What does 'Le Moko' mean? - Pépé le Moko (1941) Discussion

[–] 19 years ago

[deleted]

I doesn't make sense though because he is from Paris, in the movie...

Maybe they didn't bother with the signification, maybe they just liked the sound of it.

Salut
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[–] msrroded 18 years ago

Is it possible that the film title predates the derogatory term Le Moko for someone from Marseilles? In other words, in the wake of the popularity of the film, Le Moko signified gangsters with a lower class and North African tinge (I know that Pepe is Parisian in origin, nevertheless). Only later was the term applied to Marseilles.

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[–] Renard-4 18 years ago

I can buy that.
Strange how terminology might come from a movie. But even today, we have expression coming from TV shows like: Seinfeld. So yeah, that might just be that.

Thanks for your input. Have a good one.

Salut
my growing DVD collection
http://www.intervocative.com/DVDCollection.aspx/chauffard

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[–] FridaKForeva 18 years ago

Actually, I believe that he is originally from Marseilles and perhaps has just lived in Paris for years. During a fight with Ines she says, "No more Paris, no more Marseilles. Nothing but the Casbah".

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[–] Orbtastic 15 years ago

He says he went to school in Paris though.

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[–] juanvazquez 8 years ago

Mind you, I think many expressions of people come from novels, TV soap operas, sitcoms, films and in general from fiction.

Fictions recreates reality and paradoxically reality recreates fiction.

We end up behaving like people in TV and cinema.

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[–] LCWGringoLoco 17 years ago

Wikipedia: Moko is slang for a man from Marseilles

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[–] nickgash 16 years ago

yeah, it means a dude from marseilles. in response to other comments, i didn't think it was all that hard to pick out that pepe grew up in paris (marseilles). that's one of the major things about gaby that gives pep the googly eyes - they grew up in the same place around the corner from one another.

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[–] dspoon_rt 16 years ago

Marseilles is not the same as Paris if that's what you're implying. They're two different cities on completely different sides of France. Pepe says that he grew up in Paris in the conversation he has with Gaby about Paris. So, moko?

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[–] r-riddick 16 years ago

The French slang is one of several suggestions for the name 'Le Moko': 'In French, le moco, is maritime argot for marin toulonais, a sailor from Toulon, a port in Provence, original home of many French pied noir, and the novel [the eponymous Pepe le Moko by Henri La Barthe] begins in Marseille with a member of the gang hiding in Pepe's mother's house.' From Slavin D, Colonial Cinema and Imperial France, 1919-1939: White Blind Spots, Male Fantasies, Settler Myths, Baltimore, The John Hopkins University Press, 2001.

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[–] jolypm 14 years ago

It could also come from 'le mec' French slang for 'the guy'...

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[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] manu28 11 years ago

There are several meanings of this slang expression from the XIXth century. All of them relates to the town of Toulon a military harbor 60 kms East of Marseilles. Toulon is the French equivalent of Norfolk, Virginia.

The term Moco refers to a chap born in Toulon and by extension a chap who did is military service in the Navy in Toulon.
By further extension the word Moco was used to designate a French Mediterranean sailor and a chap from Provence. In any case the roots are in Toulon.

This comes from a Provencal expression 'anything else?' used often by the people from Toulon and La Seyne that sounded like 'mo - co, mo - co' to a foreign hear.

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