intouchables

"Doesn't it make you feel bad to have to be supported?"

This is what Phillipe, paralyzed below the neck asks Driss who is in need of unemployment insurance.  Phillipe has more than enough money to help Driss, Driss has a strong body to help Phillipe.  The two become great buddies.

The story was American-ish but the seasoning was French, if that makes sense.  Maybe the taste of music was what made it distinctly "French" - smart and sophisticated with a tinge of sadness.

But Driss's vulgarity was pretty funny - his lines that wouldn't have been that bad in English sounded really vulgar in French for some reason.  In one of the less vulgar scenes where Phillipe asks Driss to give him a chocolate, Driss says no. "These are for ordinary people.  Disabled people can't have this."  He says it's just a joke when Phillipe stares back at him.  He jokes around some more before finally giving Phillipe the chocolate.  It was nasty; I wouldn't have laughed if it hadn't been for the conversation that sort of led to the joke, but Phillipe likes Driss. "He doesn't feel sorry for me. He always forgets I'm paralyzed.  Like when he tries to hand me the phone."  When Driss says he would die if he were ever paralyzed below the neck, Phillipe simply replies that it's pretty difficult for people like him to even die.

When Mr. Ototake, a limbless school teacher was once asked about "leg-chopping" (in Japan, each university has its own entrance exam but you're required to take the center exam (which is sort of like the SAT) and score more than a certain level to be qualified to take exams for top universities.  We say you're "leg-chopped" when a university doesn't accept your application because your center exam score isn't enough), he laughed and said, "Well, I was born leg-chopped in the first place."  Many parents with disabled children criticized this joke.  Mr. Ototake said comedians joked about their weight, their baldness, their pimpled faces.  Why couldn't he joke about his nonexistent leg?  "Why is it a taboo?  The fact that people consider it a taboo - that is what you call discrimination."

There are things in life you just shouldn't joke about.  Anyone has wounds they don't want other people to touch.  But maybe it's sometimes the worst when we feel too sorry for someone, or find him/his situation too "untouchable" that we can't even laugh when he himself is making a joke about it.