About That Place In France...
When I was about 8, my older brother taught me a song about France, Pants, and Dancing. You may have heard it. The song is widely parodied, to the extent that the parodies may be better known than the original song. Here is a typical link to the song on You Tube;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eL3VAORMYOE
The words go like this;
There’s a place in France
Where the Alligators dance.
One couldn’t dance
So they kicked him in the pants,
And the pants he wore
Cost a dollar ninety-four,
And the tag on the pants
Said his pants were made in France.
It is high time someone did a literary exposition on this mysterious song--
The scenes called to mind by the song start at the macro level (a picture of France), then focus down to a particular place in France with dancing alligators. The focus continues further to a particular alligator who—alas!--cannot dance. The next level of detail examines the pants of the alligator, and then the tag on the pants.
Some songs attempt to give us the big picture. The Alligator Pants Dance focuses everything down to a tag on the pants. In this way, the song portrays the opposite of the Big Picture—perhaps it is about the Small Picture, the opposite of Getting the Big Picture...
Thematically, it is an expose’ of the cruelty of alligator society in France. Dancing should be a joyful occasion—Not so for this alligator! The other alligators could have helped him to be a better dancer. Instead, they kicked him in the pants when he was down.
Pants-based shaming behavior is well known in Western civilization {examples include “pantsing (pulling down the pants of the victim in public),” the “wedgie (pulling the underpants of the victim from behind, ideally to rest over the back of the head),” and the (usually) self-inflicted split in the seat of the pants, accompanied by mocking (examples include ‘way to go, fat-butt!’)}, but the alligator version bites more cruelly, occurring as it does in the context of a joyful celebration.
Further cruelty is apparent as the other alligators point out the low price of the pants (“a dollar ninety-four”). The fact that the non-dancing alligator is unable to wear a more expensive garment to the celebration (in effect, he has no ‘fancy pants’) implies poverty, which the other alligators are eager to point out.
Finally, the alligators take a swipe at their adopted country (France) by pointing out that this cheap, inferior garment was in fact made in France. This may indicate that the authors of the song were second-generation French Alligators; It is a well-known phenomenon that the children of immigrants are often unaware of the factors that led their parents to go to another country, and ungrateful to that country for taking them in.
We can conclude then that this song documents a sad incident of cruelty among second-generation French alligators. That’s how it often works out within close-knit ethnic communities. When a member does not meet expectations, they turn on their own...
When I was about 8, my older brother taught me a song about France, Pants, and Dancing. You may have heard it. The song is widely parodied, to the extent that the parodies may be better known than the original song. Here is a typical link to the song on You Tube;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eL3VAORMYOE
The words go like this;
There’s a place in France
Where the Alligators dance.
One couldn’t dance
So they kicked him in the pants,
And the pants he wore
Cost a dollar ninety-four,
And the tag on the pants
Said his pants were made in France.
It is high time someone did a literary exposition on this mysterious song--
The scenes called to mind by the song start at the macro level (a picture of France), then focus down to a particular place in France with dancing alligators. The focus continues further to a particular alligator who—alas!--cannot dance. The next level of detail examines the pants of the alligator, and then the tag on the pants.
Some songs attempt to give us the big picture. The Alligator Pants Dance focuses everything down to a tag on the pants. In this way, the song portrays the opposite of the Big Picture—perhaps it is about the Small Picture, the opposite of Getting the Big Picture...
Thematically, it is an expose’ of the cruelty of alligator society in France. Dancing should be a joyful occasion—Not so for this alligator! The other alligators could have helped him to be a better dancer. Instead, they kicked him in the pants when he was down.
Pants-based shaming behavior is well known in Western civilization {examples include “pantsing (pulling down the pants of the victim in public),” the “wedgie (pulling the underpants of the victim from behind, ideally to rest over the back of the head),” and the (usually) self-inflicted split in the seat of the pants, accompanied by mocking (examples include ‘way to go, fat-butt!’)}, but the alligator version bites more cruelly, occurring as it does in the context of a joyful celebration.
Further cruelty is apparent as the other alligators point out the low price of the pants (“a dollar ninety-four”). The fact that the non-dancing alligator is unable to wear a more expensive garment to the celebration (in effect, he has no ‘fancy pants’) implies poverty, which the other alligators are eager to point out.
Finally, the alligators take a swipe at their adopted country (France) by pointing out that this cheap, inferior garment was in fact made in France. This may indicate that the authors of the song were second-generation French Alligators; It is a well-known phenomenon that the children of immigrants are often unaware of the factors that led their parents to go to another country, and ungrateful to that country for taking them in.
We can conclude then that this song documents a sad incident of cruelty among second-generation French alligators. That’s how it often works out within close-knit ethnic communities. When a member does not meet expectations, they turn on their own...
As a lifetime member of Les Alligateurs Francaises Toutes et Completements Naturalises (AFTCN), I must strongly condemn your gross mischaracterisation of the naturalized citizen-alligators of France. The pants-shaming described in this song never occurred, and never would occur in any of the alligator dances that occur on Alligator High Holy Days.
ReplyDeleteIf the Alligators of France go after what they want, if they are snappy business-persons, if they take a bite out of the profits of their competition, perhaps that is the reason for these libels.
Eh bien! All is forgiven. If you want to discuss this further, stop by my riverbank in Marseilles. In spite of your article, I promise to greet you with a smile...