Handbook of French Popular Culture

This book presents a series of highly readable, well-documented essays describing French life styles, attitudes, and entertainments as well as the writers and performers currently favored by the French public. Several chapters explore French tastes in popular literature and other reading matter, including comics, cartoons, mystery and spy fiction, newspapers and magazines, and science fiction. Film, popular music, radio, and television are also discussed in detail, and influences from other cultures--particularly American "imports"--are assessed. The remaining essays examine French sports, leisure, eating and drinking, and relations between men and women.