This has been a very enlightening thread. I had never even heard of the October Crisis.
When I watched that last night, I laughed my ass off. Then I stopped and said, “Oh, man, the shit’s going to hit the fan tomorrow. The offenderati are going to be out in full force over this one.”
Have you guys heard of Lenny Bruce? He was pretty offensive to a lot of people. Don Rickles, whom Triumph riffs off of, was extremely offensive to a lot of people. So was Richard Pryor. And Chris Rock. And there is a REASON for this.
Comedy is cathartic. Do you know why so much humor has to do with death, pain, dying, racism, etc? Because it’s our escape valve. Done right, it can also be enlightening and allow us to examine prejudices and fears without being overwhelmed by them.
Here’s the difference between Triumph and someone who jusst goes around attacking the French: We KNOW that Triumph doesn’t really give a shit about the French, or Star Wars geeks, or pretentious dog owners, or whatever. He’s an equal-opportunity slanderer. And our knowledge of this defuses the bite of the humor. Triumph stands outside of ALL of the petty squables, prejudices, and emotional baggage we carry. He just scampers around the outside, scratching us to see where we react. If there was just a hint that Triumph, or by extension Robert Smigel, actually believed any of the slurs he hurls around, he would instantly cross over the line and become truly offensive.
This is clearly seen with Don Rickles. When Rickles would attack Sammy Davis’ blackness, or call Frank Sinatra a Guinea goon, he could get away with it because you had this sense that the REAL Rickles didn’t believe a word of it, and in fact was probably a very decent man and a good friend of both of them. If we didn’t believe that, Rickles wouldn’t be funny.
So while Triumph’s bit was funny, it was also a pretty major miscalculation for a couple of reasons. First, he did go after a subject that was probably a little too raw to be lampooned in this way. And second, he was counting on the audience to understand the ‘schtick’ like we understand Rickles. For young hip anglo Canadians, that’s probably true. And that’s probably why most of them aren’t going to get upset about this. But the establishment in Canada and the citizens of Quebec are probably not familiar with him, and therefore will not understand the context.
Thus the shitstorm.
And to support this: see how the story has been covered in La Presse, one of the major French Canadian newspapers.
“Québécois were qualified as ‘obnoxious and dull’ people.”
No context is given, and with an introduction like that, even an explanation of the Triumph shtick will sound like excuses. Although I do think that he crossed the line with the “learn the language” comment, this type of media reaction is not good.
It should be worth noting that La Presse is considered very middle of the road.
This has proven to be a spectacular display of stupidity from all parties involved. Sigh
What the… There shouldn’t be question mark in that quote, it was a hyphen.
This reminds me very much of a story a while back involving Dame Edna Everage “insulting” Hispanics. She was talking about choosing a foreign language to learn, but that Spanish would be mainly handy talking to the “help”. A lot of people, especially who were only Spanish speakers (and I live right on the southern border), had no idea who this character was - an Australian man in drag playing a out-of-touch old bag. Instead, some of the Spanish language media reported out of context as a slur on Spanish speakers by this comedian.
I thought her…umm…his main transgression was, being Australian, perhaps not really aware of the history behind these sorts of comments or stereotypes in parts of the United States. To him/her it was simply an innocuous ethnic joke. Conan’s people probably were guilty of the same thing. The “French” are seen as a safe target in the United States because they are considered “white”, “first world”, and not seen as a target of prior discrimination as say Blacks, or even Hispanics and Jews.
That makes sense, syncrolecyne.
Wow this thread has exploded.
BTW did any of the Canadians (who were insulted) participating in the thread view the Star Wars clip linked early on?
Did it change anyone’s mind about the sketch?
ps, for those asking if he insults other minorities in that sketch alone when a guy in a Star Wars outfit basically threatens to eat him he asks “What are you a Korean guy under that suit?”
I’m not going to get embroiled in the Triumph thing. I think it was stupid and insulting and a very lame attempt at trying to be funny but it missed the mark by a wide margin. I understand my views are not everyones and that some would find it funny, but really… it missed it’s target. The Star Wars geeks on the other hand was just hilarious.
Now on to stuff that I want to address.
Cultural identity doesn’t always go with speaking a language. In some places it really does so though, such as the Quebecois and even often in the Ukranian families in Alberta. For Canadian’s cultural identity is a BIG thing, it can be seen often by just going to the Heritage festivals in the summer where they set up pavillions and people share their cultures with others. Our culture is a part of us, often no matter how far back our ancestors got off the boat be it 1720 or 1920.
Myself for instance, I often say that I’m Scottish, despite it being a bit since my ancestors came off the boat (1801). Go to Nova Scotia, damn near everyone is Scottish and they have festivals pretty much every weekend during the summer celebrating this. Newfoundland is predominantly Irish and they have their own traditions (Mummers, though I don’t know how common that is anymore), Alberta is Ukranian, Quebec is French and so on and so forth. You get the idea.
We see ourselves as a blend of cultures, rather than the ‘melting pot’ the US is. It’s how we do things up here.
It’s not surprising really, remembering my so-called ‘French’ classes. We started taking them in Grade 4, up to Grade 6 and it pretty much stopped there until we got to High School and could choose to take it. All I remember is doing a LOT of naming things such as clothing and colours, word searches and watching Back to the Future dubbed in French. The best I can say I remember, and still know what it means, from those classes is Bonjour, Au revoir, excusé moi and the smattering I picked up just because I heard them all over the place and on TV shows like Today’s Special and Sesame Street (Merci beaucoup) or singing songs such as Freré Jacques. Please excuse any spelling mistakes, I’m a dumb anglo.
Plus if the idea towards learning French is anything like my Fathers was (and is), well I’m amazed I learned even that. I distinctly recall him almost having me removed from those so-called classes in elementary until I begged him not to. I would actually prefer to know more personally, despite the fact that I may never really use it. It’s good to know a second language and especially the official one of our country!
As I was once told, and it makes a really good point. Despite our ‘official’ status as a bilingual country, the only TRUE bilingual province is New Brunswick. Not everyone, but a good portion of that province speaks both English and French with ease and no one seems to care either one way or the other over what you speak (at least enough to get in the news). Now if all the provinces could get that way, I think we’d be much better off.
I may not know a LOT of the history of Canada (more of a general overview… thanks so much school) but I distinctly remember when learning about it in high school social class and thinking that my parents were in their 20’s when this was going on and amazed that this sort of thing could happen in Canada of all places.
And having read the whole thread now, I’m glad people have agreed to disagree and made up. Now shall we go back to our usual pit mutterings?
Uh, that IS my question. I knew there was tension in Canada about Quebec’s seceding, but I figured it was about on par with tension in the US about Washington, DC not having votes in Congress. That is, I thought it wasn’t a particularly heated issue except for a very few diehards. Is there any rational reason for the friction, or is this just proof that Canadians don’t get to mock US nationalism any longer? I mean, holy shit, I thought there was jingoism down in my country.
Seriously, would someone be willing to give this ignorant Yankee a crash-course in the causes of this tension? Do Francophones eat their bread butter-side-down or something?
Hear, hear. This thread makes me understand all too appallingly well how horrible some Francophones and some Anglophones in Canada treat each other – but it is absurd autovictimization to claim that one side’s oppression has been equivalent to Tibetan’s, or to African Americans, or to (are you fucking kidding me?) German Jews during Hitler’s reign. Show me the routine lynchings in your history, the riots in which whole Francophone/Anglophone communities were slaughtered, the legalized murder of people considered property, and I’ll acquiesce to the African-American comparisons. Otherwise, spare me.
What I’m hearing so far, and I do welcome anyone who wants to argue otherwise, is that people are getting vicious toward one another over fairly insignificant and surmountable differences. IMO, raw humor is a great way to deal with such disgraceful behavior. When Triumph shouts, “Learn the language!” the only people who should be offended are people who have shouted that themselves: it’s the bigots who are being lampooned. People who have been discriminated against are getting to see a caricature of the stupidest arguments of those who have discriminated against them, get to see the same arguments usually spouted by a hateful asshole spouted instead by a silly puppet.
I don’t think y’all are unenlighted if you don’t find it funny. But fertheloveagod, understand that even in-context this kind of humor is not vicious or foolish; this kind of humor is a good idea.
Daniel
The Star Wars thing is fucking hilarious. I’m not normally a big Triumph fan, but that was just great. Is the Quebec one online yet? Because I bet I’ll laugh at that too, if for no other reason than knowing some people are making way too much out of it.
I completely understand that there are some issues that are too touchy to be joked about. While it’s easy to point out cultural absurdities in another country, it’s not so easy to recognize, and laugh at, cultural absurdities in our own.
So if you want to call O’Brien’s skit ill-conceived, okay. However, and this is key to me, O’Brien doesn’t routinely try and hurt people’s feelings. There are some comedians who have an edge of hostility in their act; O’Brien is not one of them. In fact, he seems to me to be a genuinely benevolent, likeable soul. So before you stone him, consider the source and what his intentions were. If you don’t think his intentions were malicious then to me that means that immediately following your indignation should be your willingness to forgive.
Now, had someone like Dennis Miller made the comments, I’d say he was aiming right for your weak spot and you’d have reason to hold a grudge.
Holy crap! I got busy and this thread grew to four pages???
Totally agree with you Pundit. Overall, as a (granted non-offended) Canadian, I think it’s no big deal. O’Brien’s production team should have done a touch more research first, but it’ll all blow over just fine. I doubt anyone is going to stone him. No one will hold a grudge.
Analogy:
You can yell “Bloody hell!” in the U.S. and no one will bat an eye.
Go to the U.K and yell “Bloody hell!” and the reaction will be quite different.
Same kind of scenario.
While Americans don’t see the big deal, some segments of Canadian audiences will say “uh-oh, he shouldn’ta done that.” It would have been prudent to doublecheck with a local media-folks about how some stuff would fly, but given the spur-of-the-moment nature of Triumph, that’s hard to do.
No one will care in a week. The headlines made it sound like Conan O’Brien was doing some kind of offensive stand-up routine that lambasted French Canadians – stupid newspapers love a sensation. When you read the story and find out is was a dog puppet who is supposed to be offensive, you get a different spin.
While politicians may jump up and down a bit, most folks are smart enough to realize it was just a dumb puppet and won’t hold a grudge.
Person A: “Hey!! How dare they come here and make such slurs!!”
Person B: “It was a puppet…”
Person A: “How could they insult our heritage???”
Person B: “…like Ed the Sock.”
Person A: “Huh?.. Oh… Well… Ed the Sock would have known better. grumble”
Lesson learned, I think. U.S./Canadian visitors take it for granted that we are so similar in so many ways, it’s easy to forget that there are a few pronounced cultural differences here and there. It is possible to stick your foot in your mouth with a cultural faux pas.
Yes. I notice this effect every time I visit Chinatown. Hell, most of my customers have such a large population of various asians that you hear more Chinese dialects and Korean than you hear English when lunch time rolls around, or even in the labs themselves. And language represents a very easy way to achieve a cultural identity since it is naturally exclusive: if I don’t speek Mandarin, I’m not invited. That’s fine, as far as I’m concerned, but having a cultural identity is not an excuse for willfully ignoring the facts of their existence: they live in a predominantly English-speaking country, and (to varying degrees of success) speak English because of it. They are welcome to identify themselves how they see fit, especially so in matters of exclusion (language barriers, customary behavior, etc). But I don’t think it is reasonable to demand, for example, that all government employees in Massachusetts, Chicago, or San Fransisco speak Cantonese just because they want to assert their minority status. A cultural identity is not a shield to hide behind; assuming various traits and behaviors confers responsibilities as well as other things. The governments here make an effort to accomodate the various minorities. I’d imagine the minorities make an effort to accomodate the facts of their situation.
Unreservedly true. But I find it less than pragmatic to insist that wherever they are must accomodate their culture. Canada is a large, successful, independent country with its own quirks and, sure, culture. Quebec is not the arbiter of this standard.
Would anyone from Quebec consider it “reasonable” that, as an American, I should speak English, a dialect of Chinese, and Spanish conversationally? That I should be compelled to do so because America has large populations of these people? Honestly, I need to try to relate to this issue to understand it. Can the idea be transferred, or is the idea itself exclusive in that no one but someone from Quebec could understand it in the first place?
as far as insulting sock puppets go, ed the sock is much funnier than triumph. triumph is soooo lame. now, ed – ed’s got edge.
I think a lot of the present upset is based on thinking of Canada as an English country with some quaint French-speaking backwaters somewhere around Lac Saint-Jean. There’s some basic numerical difficulty with that (about a quarter of the population speaks French as a first language, and Montreal is Canada’s second biggest city - it was the biggest up until the 70s).
The French were the first Europeans to settle here, and built a small society that would evolve in a very different direction from France. Even after the Conquest up until around the late 19th century, Canada was planned on the idea that it was a population of English- and French-speakers. Being under British rule didn’t aim to change that. The British originally considered assimilation, but the British governors refused to implement it: they recalled the Bishop of Quebec and allowed the legal and seigneurial system to continue, which was one of the grievances listed in the American Declaration of Independence.
Lord Durham, after the 1837 Mackenzie-Papineau responsible government revolts, advocated the assimilation of the French-Canadians, but it didn’t work; the fusion into the Province of Canada that was supposed to effect this wasn’t stable. Negotiations that led to the formation of Canada always involved both British and French Canadians. Consider: Lafontaine and Baldwin, MacDonald and Cartier.
What it is is that French-Canadians have been living in Canada in French for the last four hundred years, and want at all costs to go on living in with their language and culture. French-Canadians were partners in founding Confederation; but they’ve been feeling the rug being slowly pulled out of them, first by growing British Empire mentality, then by the influence of the States.
I find it less than pragmatic myself, and for the most part Canadians don’t insist on everyone accomodating their culture. But with Quebec the waters are really murky, with everything that’s happened over time.
I don’t know, because I’m not from Quebec. But I would venture that they wouldn’t consider it reasonable.
The main difference with that and the idea in Quebec is that we are an officially bilingual country, so theoretically everyone should be able to speak English and French with an equal ease. Unfortunately theory hasn’t panned out in the real world (and maybe if the French classes weren’t such a joke it might be slightly closer to theory.)
I don’t know how true this is, but I seem to recall that you are supposed to be able to get a translator in any major language if you want to do business with government personell. That’s the goverment though, not out in the rest of the world.
I also don’t know how transferable the idea is. Unless you live in a country that is officially bilingual, I suspect that it would be hard for most to understand (and looking at all the responses it is). I honestly can’t think up an example that would work.
For those curious I found a few short (very short) things on the FLQ crisis, the Referendum 1980 and the [url=“http://fc.lbpsb.qc.ca/~history/m7u5l1.htm”]language debate. The last link also leads to stuff on the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords, and the 1995 Referendum all of which might give a little insight to things. It’s a really quick read so you aren’t wading through tons of history, the links are from a school board in Dorval, Quebec.
As a final point, “O Canada” was written for the Saint-Jean-Baptiste society, and the word “Canada” comes from the Huron (IIRC) word Kanata, meaning village, and referring to Stadacona, which was located at the site of Quebec City.
There’s a big difference… Best explained by someone else right now 'cause I’m not feeling very wordy. Look here:
(bolding mine)
oh, and umm – anything arrogant coming out of toronto is fine by me… that’s their reputation. (yeah yeah, conan’s american. but he was catering to a toronto crowd… and besides i won’t generalize a whole country.) did anyone else see the premiere of “rick mercer’s monday report”? there was that bit about arrogant torontonians… whether it’s true or not, one thing is sure: canada loves to hate toronto. we taunt. we mock. in return, they ignore us from their pedestal of torontiness. it’s all good.
i’m a franco-ontarian, and my dad’s family is pure québécois… i suppose i could be insulted by those comments, but i’m not. it’s just comedy. plus, making fun of québec is nothing new or shocking. neither is america-bashing. so i don’t care.
Messed up the links Referendum 1980 and Language Debate.
matt there seems to have put it better than I could. I really need to do some reading and stuff on more Canadian history. It never was my forte and I fear I have forgotten all I learned in school.