Is it Hot or is it just French?

I am sure I am not alone when I say that the French have been a life-long source of confusion. It all started when I went to Paris for the first time with my family at the age of 11—I was young and beginning to be filled up with hormones, and I was besotted by every person I saw on the streets. In particular, I remember a man sitting at a café, seductively taking a drag from his loosely held cigarette, his auburn hair glistening in the sunset light. I was enraptured. But when my mother followed my sightline and noticed what caught my attention, she, being a woman who “tells it how it is,” set me straight right away: “what a terrible choice of sock colour—red? with brown shoes? Honestly, who do these French people think they are?” Suddenly the illusion shattered and I could see this man for who he truly was: just French.

Ever since Argentina beat the French in the World Cup, I have found myself reflecting on my more recent infatuations with the French. Are they actually hot? Or are they just French? Here’s a round-up of a handful of French things and people that have rightly or wrongly captured my attention in recent years, and a brief analysis on whether or not they are Hot. I am sure there are many other French things out there that deserve this kind of scrutiny—please feel free to send along suggestions. I would be happy to help you sort through what can otherwise be a very disarming encounter with these très seductive peoples in a part 2 or 3 of this series.

The French Press

Just French—too messy to clean, and too easy to get sediment in your coffee. Yes, it is nice to press down on the filter, and it looks charming, but it’s more trouble than it’s worth. It’s also just not that ingenious. I don’t stare at this agape with wonder; it’s just a screen that comes down. The Moka pot on the other hand…

Émile Zola

I don’t think that all of Emile Zola’s writing is decidedly Hot—I have not read all of his oeuvre, nor do I aspire to. What I have read is generally entertaining, though a little ornate and charged with a moralistic and political undertone that can feel a heavy-handed. That said, I would be remiss not to bring this excerpt* to your attention. It comes from The Kill, the second novel of Zola’s… 20… volume series Les Rougon-Macquart, which tells the story of two branches of a fictional family living in France during the second French Empire. Inspired by Balzac’s social commentary, Zola sought to represent the impact of the environment on a family, though he wanted to be scientific about his study: “My big task is to be strictly naturalist, strictly physiologist.” The scene I bring to you today comes early in The Kill, a novel that highlights a juxtaposition between two kinds of lust—lust for money and power, and lust for sex. Just after a luxurious banquet in the protagonist’s house, his fiancée and son (from a previous marriage) sneak off to, well, a hothouse. Need I say more?

^*Beyond this page, Zola is mostly just French.

Camille Cottin

I didn’t know of Camille Cottin until I watched Call my Agent (or, Dix pour cent, an extremely entertaining and frankly very Hot Netflix series about a Parisian talent management agency). I acknowledge that Parisians are a particular brand of French and they’re particularly annoying. However, I need to be honest: I’m in love with Andrea Martel (Cottin’s character on the show). Not at all biased, I deem Cottin (and Martel) as both hot and French.

Emmanuel Macron

This one is causing me physical pain. I really, really want to say that he’s just French, but I think he might also be a little Hot. Not a lot, though.

The Croissant

Ugh. Observe its voluptuous middle, its golden shine, the hundreds of buttery, crispy, silky layers patiently waiting to be discovered. You can just imagine this beautiful object crumbling under your fingers, begging you to take a slow, thoughtful bite. This seductive pastry makes you want to read poetry at a bustling coffee shop, or even write sweet, tender verses in its honor. The croissant is so Hot, and so French. That is, unless it’s a bad, gummy croissant in which case it’s definitely not French and certainly not Hot.

Timothee Chalamet

I’m not going to mince words here: he’s only half-French. And he really tries to leverage that fact to his advantage. I don’t think we’d have crowds fawning over him is his name was Tim Chappell. Definitely mostly just “French”. And cheekbones. He owes a lot to those cheekbones.

Napoleon

Just French. Famously.

The name “Dominique”

This is a unisex name (Hot) and it means “of the Lord” (… Ok?). As far as names go, it is on the longer side, it doesn’t have any acceptable nicknames in English, and it is very often misspelled. It’s also tied to an obnoxious song. That said, it is nice that people have to put in a bit of an effort to get my attention, and, despite being longer, it has a lovely rhythmic trot, and rolls off the tongue fairly quickly. I think we can lean toward a little Hot, but I am, once again, biased. (p.s. The name Jean Pierre is Hot if it’s Jean Pierre, not if it’s JP)

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

I saw this movie for the first time some years ago, and I remember being taken in. It’s aesthetic, alluring, suspenseful—who is this mysterious painter? Will she be able to paint this Lady? This was, however, before my pursuit of Hotness, and during a time when I walked through the world in a kind of somnolence. Embarrassingly, I seem to have missed one of the central points of the film. Recently, however, this movie was brought back to my attention in the form of a question that was, in fact, the inspiration behind this newsletter dispatch. On an unremarkable afternoon, I received a simple text from an otherwise very poetic friend, “Portrait of a Lady on Fire, is it hot or is it just French?” Unable to answer, I revisited the work. Reader, I couldn’t make it through the first 30 minutes without needing to taking a break. This film is, frankly, too Hot. It’s too Hot and French. The faceless portrait? The evocative green dress, just waiting to be filled by a body? The cloaked woman at the door? The moment of reveal, when the wind blows the hood off of our second protagonist’s head and exposes her perfect golden hair? The astute artist’s eye scrutinizing her object’s ear—the colour of the skin as it connects to the cheek, the contrast between that and the ear’s cavity… It’s too much. Too, too much. I’m too new to this to know what to do with all this information. Overwhelmed by my attempts to analyse the content of the film to understand what makes it hot, I tried another tactic: alternative scenarios. Would this movie still be hot if it were inhabited by another nationality? I think the closest I got to saying yes was maybe the English—the Brits are good at the pursed lips and weighty silences. That said, I’m not convinced. I worry the Brits would be more sad than they would be Hot. Anyway, the French can take this. And me.