Ghettos, I'm Sleeping Over Tonight

I'm a fan of the series, but regarding the movie I'm disapointed.

Sure it's well done and Antoine is as funny and cool as usual, but I left the theater with a weird feeling. Unlike in the TV serie where I perfectly recognized the countries in which I used to live (Japan especially), in this movie I can't say we have a fair picture of the US, and I should know since I live there.

The problem is Antoine only shows extreme cases: unemployed, manual workers and Hollywood stars, no middle class at all. The huge majority of americans working in an office are out of the movie. We see the worst areas of New Orleans, but not Boston, one of the safest and most educated city of the States, we see California but only a homeless on a beach and George Clooney's house, not Silicon Valley.

I understand it's interesting to show unusual guys, but here that's all we have, the majority, the middle class, is completely gone. It's surprising because it's a bias that I never saw in the TV serie.

What annoys me the most is the feeling that Antoine wanted to show french viewers what they expected: a certain view of America, already vastly present in french medias.

Now if I was to do a documentary about France for US viewers showing only suburbs ghettos, members of a cult, and corsican separatists, I'm sure everyone would accuse me of manipulation.

So, what do we have in the end in the movie? One rich ghetto and tons of poor ghettos, the title should be "J'irais dormir dans les ghettos" (Ghettos, I'm Sleeping Over Tonight).

US viewers should find the movie interesting, because it shows places most probably have never been to and kind of people most probably have never met, and again it's very well done.

French viewers will like it too, but for the wrong reasons. Most of them already think that what is shown in the movie IS America, that there is nothing else. In that sense they will be conforted in their distorded view of reality and that's really a shame.