Yesterday, minding my own business while I waited for Guillaume, one of the butchers at Jacky Gaudin a butcher slash abattoir perched on a corner of the Rue des Abbesses, to shave my bacon and dice my breasts, Guy, another of the carcass cutters employed at the slaughterhouse leaned over the counter to ask me what I thought of Explorer Families a new television show airing in the usual time slot of the French version of the competition reality TV show, Survivor.
I hardly registered his question because I had not seen it. In fact, I had made a conscious decision not to watch it.
What ensued was an animated discussion among all of the seven butchers, and the fifteen or so people in the queue waiting to be served. “But oh Madame*, I was sure you would be proud to watch it, indeed I think it is formidable and breathtaking and surely Madame you must be so proud!”
Or Not.
You see, the premise of this latest craze on the télévision française is; what is the absolute worst thing you can inflict upon a modern French family forcing them to work together, acknowledge their weaknesses and repair poor relationships with unwanted stepchildren?
Easy, send them to Australia.
As all Australians know, when Victorian Englanders were given the option of hanging in the Town Square, or transportation to Australia, most chose death. But now, in 2011, it seems the French are borrowing from the capital punishment of channel neighbours to create ratings winning Reality TV.
Six families composed of mothers, fathers, stepchildren, stepparents and half-siblings from all over France, and even Belgium (they are the ones who speak funny), have been sent to Australia to camp and challenge each other in Carisbrook. I can only assume the show was filmed before the devastating Christmas floods because one of the least likeable of the peroxide-blonde mothers complains non-stop about the heat and lack of water. Evidently when told she would be sent to l’outback australien, she thought she was going to the remote suburbs of inner-Sydney rather than the Queensland desert.
Jeff is so committed to his job he married a Survivor
Denis Brogniart, the French equivalent of F1 commentator James Allen and also host of Explorer Families and French Survivor (inexplicably still named Koh Lanta after their premiere Thai destination despite the fact that due to Trade Union regulations governing the working conditions of the participants of French reality TV shows, the seven subsequent seasons were filmed exclusively in French territories cf. New Caledonia), schooled at the Jeff Probst school of “I am so rugged and hard-core I wear a safari shirt with dual front pockets”, has done an excellent job of adapting his F1 honed commentary skills to the desert challenges the families are forced to endure in the hope of winning 140K. Although the link between his day job detailing the Monaco Grand Prix and rolling your mum through a dirt track while blindfolded is still lost on me.
Denis and his perm when he is not styling it with Ferrari and Maclaren
Understanding the franglais of Dennis and the trade union covered 35 hour week contestants as they moan and complain their way through their sun drenched days, is an unexpected joy that adds another layer of interest for the Anglophone viewer. Lucky enough to win the roll your mum through the dirt challenge, one family were sent to ayran eyelan (Heron Island) to search for swidleep (Sweet Lip) with a guide called Stiv (Steve).
Slightly alarming is the fact that they keep remarking on the wildlife, especially the grenouilles. I think one of the dads, sick and tired of eating tuna and boiled potatoes from cans, was eyeing off the jumping amphibians, most specifically their legs, sautéed in a little butter, garlic and parsley perhaps.
However the reason for my ardent protests against this really rather funny show is that it is called Explorer Families.
One of my colleagues, the Bride, will laugh as she reads this as she remarked this past week that she has never known such a patriot as me. My riposte, rather hurt as I have never thought of myself as patriot* was simply that French people are so wholly unaware of the existence of Australia and the issue of her shores that I feel compelled to make it known when a story about an Australian wins an Oscar – the King’s Speech – or when an Australian holds the number one spot on the French top 40 – Kylie – or when an Australian invented device holds the secret to why a recently discovered French plane fell out of the sky – the black box.
Such a sentiment is only further inflamed when a television show about whingy teenagers arguing with their parents is entitled explorers. Like Australia still needs to be found?
M Chirac certainly had no trouble locating Australia when he set off repeated nuclear explosions off the coast of ayran eyelan in the late nineties as oztraleens in grinpiss fishing boats begged loudly that he stop.
All the same, watching a mum cower at sharks and teenagers burn as they try to tan under the desert sun makes for compelling, if a little patronising, television.
Survivors Ready!
#Despite my repeated requests to be addressed as Mademoiselle, and my oft repeated remark that Madame B is in fact over fifty and lives in Sydney, local custom requires that once you have a visible wrinkle, despite your actual legal marital status, you are indeed a Madame
*The French word for patriot is Chauvin which in English implies a specific prejudice against women making her comment rather more insulting than she perhaps intended
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