What Is It With French Canadian Women And Joan Of Arc?

Colleen Mondor has a recent post at Chasing Ray about Joan of Arc. Moi aussi! I, too, wanted to be Joan of Arc when I was little, not because I wanted to be so good that God would choose me, the way Colleen did (she is clearly a nicer person than I am; but, then, who isn't?) but because I wanted to be strong and powerful and on the side of right while I was at it.

As I say in one of my many unpublished essays, "I have always admired women who kick ass."

A very big moment in my teenage life was seeing Genevieve Bujold in a Hallmark Hall of Fame production of George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan. We French Canadian/Americans were not one of your cooler ethnic groups when I was growing up in Vermont. Yet, there, on the television while I was babysitting some Franco-American kids, was a French Canadian actress playing St. Joan, one of my favorite saints. I was glued to the set.

Fortunately, none of the six Lamoreux children raised hell or got sick that night, and I was able to enjoy Genevieve and Joan in peace.

Interestingly enough, Colleen's post regarding St. Joan is actually about writing memoirs. She says her desire to be good like St. Joan led her to try to be a good girl. She feels she should have fixated on someone who kicked ass instead of someone who got burned. (I swear, we've both used that same kick ass phrase.) But I always saw our Joan as an ass kicker. My interest in her only made me more combative.