Sass for Grown-Ups: Gouaille

Don't pardon my French

Canal Saint-Martin. Photo by Pascal Bernardon on Unsplash

It's pronounced "guay", like the Spanish word for "great", And it's written "gouaille", Because my language won't be spoken the way it's spelled.

To be a French woman abroad is to come across an impossible ideal: The "typical" French woman who remains thin while stuffing herself, All tousled hair, perfect elegance, complicated love life and ennui. Before I moved abroad, I never even knew the archetype existed.

The image of France that gets exported is so at odds with How we see ourselves. For one, there's that manner of speaking of Parisian old-timers, A humour miles away from that snooty beret-baguette cliché, That has a bit more bite than "banter", a bit more poise than "sass", And much less meanness than the Viennese Schmäh (rhymes with "meh").

"Gouaille" is a tone, laced with tenderness and brutal honesty. It's said to describe, at first, the voice of fishwives three hundred years ago, Selling, yelling, standing their ground in the market, Low-class and loud, clever at commanding attention.

Woman selling fish— Drawing by M. Poisson, 1774. Credit: Bibliothèque Nationale de France

It morphed into irony, tinted with cheer. It's an actress from a century ago, With endless charisma and questionable life choices, It's mid-century films With flashes of lyricisms completely out of context And put-downs passed on through the ages.

Gouaille in any other language is defiant confidence. It's sass for grown-ups, if you will, because it doesn't have that youthful rebellion; It doesn't need to.

Gouaille won't take the world seriously. It'll offer a rebuke to tragedy, Because gouaille won't let you forget there's humour in the world and beauty too.

Gouaille tells you "We're all flawed in this world, And who knows how long we'll be in it, But let's not forget to stand strong And don't you dare forget I exist."

[embed]Excerpt from Marcel Carné's film Hôtel du Nord, 1938, based on the eponymous novel by Eugène Dabit, with Arletty and Louis Jouvet. Arletty's acting style was considered the epitome of "gouaille", especially her line "Atmosphère, atmosphère, est-ce que j'ai une gueule d'atmosphère?"

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