France. People think of many different things when they hear that word. You may think of frogs or snails. Others might think of wine or the Eiffel tower. These might be true for some people but not all. We like to think we know the French more than a lot of other countries. Their national stereotype has been sharpened over years of bad accents in movies. We stereotype because we like to, want to, or even need to categorize the world into different groups. This can be effective because once you have categorized you no longer need to consider other or new information about each individual member of the group. You no longer need to wonder what each individual is like. On the other hand, when we stereotype, it becomes harder to break those stereotypes and accept that some of them just aren’t true. Let’s discuss some of the main French stereotypes: The French all own berets. This is viewed as the typical French style. Striped shirts and moustaches are also seen as typically French. Saying that all French wear berets would be like saying all Americans wear cowboy hats. French people are rarely ever seen with berets, let alone a striped shirt. On the contrary, the French are trying to break this …show more content…
Most of the French stereotypes aren’t necessarily true although there are some very important stereotypes that are part of the French daily life. Stereotypes can be useful and fun for some people, but can also be very harmful and offensive. We don’t only falsely stereotype the French, lots of other countries suffer from a bad reputation that could be entirely wrong. We have to start breaking those stereotypes and start looking at people with a clean slate, not judging someone by a stereotype, reputation or rumor spread about them, but seeing them for who they really