Xavier the Gendarme scare him a little with some kind of French law enforcement threat—or send him a bill for the cost of the film—plus interest since he was perhaps leasing with the option to buy for the past 5 months. So in my last-ditch attempt, I sent the following email:

Hi, I’m back from vacation, are you as well? I need my film. Are you writing a doctoral dissertation on it or what? You’ve had it for 6 months. Thanks in advance.

Or:

Bonjour, je suis de retour à Paris, vous y êtes aussi? Il me faut mon film. Vous préparez une thèse là-dessus ou quoi ? Ca fait 6 mois. Merci par avance.

And it was like we were communicating for the first time. If you are sarcastic in French, the French embrace you as one of their own. The terms “French” and “sarcastic” are almost redundant, as the 2 languages are one and the same.

My email got this response:

Excellent!!! I don’t know if this is a compliment or not, but that’s a perfectly French attitude! Remind me what your address is and I’ll drop it off right away, I’m so sorry.

Or:

Excellent! Je ne sais pas si je vous fais un compliment, mais voilà un esprit parfaitement français! Rappelez moi votre adresse et je déposerai votre film toute de suite. Mille excuses.

Shocked at the efficacy of sarcasm in French, I forwarded his response to 2 of my American friends. However, ever a realist, I thought that although this was way more progress than I’d ever had previously in trying to recover my long-lost film, I shouldn’t get too excited until I actually had it in my possession. Maybe despite his prompt response, he would still never actually return it. I gave him my address again and lo and behold:

The concierge knocked on my door with the film the very next morning.

Although perhaps it’s not the best idea to start business emails by resorting to it, it seems that when you’re being ignored, sarcasm gets results.

In fact, even agreeing with someone (which inherently seems like a positive and non-sarcastic idea) can involve sarcasm. If someone says something you find obvious and agree with wholeheartedly, then you say, “you surprise me” (“tu m’étonnes”). Obviously, what they say comes as no surprise to you at all, and that’s why you say it does.

Life in France is just full of little sarcasm surprises.