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France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books

nytimes.com

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Re: France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books

#71

Post by rchaud »

touisteur wrote: post #68

This NYT story/title has been mocked to death on French Twitter. The kids are reading. Manga, so what ? AND they're using culture-money to PAY the artists they like, even though they get their manga off the Internet for free. Isn't the greatest outcome possible? Sure, French artists might have wanted that money flowing back to French artists... But if they like it and when given a choice will pay for it... Maybe ther…

What are they mocking? It seems from your comment that the facts were reported accurately. Money is going towards manga, so not towards French creators. This is a government program, so the intention is to support French artists, is it not?

Re: France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books

#72

Post by _rpd »

rootsudo wrote: post #49
mtts wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the article they’re not buying the indeed fantastic French “BD” comic books but manga.

Manga is very good nowadays, I don't blame the kids. Go with what's in. It's culture.

I think the hope was that the money would be used to support local cultural content/events since people in those enterprises have been hard hit by the COVID crisis.

Re: France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books

#73

Post by touisteur »

rchaud wrote: post #71
touisteur wrote: post #68

This NYT story/title has been mocked to death on French Twitter. The kids are reading. Manga, so what ? AND they're using culture-money to PAY the artists they like, even though they get their manga off the Internet for free. Isn't the greatest outcome possible? Sure, French artists might have wanted that money flowing back to French artists... But if they like it and when given a choice will pay for it... Maybe ther…

What are they mocking? It seems from your comment that the facts were reported accurately. Money is going towards manga, so not towards French creators. This is a government program, so the intention is to support French artists, is it not?

The intention is first to support teenagers. Usual culture and meeting places for teens have been closed because COVID-19. Even libraries...

Edit to answer your question: the framing of the question was 'we gave them money for 'culture', they bought comic books'. Expecting any other outcome would be counterintuitive if you've ever met teenagers. Cinemas, concerts, librairies, indoors activities are all closed. They're supposed to stay home and telecommute to high school (WTF?). General reaction was 'good', 'manga are culture too', 'who could have seen that coming'.

Re: France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books

#74

Post by 908B64B197 »

jgrahamc wrote: post #20

Am I to understand from this that the New York Times (and perhaps the bien pensant in the US) consider mere "comic books" some sort of gutter culture? My last trip to Paris I spent a long time in these "comic book" stores. They are absolute goldmines with passionate and knowledgeable staff and incredible selections.

It's a little late to stop considering comic books as a part of French culture. Asterix has been sold worldwide to 350 millions copies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix

https://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2014/03/asterix-and-the-bl...

I guess they are unhappy about teens buying manga? Real question is why French comic book artist aren't selling in Japan? There's a lot of Japanese tourists in France, that doesn't sound too far-fetched.

Re: France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books

#75

Post by rchaud »

markus_zhang wrote: post #54

This reminds me of a scene from "Yes Minister": > (Sir Humphrey to Bernard)..subsidy..Is for art, for culture. It is not to be given to what the people want. It is for what the people don't want but ought to have! If they want something they'll pay for it themselves! No, we subsidies education, enlightenment, spiritual uplift. Not the vulgar pastimes of ordinary people.

I thought the same! A funny exchange on the merits of subsidizing highbrow entertainment like opera vs lowbrow 'mainstream' industries like football and films.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvNw0P5ZMbA

Re: France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books

#77

Post by 908B64B197 »

cwizou wrote: post #25

As an aside, it's been a bit surprising to see the disconnect on so many topics regarding France in the NYT in the last few months. This seems like just the latest (and fairly mild) episode of this, but it's still a bit puzzling to me as a former (sort of) journalist to see so much editorialising, and in this case, an utter lack of facts and context. There's not much on the goals behind that pass, the impact of covid…

> As an aside, it's been a bit surprising to see the disconnect on so many topics regarding France in the NYT in the last few months.

Not the NYT, but I still remember the "No go zones" CNN boasted about. [0] [1]

I still remember French co-workers having a good laugh at it. It's tough to fact-check anything when you don't speak the language.

[0] https://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/01/cnn-apologizes-...

[1] https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2015/01/21/natpkg-look-at-pari...

Re: France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books

#78

Post by AutumnCurtain »

asdff wrote: post #56
cwizou wrote: post #25

As an aside, it's been a bit surprising to see the disconnect on so many topics regarding France in the NYT in the last few months. This seems like just the latest (and fairly mild) episode of this, but it's still a bit puzzling to me as a former (sort of) journalist to see so much editorialising, and in this case, an utter lack of facts and context. There's not much on the goals behind that pass, the impact of covid…

LA Times has even parodied how NYT tends to cover Los Angeles. https://www.latimes.com/food/la-fo-nyc-restaurant-scene-apri...

Non-paywall link: https://archive.is/xbkmm

Absolutely brilliant article IMO

Re: France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books

#79

Post by yumraj »

jacquesm wrote: post #57
yumraj wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. I don't speak French, will look for English version..

Quick and dirty translation, apologies for errors but this should get you the gist: "Gaston, bring me the last letter of insults from de Mesmaeker" "I'm curious how long it will take him to retrieve that from his" "mess...." "err, thanks" "Strange, he must have had it in hand by chance". "Let's do a second test" "Please fetch me the 4603rd response to the latest contest, it is ur" "gent" "Urr... thanks" "That's not p…

:D ... thanks for taking the time, much appreciated..

Re: France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books

#80

Post by codyswann »

mtts wrote: post #29
jgrahamc wrote: post #20

Am I to understand from this that the New York Times (and perhaps the bien pensant in the US) consider mere "comic books" some sort of gutter culture? My last trip to Paris I spent a long time in these "comic book" stores. They are absolute goldmines with passionate and knowledgeable staff and incredible selections.

According to the article they’re not buying the indeed fantastic French “BD” comic books but manga.

More specifically, the article points out the money was supposed to be used to expose the kids to culture that they're not already exposed to. Instead, they're using it to buy more of the culture (magna) that they're already buying anyway.
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