The Louvre Serves McDonalds

The short of the news on this is that McDonald’s is opening up a new location in the Carrousel du Louvre, the mall which is adjoined to the famous Louvre Museum in Paris, France. There’s really not much more story than that, except that many people are disheartened by it, some outright opposing, some, it seems, merely nodding their heads in disappointment. But for all the head shaking, it will probably do very well. The McDonald’s just up the street on the Champs-Elysees is the most profitable in the world, a fact I can attest to as I waited for thirty minutes once to try one of their infamous McBiers.

So I’m wondering about nostalgia and, really, about the ideal we hold for places. I think Americans all crave a kind of old-world comfort or, at least, the comfort of believing in an old-world. Part of our ignorance, and part of our charm, being so isolated in geographical terms as well as cultural from out continental cousins, is that we really expect the old-country to be quaint. I’m sure, in many places, it still is. In many of my trips abroad I marvelled at the cobblestones, the little old ladies, the maintenance of traditions. I think my wise, Dutch friend Hendrick put it most clearly to me one evening as I visited him in a small Belgian town called Bruges. We were walking up a set of stairs towards his little room, and I commented on the attractive woodwork and interesting lines in the moldings. He said, “Yes, well, it’s sort of an old building. In fact all of them are around here. This building, for example was made in the around 1720, and is older than your country. It’s not the oldest building here.”

That struck me harder than any other bit of history or sight-seeing I had ever done, because this building wasn’t an attraction, it was real, and in use. In a sense, its history hadn’t ended as many of the histories had with so many churches or parliamentary buildings. It was a dorm for a college, and had been a hotel, and part of a palace maybe, but had kept on, in one useful form or another.

Back to this bit about McDonald’s, I think part of the sadness we feel is that we want someone, somewhere, to be keeping up the traditions so that our nostalgia is fresh when we’re feeling up to it. It’s too burdensome to keep them up ourselves and, after all, it’s not what we really want for ourselves. France, then, or maybe all of Europe, is in some weird way a kind of chest in the attic for us, filled with our grandfather’s treasures from the war, and old, theatrical costumes we love to try on and dance around in.

Some of us are more romantic or, perhaps, less romantic and more snobbish. We move there, we spend time there. We talk about Europe like a wealthy Uncle who we are assured has us right up there at the top of his will. Since sophistication is, necessarily old and progress, therefore, necessarily unsophisticated, we young Americans are all left feeling quite bold but quite vulnerable, and long for an identity.

Sorry, my writing, now, is getting a bit dreamy. I just wanted to point out how interesting the outrage of a McDonald’s is next to the Louvre. It reminds me of the Swedish girl I met over the weekend. We were joking about how the stereotype of Swedish girls that Americans have is that they are all blond, big breasted, a bit naive, big-breasted, always wearing some version of the milk-maid outfit, and usually willing to help any fellow relieve any tensions they may have. She was blond, and quite charming, but in all ways modern and very unlike this stereotype. I joked, when she showed me pictures of her friends, asking what on earth they were wearing? Where were their milk-maid outfits?

But a part of this stereotype is true. The part is its propagation; the truth is that we keep it going, and want it, in some way, to be real. I’m guessing there is more to this than sex (though not much more, in the case of Swedish girl stereotypes, and, it should be noted, not much less in the case of dear old Paris).