This is my pet hate. Next time you watch Star Academy, look out for it in the shots of the audience. I guarantee you’ll see it: some pathetic tween making a stupid heart with her fingers. There’s always one, and you can bet the camera will somehow manage to get a shot through the finger-heart, framing the performer; a touching and powerful image of the love shared at this deeply moving occasion. Excuse me while I throw up a little in my mouth.Is it just a French thing, or has this heart disease spread globally? Do you see it at Anthony Callea concerts? I tend to think not, having watched the most recent series of Australian Idol, which remained mercifully heart-free.
Yes, I think it must be a Franco-saccharine phenomenon, which has even spread from TV variety shows and teeny-bopper pop concerts to the sports arena. I’m referring to the French swimming champion Laure Manaudou, who became a pin-up for the power of l’amour when she left the French swimming team to follow the love of her life to Italy. The sickening image of Laure finishing a race, ripping off her goggles and finger-hearting to her lover boy made me retch for weeks.
I can’t explain this reaction I have; it’s not like I don’t enjoy seeing, feeling and celebrating that loftiest and most beautiful of human emotions. I don’t go around shouting at couples to stop holding hands. (Although don’t get me started on public snoggers. I mean just get a room.) This aversion reminds me of a friend who simply cannot bear that hand sign people make, thumb and pinkie extended, to represent the telephone. Makes her physically ill. That’s what the hand-heart does to me. The mere sight of it, childish and cloying, makes me nauseous.
I suppose you could say I’m heartily sick of it.
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7 comments:
Oh Jesus, that is truly atrocious. Makes me nauseous. I haven't seen it here in the UK...
x
Christ. I think it all started with the hand-as-telephone gesture (optionally accompanied by a wink - "Call me!").
Or was it Channel 7 - Chuck a Lucky 7?
Such a relief to know the infection hasn't spread over the channel, angus. And as for Chucking a Lucky 7, snowman... it made me think of that Channel 10kid's TV show Ridgey Didge, which also featured a cringeful "bodacious shaka surfie" signature hand gesture. I'm gagging as I type.
When I arrived in France, I joined a diving club... you know, to meet people and learn some French in an acoustically disastrous environment.
I subsequently started using the A-OK index-finger-to-thumb sign in my daily life to mean "oui" (and occasionally, arms crossed at the wrist to mean "non") ;)
I have caught myself pretending to type when telling people I'll send them an email. That's nearly as bas as the phone one. But I've NEVER done the heart thing....honest...
I'm afraid I'm also guilty of the "air keyboard" email signal, rhino. I may even on occasion have asked someone to text me, while jabbing my thumb on an imaginary mobile. As for the crossed arms, tinfolied, I can honestly say the only time I've done that on dry land is on the dancefloor when Xanadu comes on.
Ah the A-OK gesture comes into the mix. In a recent seminar on Japanese business protocol, I was reliably informed this gesture (index and thumb forming a circle, but the hand rotated so the remaining fingers are parallel to the ground) means 'money'. My Peruvian colleague nearly puked. In her culture, of course, the same gesture is the most obscene way of indicating a male who is, erm, say, 'unlikely to take a wife'.
But I still reckon it's death to all the heart handers out there. There's just no need.
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