A sure way to make me dislike you is to say, with a completely straight face, that your favorite film is Last Year At Marienbad. Yawn. If you really want to get on my mean side and stay there, just mention that French New Wave films are, as a rule, your favorite types of movies. Full stop. What was that? Last Year At Marienbad is your favorite film, you say? The French New Wave makes you cream your hip huggers? Right. Now watch me pop a lung laughing before I kick you out of my party for being a lying pussy, Mr. French Film snob.
The French Film snob is person that chooses the artiest, longest, most boring, most difficult movie out there and calls it their favorite, even though this film is renowned for being arty, long, boring as hell, and difficult to get through. This is nothing too terrible when people everywhere are guilty of feigning highbrow taste for brownie points. What makes the French Film Snob particularly nauseating is that they actively cultivate obscure tastes in order to shame other people for being cinematic Neanderthals. Not because they actually, you know, enjoy the films they proselytize about or want to share the cultural wealth with people less informed.
I'm not just jealous of the French Film snobs for being more smarter than me (though they'd like to think they are). I actually know what I’m talking about because I, unlike many a French Film snob, have actually been forced to sit through French New Wave films. Yes, I have seen Weekend. Yes, I've seen Julie and Celine Go Boating. And yes, I have seen Last Year At Marienbad. Do I think those films are interesting? Yes. Do I think they're generally "good" and worth a watch? Yes. Are they my favorites ever? Hell no. And they're not yours either you film schooled liar. Liar!
Just in case you think I'm some raving pro-American dick with a hatred for all things French, I'll spell it out in plain Anglais: I don't hate French Film snobs for being patsies. I don't even hate them for being Francophiles. I hate them because they're liars. Last Year At Marienbad is nobody's favorite movie. Period. I'm going to start a campaign to ship French Film snobs over to France and let the French have their way with the posers. Who's with me?
Cinema Blend writers fight back against out of control fanboys in our ongoing series of editorials, Bad Fandom! For more Bad Fandom click here.
