Freedom Fries and Political Socialization: A Childhood Memory

Introduction: Political Socialization and a Childhood Memory

There are a large number of political socialization agents for any individual, including the media, the family, and the school environment. As a child, I can remember one particular example that involved all three of these agents in helping me form a political impression. What was most vivid to me, however, was a sense of complete absurdity and unreality — although I imagine that most people who still recall the events I am thinking about would probably agree with this assessment. In order to recall this political episode from 2003–2004, it is only necessary to remember two words: "Freedom Fries." Anyone who recalls those two words will probably recognize the episode I am describing, but I would like to recount how these political impressions struck me as a small child.

The Cafeteria Incident and the First Encounter with 'Freedom Fries'

I know exactly how I first encountered the term. It was in 2003, and French Fries were being served in the elementary school cafeteria. I was waiting in line and said to a friend, "I'll eat your French Fries if you don't want them," or something similar. A boy ahead of us in line said, "Don't call them that." I asked why, and he said, "You're supposed to call them Freedom Fries." My friend and I laughed as if he were joking, and he said, angrily, "I'm serious. You just haven't heard about it yet."

When I got home from school, I asked my parents whether it was true that we were no longer supposed to call French Fries by that name. My parents did know what I was talking about. They explained that America wanted to invade a country called Iraq and was asking other countries to join the effort as allies. One of those countries was France, but France had declined, believing the invasion was a bad idea. For that reason, some Americans felt the French were cowardly, and argued that we should stop using the word "French" in terms like French Fries or French Toast.

I also remember something else I thought during that conversation — something I kept to myself. I had heard the act of kissing with your tongue, still very much a taboo subject in elementary school, referred to as "French Kissing," and I remember thinking: Are we supposed to call that Freedom Kissing now? I can't ask my parents because I don't want them to know I know what French Kissing is. These strange feelings of embarrassment accompanied my overall sense that something very odd was happening in the country.

An elementary school student may not know much about American history, but I did recall having learned that the French were America's allies during the American Revolution, and I had completed a school project about the Statue of Liberty. That symbolism actually occurred to me, even as a child: the Statue of Liberty is one of America's most recognizable symbols of freedom, and it had been given to America by France as a gift. If there was any country in my imagination that resembled America in its ideas about political freedom, it was France. Now, suddenly, France was supposed to be a country that "hated our freedoms"? I put that phrase in quotation marks because it was in wide circulation around this same time — in 2003 and 2004 — as a way of describing Al Qaeda or Saddam Hussein. America's enemies, particularly those who were Muslim, were said to be motivated because they "hated our freedoms." But the French didn't hate our freedoms. They simply did not think that invading Iraq was a good idea.

Family, Media, and the Discovery of Fox News

I remember the issue of "Freedom Fries" puzzled me because I did not want to refer to French Fries that way. I thought it was ridiculous, and I asked my parents whether we had to call them that. They said no — we could still call them French Fries. They pointed out that McDonald's and Burger King were not using the term; the menu at McDonald's still said "French Fries." They did explain that the name had been changed on the menus in the congressional cafeterias on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., which was apparently the actual event that sparked this brief, strange moment in America's political culture.

My parents were familiar with the news story, but they also noted that the people promoting this change watched a different news channel from the one our family watched. I am fairly certain this was my first exposure to the idea of Fox News, and to the notion that what is broadcast on Fox News can sometimes differ wildly from what is broadcast on CNN, MSNBC, or the nightly news. I got the distinct impression from my parents' explanation that the boy in the cafeteria had parents who watched a different network. This was somewhat shocking to me, because I still believed that the news was simply the news — a list of facts that happened every day — and I did not understand why changing the channel would change those facts.

But this gave me a workable explanation for what had happened in the cafeteria. The boy who said "Freedom Fries" had parents who watched the wrong television network, and they had received the wrong facts. They thought France was somehow an enemy of America — whereas if they had learned as much about the Statue of Liberty as I had, they would know that France was actually a champion of freedom and a historical American ally. My parents, however, did not hold strong opinions about the Iraq War. They expressed little opinion either way, though they were clearly unsettled by the idea that I might be confronted by other children over something political that they themselves found silly and meaningless. I suspect that if McDonald's had changed its menu to say "Freedom Fries," my parents would simply have gone along with it.

Conclusion: Cynicism, Groupthink, and the War on Abstract Nouns

In 2015 — given the terrorist atrocities in France related to the Charlie Hebdo attack and then the Bataclan Theatre massacre — we recognize that the French have undergone the same kind of terror attacks that America experienced on 9/11. The idea of publicly mocking France in 2015 would actually undercut the very political ideology that wants Americans to think in terms of a permanent "clash of civilizations" or an unending war with the Islamic world. Yet public mockery of France in 2003–2004 was used to bolster commitment to that same ideology. To remember the earlier moment from the vantage point of 2015 is to invite a certain kind of cynicism about the darker forms of groupthink that can be used to motivate wars — especially unending wars waged against abstract nouns, like the "War on Terror." Perhaps what I ultimately learned from this episode is a deep distrust of abstract nouns, born from recognizing the ugly political work being done by the word "Freedom" in "Freedom Fries."