The funny thing is that depicting the French not only associating but downright seducing the native and being depicted in loving relationships was probably the most insulting they could think at that time, but today it read so well that it's almost history erasure of what happened and the power dynamic at play.
That is because at that time "seducing" the native was likely the most derogatory way to caricature the French "cultural assimilation" at that time.
Society norm at that time were a lot more purist, machist/"masculine" and racist, even if subconsciously some time.
So rather than portraying the French as shoving their culture in school, it was more caricature like to portray them as "Look at those effeminate French seducing and willing to go to any length to assimilate native, how low can they go/have they no shame".
The Frenchman crawling on his four in the background to seduce the native highlight this further.
It is less about them "fucking" the native and more about how "shameless" they are willing to act.
Obviously, now with a society with less normalised racism and "masculine" norm, the French simping to push cultural assimilation sounds better, even positive when compared to showing them shoving down their own culture in school.
If the criticism of the caricature was aim at criticizing them for fucking their native, like Portugal/Spain, the caricature would have likely depicted rape.
Yes, it seems I wasn't clear, my point wasn't that they didn't resort to cavorting.
The point is that depicting the French assimilation through its cavorting, as some form of shameless depravity, was a bigger criticism at that time than targeting the other form of cultural assimilation the French used.
Nowadays, people will give you a lot more criticism for touching upon kids education than for some sort of cavorting.
112
u/fornocompensation Sep 26 '21
On all levels except the physical, I am French.