So yesterday I mentioned that I had seen two different movies. I talked about the first one at length but I did not have time to properly describe the second one. The second one was also a comedy (I need those these days) called "Qu'est ce qu'on a fait au Bon Dieu?" (in English, What have we done to God?)


The movie is a reflection on interracial and intercultural relationships. Three daughters of a very French, very Catholic and very bourgeois family each marry a man of immigrant descent: a Muslim named Rachid, a Jew named David, a man of Chinese descent named Chao. The final daughter, Laure, is about to marry her black Ivorian boyfriend, to the great despair of her parents.

I found the movie to be great fun. I laughed a lot, but most importantly, it made me reflect on my own similar experiences. There are many issues I would have liked to address, but time constraints will only allow me to discuss one for now.

Sympathy vs. Empathy: how to understand others

Having been raised by a more or less atheist and very open-minded Northern European mother and very Catholic, fairly conservative Southern European father, I have to say that cultural differences do not make family life easy. Even if you stay within a single continent, the mentalities can vary widely, and it is never easy to change or see things from the other person's point of view. I myself have great difficulties seeing things as other people would see them. This does not mean that one does not take into consideration the circumstances of others, but merely transposes their own thoughts and opinions on the other person's situation. This simplification makes it a lot easier to understand, but it can lead to some counter-productive results.

From personal experience, I find Catholics (Christians?) tend to do this a lot. The Golden Rule ("do unto others as you would have them do unto you") is widely quoted, and yet quite misleading. Originally meant to keep everyone happy and satisfied, it overlooks the reality that each person's happiness is derived from different elements, and that one cannot simply transpose one's own desires onto others. It leads to a combination of condemnation if others express their different desires or perceptions of the world, and sympathy as those involved tend to be incapable (or perhaps unwilling) of altering their own perceptions in order to understand the other person's situation.

One might think that sympathy is not a bad thing. Indeed, in French the word "sympa" or "sympathique" is commonly used to mean a "nice" person. But in reality, sympathy can be very similar to condescension. If anything, it may even dismiss other people's pain completely. Therefore, one ought to focus on Empathy, which is the process of putting oneself in someone else's shoes. To illustrate this, this is a video that I recently watched that I personally really liked: 

In the movie, those who tend to make these mistakes are the parents, as the movie does not focus at all on the issues within the different couples. Rather, it is about the parents coping with their children's choices in life. The parents sympathise with their sons-in-law, but do not empathise with them. They know very little about their sons-in-law, and in all honesty refuse to try. It is only half-way through the movie do they all start taking steps towards understanding each other. The mother starts to take Zumba lessons, she makes three roast Turkeys: Halal, Pekin-style, and Kosher, and she connects with the mother of her soon-to-be son-in-law on their favorite part of the Bible.

The sons-in-law have similar issues among themselves, stereotyping the others and accusing them of various things. One thing I did rather enjoy about this is that the movie does show that minorities can also be just as racist against one another as "White" people can. This is a discussion I will have another time, but the concept that White people cannot be the target of racism or that minorities cannot be racist has always perplexed me.

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