Monday, July 26, 2010
Is this the end of the subversive humor?, by Fabien Deglise
The kings of the joke are now less caustic, less subversive, but also more consensual and soothing. Whose fault?
They may be funny, but ultimately they deceive their audience. Proof: while pretending to laugh at everything, the comedians, who seized gently Montreal for the 28th edition of Just for Laughs Festival, have tended considerably reduced in recent years, the subject and object of derision.
And that's not all: far from being offended that several rebels claim to be, those kings of the joke are now less caustic, less subversive, but also more consensual and soothing. Whose fault? With the industrialization of humor, a little, but mostly moralistic screed that arrived from left field, would have befallen our societies ... sadly for the survival of humor that strips, which disturbs and makes you think, but also for the freedom of expression, said the French journalist Martin Leprince, author of a fascinating essay on the state of humor, entitled Gone laughing. Can we still laugh when we're left? (Editions Jacob-Duvernet).
"The comedians are lying," says the other end the head of the Paris office of the regional daily Nord Eclair. Le Devoir has bothered during his vacation at the beginning of the week. "They like to portray themselves as troublemakers, the better to sell, but finally chilly artists who practice self-censorship and operates a humor that is on the marked trails. The political correctness that has invaded our societies has also polished the sphere of culture." And as far as awareness, to fight poverty, he said.
The change of tone in humor is easy to understand. It is today, "laugh at what is not funny is not only distasteful, it is an incitement to hatred," he writes in his book. "We felt the liberating laughter, able to soothe tensions. It would only worsen."
Laugh about scandal
Comedian Louis Morissette is clearly not the opposite. Last night, on stage at the Theatre Saint-Denis, he has chaired, along with his friend Jean-Francois Mercier, a gala for the Just for Laughs placed under the sign of the "scandal". The object stage thought to be aired on the TVA is replayed tonight. It refers to a little media storm in which the two comedians met in the aftermath of the presentation of Bye Bye, vintage 2008.
Reminder harm: a joke about Nathalie Simard, but also the poor and Barack Obama referred to the dark side in a parody of the show by Denis Levesque on LCN, had aroused criticism in general and Le Journal de Montreal in particular. In the first weeks of 2009, the tabloid has spent six of them controversial. Basically.
"It was clearly a chicane media was made on the backs of creators, analysis retrospectively Louis Morissette. In their obsession with us, a newspaper group has attacked the Crown corporation [CBC broadcaster of Bye Bye] to undermine his credibility and calling into question its financing. The controversy has been created from scratch to provoke reactions."
The reading of events, which is now the driving force promoting the duo that calls itself outrageous - "we knew it was going to talk", took the former Man comic - is perhaps valid. But there are certainly more, believes Martin Leprince. The last lot of comedians on the public square is induced by the guardians of mainstream values, which "like all the guardians of mainstream values, do not like that we laugh with them," he said.
But in the 1980s, "advocates of communitarianism have succeeded in imposing rectitude in the political sphere, rectitude that has since moved elsewhere," says the author. "Today, we can not laugh any more victims, religions, disabled, homosexuals without being publicly accused of xenophobia, racism, intolerance" ... or even of infamy and crime of lese-majeste, the joke is good or not.
The French comic Alévêque Christopher, who has previously blasted the boards of the House Theatre of Montreal, has also recently discovered. During a TV show, "says Mr. Leprince in his book he described as" ridiculous guys who are 40 years of rollerblading "stressing" they should have two neurons. Erreur. Error. It has unleashed the wrath of the community who started to invade his inbox messages of hatred and insulting. Roller Magazine has even threatened the comedian to "get him". Nothing less.
Not shocking to live
The proof is made. "When humor is trying to be subversive, questioning established values, we find all the ways to limit it, continues Leprince. This ultimately makes moralizing posture comedians chilly, and what to avoid trial by crowd could make them lose market share.
Because folk art, humor has become, like many other components of culture, a paying industry in which artists work as trademarks. "In this context, any comedian can not afford to be disliked by the media, said Mr. Leprince. For these cases flourish, it should shock no one and can therefore only show consensual."
The development of "a laugh that perfectly meets [the] humanistic feelings without hurting the hypocrisy," as the French journalist wrote, Quebec is no exception either with its small market where the funny must seek consensus to make a living from their art, said Louis Morissette. "Nobody comes out a winner of a controversy here." And he adds: "However, I feel that the public is always a little ahead of the media for tolerance for humor. What I read in my newspaper, this is not what I hear in my family dinners when I'm with my friends when I meet people on the street."
Martin Leprince hope elsewhere, claiming it loud and clear, as a remedy to the correctness room, "the right to laugh at people who take themselves too seriously," as Coluche, a famous comedian in his country, the often put forward. "By nature, stupidity is everywhere, right and left. We must laugh, not only in the places marked. Today, comedians, even those who say they are committed, no longer fit in opposition to the dogmas of our time. They embody these tenets." This observation certainly calls to laugh, to avoid weeping.
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# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 2:42 PM 
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