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Posted Sunday, April 14, 2002; 15.05GMT
Jamel Debbouze, 26
Comic Actor
Jamel Debbouze will never be accused of producing the performing arts'
version of elevator music. A master of rapid-fire improvisation and
artful use of French banlieue slang, Jamel (as France's hottest pop
icon is universally known) mines his staccato repartee with intentional
mispronunciations, truncations and the risible neologisms of an overexcited
speaker. (His trademark tick of mangling soccer hero Zinedine Zidane's
name as "Zimadime Zimdame" has entered the popular French lexicon.)
Since his 1995 launch as an improv act on radio and stage, Jamel has
taken his talents to television (including the hit Canal Plus sitcom
H) and film (he's the beset grocer's assistant Lucien in Le Fabuleux
Destin d'Amélie Poulain, and the show-stealing Egyptian architect
Numérobis in Asterix and Obelix: Mission Cleopatra). While
those comic-book heroes represent France's Gallic past, Jamel reflects
the nation's modern multicultural face. Born in Paris to Moroccan
parents and raised in the disaffected suburb of Trappes, Jamel playfully
incarnates the ethnic Arab-French citizen that the nation —
and the media — once preferred to ignore. "If my work helps
French people everywhere understand and embrace the humor and language
of the banlieues, that's a small step toward closing the huge gap,"
he says. "My success is also a sign that humor and talent are universal,
and capable of crossing social divisions — and international
borders."
BRUCE CRUMLEY
Loana Petrucciani,
24
Singer-Model
Loana Petrucciani is taking time out from promoting the follow-up
to her hit single Comme Je T'Aime at the bar of a posh Paris hotel.
A year ago, she was sharing a tiny one-room flat with her mother in
Nice. Then she saw an ad on TV seeking single youngsters aged 18 to
24 for a game show, and her life changed. "I wasn't chosen because
I was particularly gifted but just because I was myself," she says.
"It's probably the first time that's happened in France." The ad was
for Loft Story, the French version of Big Brother, which outraged
the nation's establishment when it was broadcast last May. Despite
drawing fire from the TV regulator — which ruled that it failed
to respect human rights — Loft Story was watched by 94% of French
15- to 24-year-olds, and turned Loana into a national icon. "The cast
ranged from immigrants to the upper classes, so all young people could
identify with it," says Loana. In a country where youth culture is
still often viewed as a contradiction in terms, that was an innovation.
"France is a hard place for a young person to make it," says Loana.
"There are a lot of them aiming for a very small number of places."
With her own production company and a burgeoning career as a singer
and model, Loana has claimed one of those places for herself. It's
proof that today's French kids are determined to get their own 15
minutes of fame.
NICHOLAS LE QUESNE
Virginie Despentes,
32
Writer-Director
Virginie Despentes didn't set out to be a writer. "I always thought
the classy thing to be was a singer or a guitarist," she says. Indeed,
having dropped out of school at 16, she hardly seemed destined for
success in the pompous world of French letters. But Despentes got
her education elsewhere. "Between the ages of 12 and 22, my training
came from punk rock," she recalls. "It was a school of disobedience."
And she graduated with honors. With three successful novels and one
notorious feature film under her belt, the 32-year-old publishes her
fourth novel — Teen Spirit — this month. Stylistically,
Despentes' key innovation has been to write French the way young urban
losers talk it. In tradition-bound France, that has provoked howls
of disapproval. "There are lots of things we like when they come from
the U.S., but not when they come from here," Despentes explains. "France
is a very élitist place. The assumption is that uneducated
people don't have the right to speak." That sort of talk goes against
the grain, but Despentes will go on speaking out. She's wasn't a punk
for nothing
NICHOLAS LE QUESNE
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