Two days ago, the Telegraph posted an article about French Chicken farmers threatening to file a legal case as a porn movie was being shot in their village, thus damaging the brand image of their chicken.
The article by Henry Samuel starts like this:
“Poultry farmers in a French region famous for its free-range birds are furious at the release of a film shot in their prestigious village involving an unattired “farmer’s daughter”.
The hardcore pornographic film was shot in the small rural village of Loué in central France, which is famous for its high-end chickens.
Angry locals first became aware of the video last month, after it was shot in broad daylight.
They eventually chased off the “farmer’s daughter”, her partner and the camera crew filming them. But subsequently one of the farmers – apparently as part of his private research – found the video online and flagged it up to the head of Loué’s poultry industry.
The film starts with the commentary: “The producers went to meet 33-year-old Sophie, a chicken breeder, who wanted to make a video for her husband as a Valentine’s Day gift”
It’s funny but it’s not that big a deal
When I first heard of the article, I’m French right, I kind of raised my shoulders and thought, yeah so what? But it seems that all my friends that are not French find this story hilarious.
That got me thinking about the different perceptions we have of such events. It seems that as French people we have incorporated the French peasantry in our daily lifes so much that it doesn’t come as a surprise to see stories about egg farmers, angry villagers and porn movies. In fact a friend who lives in Caen (2hs from Paris) and works as a urban planner was telling me that in one of the old insutrial sites the city is re-designing, they found an entire filming crew shooting a porn movie as they brought the construction workers in. It’s funny but it’s not news.
Sex, cheese, wine, frogs, snails and other delicacies.
This story was barely a by-line in the French media. It was only covered by BFM TV , which is known for it’s sensational coverage of French news and France 3 which does in depth local coverage:
But somehow it made it to the Telegrah… As if anything that can feed the idea of France being the land of cheese, sex, wine, lingerie, cigarettes, frogs and snails was golden media material.
French Peasants 