Great, now explain how:
“Telling a fat guy to separate from donuts” is racism. Is it possible that Conan didn’t know if he was a separatist or not, and just made a joke about separatism in general, knowing it was an issue in the news?
Or do you honestly think they sat around a table and said “how can we really drive a nail into the heart of the separatists?”
The complete loss of your sense of humor. That a comment made by a late night talk show host’s skit causes you to be an even more ferocious separatist than before. You see absolutely no light side of your issues.
A joke about separatism isn’t necessarily racism, it’s just in bad taste. Telling a Frenchie to speak English is racism. I never meant to describe FC’s as a race, but rather an ethnic group (i.e. a large group of people classed according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin or background [from M-W dict]), and I made the mistake of using the word racist rather than ethnicist(?).
I’m not a Montrealer.
Making fun of me can cause offense or hurt feelings to my supporters (a small but sexy group). I think the issue here is one of taste. There is a centuries-old issue between Canadian Anglos and Francos which has never been resolved. Like a civil war, but on a much lower level.
I think it would be offensive if someone said “Americans are headed for record joblessness because they’re stupid, fat, arrogant, etc.”, but what you’re talking about is humour directed against a head of state (a bungling head of state, no less, sorry if that offends you). Are you just practising rhetoric, or do you really not understand the difference?
These insults aren’t about location, they’re about culture. The most offensive one is the “speak English” ‘joke’, and that pisses me off because it’s suggesting an invalidity of someone’s culture. “Hey, you stupid rednecks, learn to speak English properly!” is almost as bad, but not as bad because Southerners haven’t been pressured forcibly to give up their accents throughout American history. (Forgive me if I get something wrong; I don’t know much American history).
I’m beginning to feel less annoyed and more sorry, myself. You really don’t get it. Why don’t you go to Germany, start making insulting Nazi jokes to people, and see how it goes over. That’s your analogy in the toilet. If you give it a good rinse you may be able to use it again sometime.
Folks who are having a hard time getting where matt is coming from would understand a whole lot better if they knew how deep the tensions between English and French Canada are.
It’s natural that you would expect it to be received the same way that it would go down if Triumph went to Wisconsin and made a lot of crass jokes about cheese-eaters, but the difference is that there’s no deep national divisions between Wisconsin and the “Rest of the United States.” (RUS)
Hell, it’s easy even for Canadians to be largely insulated from and unaware of just how fragile the situation is. I remember visiting my father towards the end of the 90s, and noting that he seemed to be obsessed with every development out of Kosovo. He was glued to satellite news constantly. When I asked him what he was so interested, he told me that it was because he considered it a “preview” of what we could expect in Montreal in the coming years. Of course, this seemed completely delusional to me. Yeah, English-French relations can be pretty strained, but civil war? Ludicrous.
The thing is, when I’ve brought that anecdote up in conversation since then, I’ve been surprised at how many people agree with his prognosis. Ethnic and linguistic divisions within a population can produce some insane results. Living in Western Canada, just about all I have the opportunity to see first-hand is how many, many English Canadians have absolutely no trouble heaping scorn on Quebecois, and being totally vocal and open about their discrimination in a way that they would never dream of for recent immigrants.
Making jokes about changing French-language signage to derisive English, for a program that will air on anglophone network TV, really is a bad, bad idea. Don’t equate it with the sort of digs against France and the French (those waiters are so impolite, haw, haw!) that are a staple of unimaginative comedians everywhere. This is extremely volatile.
Oh, but they’re only signs, right? What’s the big deal? Some people can get really worked up about signage. Of course, that’s an isolated and extreme example, but it’s an indicator. Maybe my old man wasn’t quite as much as a raving loonie as I pegged him as. Language tensions can fuck up a community. I’ve seen plenty of irrational antagonism toward French Canadians, and there is bitter resentment and simmering grievances in many quarters. I doubt that it will ever flare up into anything that could be compared to the Balkans, but at the same time I feel no need to throw gasoline on the fire.
That being said, I probably wouldn’t fret too much about Triumph slagging on French Canada if I had seen it-- but then, for the most part the problem of Canada’s Two Solitudes is pretty remote to me here in Vancouver. I imagine that I would see it in a different light if I lived in Montreal. It’s not the same thing as taking the piss out of Star Wars geeks. Not at all.
There’s a real divide between anglophones and francophones in Canada, and it’s something that needs to be approached with a degree of caution. It may seem petty and trivial, but it’s close to the bone here.
Which is, as ever, complete bullshit unless all those Irish surnames in Quebec sprung out of some pure laine’s groin by mistake. The idea of a common Quebec stock is offensive on so many levels it makes this sock puppet a joke. Are Haitian immigrants Quebecers? No? How about all those Anglos? I mean the ones that didn’t get driven out of the province. How about all those Greeks and Italians? What you have is a smaller core of your “Quebecers” surrounded by layers of Canadian immigrants that live in Quebec. The history is not necessarily shared; the language is not necessarily shared though the paranoid delusions of various cultural departments see no problem in force indoctrinating new comers. I’ve lived there and I understand, to an extent, the fear of assimilation but I’ve never agreed with your description of a “Quebecer”.
As to you’re “most hated minority in Ontario” I call bullshit. Lets have some cites backing that up.
Uh huh…
It strikes close to home. Close to my identity. It’s hard to keep a sense of humor in those circumstances. I’ll be the first to laugh about growing up in the “ruelles” of french canada - and seeing those “pairs of arms” come out of the “galleries” when the moms would call us in for supper and grab us by the ear if we didn’t move…
However, I don’t think that his schtick is meant to make the targetted people laugh. It’s meant to make others whom this doesn’t affect laugh. It makes us dig our heels in deeper.
I’m know there are topics in YOUR life that would be too close to home to joke about. They’d be funny to someone else, but they wouldn’t be to you.
Jar, I started off on your side of this thread but by now I think you’re not doing yourself much good.
It seems to me that you’re not trying to understand the issue from both points of view, and rather digging in your heels and saying “He’s just a dog puppet making jokes! They’re funny! Laugh! God, you people have no senses of humor! Buy one at K-Mart!” and, deliberately or not, ignoring the reasons why some people consider this offensive.
I think Triumph is generally funny, but I also realize that there are things about me, my family, my personality, my nation, my race, my religion, or even my dog that I don’t think is funny at all. Even if the joke were to come from someone known for skewering everyone, I doubt I’d laugh at it.
Hm. Elenfair and I posted effectively the same posts, mere minutes apart.
I think this is proof that those who said the Vulcan mind-meld portion of our wedding ceremony was meaningless were WRONG.
I agree with you completely. Well, except the last sentence. Good, understanding, contextual humor? Good for the situation. Really, really bad jokes with a tone of intolerance? Bad for the situation.
And whoever likes Triumph, that’s fine. The issue now is why it’s offensive, I think, not whether or not he’s funny.
I think we need to make a distinction here. I do this by calling everyone who lives in Quebec a Quebecer, and those who are french-canadian “Quebecois”.
We’re talking about the french-canadian Quebecois here, not the whole population. Guess what, us anglos aren’t sitting here biting our nails worrying about the fate of Quebecois culture.
Oh for the love of Christ. I brought up NAZI jokes SPECIFICALLY because that is my hotbutton issue. Being of German heritage, my maiden last name DOMINATING a town in central Germany, I get insulted by NAZI jokes. I DON’T MAKE THEM. I brought it up because of Elenfair saying the french in quebec are the last stereotype that are acceptable to make fun of, as if everyone else in the world gets along with everyone else and we’re just ganging up on Quebec.
Welcome to the world. Everyone hates everyone for some reason, thus the creation of Triumph, who plays off every stereotype in the BOOK.
Also, please notice i never said whether I thought the ‘learn to speak the language joke’ was funny.
My initial hostile reaction was to the joke about a fat man separating from donuts as “treading on very dangerous waters” as Eats Crayons said. Seems a TAD of an over reaction.
And to lno and Elen, Yes I understand it hits close to home for you. There are issues, like German heritage that hit close to home for ME. I don’t think Montrealians are being Singled out like Elen suggested as the last acceptable group to make fun of. I think everyone on this planet is fair game. No one’s going to put up a sign that says “WE CAN MAKE FUN OF EVERYONE EXCEPT MONTREAL” Look, some humor appeals to some and not others, doesn’t make us less human. Remember, Elen said people who like Triumph are twits a few posts back.
And THAT offended ME. So you see we could go on for hours this way.
Well, I said we were one of the prime targets for having rights walked on.
As for cites: Go read:
“Montfort - La lutte d’un peuple”, by Michel Graton, published last November I believe
Along the same lines:
http://www.amlfc.com/Articles/1999_01_01.html
Inform yourself about schools, the history and regulation 17
http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/amnord/ontario_reglement17.htm
http://www.francoidentitaire.ca/ontario/rese/resecor2.htm
Go read the publications by senator Jean-Robert Gauthier on the subject of franco-ontarian battles for linguistic rights.
Go read the reports on school achievement put together by the University of Queens (study on the double cohort - my list may be incomplete on authors but it includes: M. King, A. King, J.-C. Boyer and W. Warren) which has extensive sections about franco-ontarian assimilation and cultural identity.
Look up references about what happened with Sault Ste. Marie. Look up quotes from Mike Harris about francophones just needing to return to Quebec. Look up the proposed restructuring regarding governmental services in French.
As Sen. J.R. Gauthier told me in a letter a few years ago, when the battle for Monfort was going strong: Nous en avons plein l’coeur. I guess that’s where I stand too.
I don’t care what the freakin’ puppet said. I do care about my cultural identity being attacked and being told it’s funny and that it’s ok.
Dave answer was tongue in Cheek, I’ll try and explain.
Canada is a bilingual counrty. It became bilingual in order for the French to not have their language lost. French is taught in all(most) schools all across Canada.
This is something the French have insisted on having, not the English.
I can’t speak for Dave but I think his point was that it doesn’t look like the French are the innocent victims in this either. There is harsh hatred and bigotry from both sides.
There is a Heritage Minute that depicts Irish orphans being adopted by French families and being allowed to keep their last names.
Just sayin’.
Jar, and I mean this in the least confrontational way possible, you may want to start making a distinction between Montreal/Montrealers and Quebec/Quebecers. Montreal is not always representative of all Quebec, not are all Montrealers Quebecois etc.
You really don’t get it, do you? Don’t you have any concept of cultural context whatsoever? You may be “of German heritage” (the significance of that statement differing, of course, with the details of your heritage), but the history of Nazi Germany is not ingrained in your culture as it is in German culture.
I and others think that it’s tasteless and offensive to go to Quebec and make these jokes. You don’t.
Do you think that it would be tasteless and offensive for him to go to Germany and make analogous Nazi jokes?
The context of a joke makes a huge difference. This wouldn’t be nearly as offensive if the jokes were made in the States. Please try to understand.
Oh for god’s sake, positing the existence of a Québécois ethnicity is not the same thing you’re describing, and it’s not a racist act.
As the word is generally understood here, a Quebecer is a person who lives in Quebec, whereas ancestry deriving from French-Canadians in Quebec is Québécois ancestry. (At least in English. In French, the word Québécois has the two meanings. Je suis Québécois, but I’m not Québécois, I’m a Quebecer.)
That said, you (and the Globe and Mail article, regrettably) are conflating Quebecer with Québécois. Referring to the Québécois ethnicity is not the same thing as saying that everyone who lives in Quebec is (or should be) of common ancestry.
To my way of thinking, there obviously is a Québécois ethnicity, which I do not acquire simply by virtue of living in Quebec and being able to speak French.
Look at it this way: if I moved to Catalonia and learned to speak Catalan, I would not become Catalan. I would still be a Canadian of Scottish, Bohemian, German, and Korean descent. If I married a Catalan woman (okay, this isn’t such the best example) and we had kids, the kids would be of Catalan (and Canadian, Scottish, etc.,) descent.
For the same reason, the Irish surnames you mention apparently belong to people who are of Québécois and Irish descent. That’s indeed why the “pure laine” idea is stupid: very few people in Canada are pure anything. That doesn’t mean that no ethnicities exist, or that people aren’t entitled to identify with the ethnicity they want.
Furthermore, if Tom and I moved to Catalonia and adopted a Cambodian orphan, the kid would be of Cambodian ethnicity, and have a British, Canadian, and Catalan cultural heritage.
Likewise, I’m in the process of acquiring a Québécois cultural heritage. I would think it would be very unfair if someone said I didn’t belong in this province because I am not ethnically Québécois. That would be extreme ethnic prejudice. But it’s not the same thing as saying that I am not Québécois, which is true.
Canada is a multi-ethnic country, and Quebec is a multi-ethnic province: one of those ethnicities is Québécois.
(Jesus. Does any other ethnicity get so much static when it attempts to demonstrate that it exists?)
P.S. Although I agree with many of the things Elenfair said, she’s wrong to suggest that French-Canadians are the Canadian minority that has suffered the most racism. I would argue that that’s been the First Peoples, myself. But French-Canadians have indeed had more than their share.
I say a bad investment. Sure it may increase tourism a bit, but it will cause problems when Quebecois see Ontarians yukking it up at their expense. Then we’ll need more hundreds of millions (with the appropriate amount skimmed off the top of course) to promote federalism in Quebec.
Ah… it seems I misread and misunderstood Weirddave’s post. Thanks.
And I agree. There’s hatred and bigotry surrounding the issue on all sides.
kung fu lola, I know, I was trying to object to the idea of “common stock”.
As for Quebecois, how far back do you need to be? First or second generation? Third perhaps? Maybe you need to have roots back to the conscription crisis? No? How about ancestors that came from the King’s Maids maybe? What about French speakers that immigrate to Canada and settle in Mont-Saint-Hilaire? They have no Quebecois culture to speak of.
As to no Anglo influence on “Quebec” culture? Again, bullshit. There has always been a back and forth influencing of cultures between the two groups. The newer influence of the Allophones has done nothing for Quebec culture? Nothing again? Quebec is all just sugar pie, tortier and pure laines? Quebec is a deeply complex place in confederation yet it is also living proof that two historically antagonistic ethnicities can peacefully (more or less) exist for over 200 years together in a single nation state. Proof that Yugoslavian blood letting does not have to happen simply because of linguistic and “racial” differences.
I object to the cowardly withdrawal behind linguistic walls to “preserve a culture”. A healthy one reaches out and embraces change and by subsuming itself exceeds itself. I mean this as much for the ROC as for Quebec.
And my French spelling is atrocious. Sorry about that, and teh hijack