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Publié le 29 septembre 2009 à 13:40
Par Élyse
Posted: September 29, 2009, 11:30 AM by NP Editor
Radio-Canada's Bye Bye cancelled for absolutely no reason Full Comment, Kelly McParland, Barack Obama If you believe this, I have some Nigerian e-mail fraudsters I'd like to introduce you to : The traditional satirical year-end-review show Bye Bye will not be returning to Radio-Canada Television this year. Yesterday, the Frenchlanguage public broadcaster announced its programming for the evening of Dec. 31, and Bye Bye is not part of the lineup. The executives at Radio-Canada insisted it was not cut as a result of the controversy surrounding last year's Bye Bye, which elicited a slew of complaints about controversial sketches involving U. S. President Barack Obama, Quebecois singer and child-abuse victim Nathalie Simard and other prominent celebrities and politicians. The CRTC broadcast watchdog recently slammed Radio-Canada for airing the show. All the other programs from last year's Dec. 31 lineup are returning.
No, seriously ... we just felt it was time to make some programming decisions. Having *** dropped on our heads from extreme altitudes had nothing to do with it.
Kelly McParland
 
Publié le 29 avril 2009 à 11:10
Par Élyse
Apr 29, 2009 10:38 AM
Cirque rolls with recession punches  HANDOUT PHOTO Cirque du Soleil's OVO show. THEATRE CRITIC
With Sin City in a slump and the recession weakening most Asian markets, the indefatigable Cirque du Soleil is shifting its focus to the Big Apple, where the entertainment scene is showing no apparent signs of decay.
In an article in today's New York Times, Cirque revealed its plans to: Continue its yearly Christmas production, Wintuk, at Madison Square Garden; begin a new hopefully annual residency at the Beacon Theatre on the Upper West Side next February; and become the summer tenant of Radio City Music Hall for four months each year starting in 2011.
All of this will serve to take the sting out of several recent economic setbacks for the Montreal-based juggernaut, which include the cancellation of a second show in Macau and the postponement of a permanent home in Dubai.
And while Cirque's shows are down a total of 7 per cent in Las Vegas, that seems mild compared to the 20 per cent decline in tourism being quoted for the city as a whole. And in all other markets, Cirque's revenues are up 7 per cent.
Guy Laliberté, Cirque's founder and leading figure (whose personal wealth was recently estimated by Forbes as $2.5 billion U.S.) is quoted as saying: "we've gone through three recessions in Cirque history and they've all been growth periods for us."
The show scheduled for the Beacon Theatre is tentatively titled Vaudeville and will be directed by David Shiner, with an original score by Laurence O'Keefe, who wrote the musicals Legally Blonde and Bat Boy. It will preview for several months in Chicago this fall.
The Star has received reliable reports that the Radio City Music Hall project will in all probability be a reworking of the variety-based show that popular entertainer René Simard had been preparing for this summer's opening of a new venue in Macau.
That show has since been cancelled because the hotel that was to house it is no longer being built due to recessionary cutbacks.
The plan is to present that show during the summer months in New York (leaving the winter for the omnipresent Rockettes) and to move it to European capital such as London or Paris for the rest of the year.
All of this multi-venue activity in Manhattan has been caused by Cirque's failure to acquire its long-time holy grail: a permanent Gotham residence of its own.
"So instead," as Laliberté put it, "you come in by the back door, or even a window."
In Canada, Cirque opens its latest touring show, OVO, in Montreal next Wednesday, with a Toronto run scheduled for later in the summer at The Ports.
And, despite the economic downturn in Las Vegas, Cirque is still planning to open its Elvis Presley spectacular at the new MGM City Center later this year. Guy Laliberté has definitely not left the building.
Publié le 17 mars 2009 à 18:17
Par Élyse
New York, Mar 17 18:12
Cirque du Soleil Says Dubai Investors Will Hold Stake (Update1)
By Frederic Tomesco
March 17 (Bloomberg) - Dubai’s Istithmar World and Nakheel PJSC will keep their stake in Cirque du Soleil Inc., said Daniel Lamarre, chief executive officer of the circus, amid reports that the funds are considering asset sales. “They are going through a difficult period, that’s no secret,” Lamarre told reporters today after a speech to the Montreal Board of Trade. “But investing in the Cirque is the best investment they ever made.” Istithmar Chief Executive Officer David Jackson told the Financial Times last week that the state-owned fund would consider selling some of its investments to repay some of its related companies’ debts. The report didn’t say whether the Montreal-based circus was one of those investments. A person familiar with Dubai World told Bloomberg News last month that Nakheel, a real-estate developer, needs cash to pay debt maturing this year. Istithmar may sell U.S. luxury retailer Barneys New York for less than half what it paid two years ago, four people familiar with potential bids said in February. Istithmar and Nakheel, both units of government-owned Dubai World, acquired 20 percent of the circus operator in August as part of a bid by the sheikhdom to grow as a tourism destination. Terms of the transaction weren’t disclosed at the time. “We have two partners that back us,” Lamarre said of the Dubai investors. “They trust us. It works for them. We continue to manage the company the way we managed before the deal.”
$3 Billion Valuation Forbes magazine last week said that circus founder Guy Laliberté sold the stake for $600 million, implying a value of $3 billion for the whole company. Cirque du Soleil, which employs about 4,500 people, has annual revenue of about C$800 million ($631 million). The company runs permanent shows in Las Vegas; Orlando, Florida; Tokyo; and Macau, China, as well as traveling productions that visit about 250 cities a year. In December 2006, Nakheel sold $3.52 billion of Islamic bonds that mature in 2009, Bloomberg data show. Dubai and its state entities borrowed $80 billion to finance the emirate’s transformation into the Persian Gulf’s banking and tourism hub. It’s now being stung by a drop in real-estate values and oil prices. Cirque du Soleil postponed a permanent show at the Palm Jumeirah in Dubai because of the economic slowdown. The production was supposed to open next year, and Lamarre said today the company won’t make a final decision on the timing until the end of December. Cirque du Soleil has a temporary show in Dubai, and Lamarre called early ticket sales “encouraging.”
‘Many Tourists’ “I went to Dubai in January, and I was surprised by how many tourists there are,” he said. “The economy in the Gulf states will rebound a lot earlier than anywhere else. Everyone would love to have petroleum reserves in their backyard.” China and Russia are Cirque du Soleil’s two main priorities for global expansion, Lamarre said. The company set up a permanent show in Macau last year and has begun talks with local investors about tours or other resident shows, he said. Cirque du Soleil will visit Moscow for the first time this year and may add a permanent show in two years, Lamarre said. “We’ve been getting a lot of calls from interested promoters,” he said. Lamarre said Cirque du Soleil plans two shows for New York next year: a revue at Radio City Music Hall loosely based on the Moulin Rouge, and a vaudeville-style show at the Beacon Theatre. He said the circus will collaborate with a unit of Cablevision Systems Corp., which runs both venues. Cirque du Soleil shifted the revue to New York from Macau because tourism revenue in the Chinese city has grown more slowly than anticipated, Lamarre said. Canadian singer René Simard will direct the Radio City show. Last Updated: March 17, 2009 17:05 EDT
Publié le 01 février 2009 à 14:26
Par Élyse
Incroyable !
On est rendu en février et le Bye Bye fait encore jaser !
Inside Québec - February 2009 by Maurie Alioff
Bye Bye’s Blooper
 As the world eagerly awaited the moment of Barack Obama’s inauguration, the CBC’s French-language network thought it would be a good idea to make bizarre racial jokes about the new President. Radio Canada’s annual New Year’s Eve kiss-off to the dying year usually goes for irreverent humour, but rather than deliver clever barbs about the year’s newsmakers, Bye Bye 2008 displayed all the wit and wisdom of the nitwits whose websites “prove” that Obama is the Anti-Christ. After all, the Anti-Christ rides a white horse, and Barack’s mother was white!
Centuries after America’s black slaves were stripped of their African names, a thoughtful, graceful man who goes by his African name became the country’s leader. In response to this moving, hopeful event, one of Bye Bye’s sketches featured a lampoon of local, low-grade TV personality Denis Lévesque interviewing President Obama. Apart from its ridiculous premise, the sketch grasped for sleazy yuks by having the interviewer make racist comments to a concept of Obama that didn’t reach the level of even a bad SNL caricature. In a lame copycatting of Sacha Baron Cohen’s Ali G and Borat, Levesque babbles about all blacks looking alike, women hiding their purses from them, and the men’s big dicks.
Baron Cohen’s clueless, bigoted idiots Ali G and Borat were brilliant comic creations who interacted with real big shots and regular people, prodding them into revealing their own bigotry. In contrast, Bye Bye’s Barack bit played like knucklehead gross-out humour, far from anything resembling satire. Even if the sketch’s interviewer is supposed to be a clueless dumbbell, spouting the most blatant stereotypes imaginable in the context of a giddy New Years’ Eve special watched by 4 million people during two broadcasts is dubious at best. I doubt that the laughing, cheering studio audience was getting a fresh insight into racism.
Quebeckers, most of whom love Obama, complained loudly about Bye Bye 2008, especially wannabe gonzo comedian Jean-François Mercier’s appearance. At one point, Mercier, illogically representing Americans, bellows at the camera: “We’re not racist. It will be good to have a nigger in the White House. It will be convenient. Black on white will make it easier too shoot.” Not only is the “joke” frighteningly insensitive, it insults and condescends to the people who elected Barack Obama, and it’s coming from a place where blacks have trouble getting jobs as mailmen or subway ticket-takers.
 Viewers also went ballistic over Bye Bye’s equally mirthless gags about onetime singing star, Nathalie Simard. Incredibly, Véronique Cloutier, the show’s co-producer and one of its key performers, happens to be the daughter of the singer’s ex-manager, Guy Cloutier, now doing time for the sexual abuse he lavished on Simard when she was a teenager.
Cloutier, and her professional partner/husband Louis Morissette seemed irritated and defensive even as they came up with their apologies and excuses. During an embarrassing press conference, Cloutier tremblingly recalled how she cried tears of joy the night Obama got elected. Over at Radio-Canada, VP Sylvain Lafrance said that the network was “sensitive to comments in the communications we have received in the press and on the Internet. We hear clearly the message that was sent to us.” Pathetically, Natalie Simard announced from her Dominican Republic refuge that she forgives her rapist’s daughter for ridiculing her on New Year’s Eve.
 | Maurie Alioff is a film journalist, critic, screenwriter and media columnist. He has written for radio and television and teaches screenwriting at Montreal's Vanier College. A former editor for Cinema Canada and Take One, as well as other magazines, his articles have appeared in various publications including The Montreal Mirror and The New York Times. |
Publié le 22 janvier 2009 à 10:38
Par Élyse
Article online since January 22nd 2009, 9:25 Racism has no place on public-funded TV
The half-hearted apology is certainly not enough. In recent years, there have been far too many instances of stereotyping and racist remarks . There is no room for racism of any kind in a multicultural society like Canada. It is too bad when a publicly funded radio or television is used as a forum for racist remarks, whether they are directed towards Canadians or others. Radio-Canada’s tasteless and not-so-funny New Year’s Eve review show was a terrible send off to 2008. This satirical news wrap-up, Bye Bye, brought in an avalanche of protests from across Canada. Many of the criticism came from people who never watch the show. There is only one word to describe the Bye Bye show. It was a real disaster. The show was full of racist humour. It has misfired jokes and impersonations that were very offensive. Veronique Cloutier and Louis Morisette spoke to reporters in Montreal about the popular Bye Bye special. The pair refused to take questions from reporters at a news conference to respond to allegations that some sketches were racist and others were in extreme bad taste. They said they were sorry their humour was taken the wrong way. “We are sorry for having shocked people and are saddened at this development because it was not the objective,” said Cloutier. Morisette said all they wanted to do was to entertain people. More than 4,000,000 Quebecers gathered around their TV sets to watch Bye Bye 2008 which aired on Radio-Canada Dec. 31, 2008. Soon after the show was aired, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission had received more than 200 complaints. Some complaints are still trickling in. Members of Montreal’s black community were particularly offended by a skit involving a news anchor interviewing an actor portraying United States President Barrack Obama. The same program labelled Prime Minister Stephen Harper a “lobotomy on legs.” In one sketch, comedian Jean-Francois Mercier says having a black person in the White House “will make it much easier to shoot him” thanks to the colour contrast. This is pure racism. This joke was in real bad taste and should have had no place in a public-funded CBC show. The skit also featured a mock interviewer saying all blacks look alike and asking an actor who plays Obama whether black men have large genitalia. Though the skit was designed to ridicule the interviewer, not President Obama, many viewers didn’t see it that way at all. CBC and Radio-Canada are subsidized by taxpayers to the tune of about $1.1 billion annually. Although I did not view this show, friends tell me this show was absolutely tasteless and should have no place on CBC. Also tasteless was a sketch about domestic violence, in which hockey star Patrick Roy and his two sons took turns heating up Roy’s wife. English-Canadians were called a “bunch of inbreeds” and were blasted for electing the walking lobotomy Stephen Harper as prime minister. Also absolutely tasteless was a skit on Nathalie Simard who was mercilessly lampooned.
The singer was sexually abused as a child by the father of Cloutier, who helped present and write the show. The apology is not enough. Everyone responsible for the show must be fired. And there must be assurance from CBC taxpayer’s money will not be used to produce such useless shows.
Publié le 13 janvier 2009 à 18:30
Par Élyse
JANUARY 13, 2009
Anglos can't be smug English CBC mocks francophones the same way Bye Bye poked fun at anglophone Canadians
BY DON MACPHERSON, THE GAZETTE
Veronique Cloutier and Louis Morissette are in hot water for this year's Bye Bye.Photograph by: MARIE-FRANCE COALLIER, THE GAZETTE, The Gazette
In this year of the 250th anniversary of the battle of the Plains of Abraham, French and English no longer fight each other in Canada with muskets. Instead, we have a public broadcaster, which, in spite of its mandate to promote national unity, fires insults back and forth between neighbours across the language fence for fun and especially profit. On the CBC's long-running comedy program This Hour Has 22 Minutes, French-speaking Quebecers are caricatured as backward racists with a ridiculous culture who survive only by using the threat of separation to extort money from the rest of Canada. An example among the videos archived on the site www.cbc.ca/22minutes, from the show of Oct. 9, 2007 in season 15 , is "Quebec Nation," in which, among other insults, Quebec's most important natural resources are given as "hydro power and porno." Ironically, 22 Minutes was created by Newfoundlanders, members of a group that, until it became socially unacceptable, was the target for the kind of humour the show now aims at French-speaking Quebecers. Unlike English-speaking minorities, French-speaking Quebecers are a relatively safe target for 22 Minutes, since few of them watch it. But of course, everybody in Quebec has heard of Don Cherry, whom the CBC provides with a weekly platform on its most popular program during the eight-month hockey season from which to attack "French guys." (Considering how the CBC has sold out its principles for the ad revenue Cherry brings in, it's fitting that he dresses like a pimp.) So English Canadians should not be too hasty to pile on Bye Bye 2008, the latest edition of Radio-Canada television's New Year's Eve satirical review, for its witless insults of them as well as of blacks. There is a Bye Bye only once a year, not every week. But like Hockey Night in Canada and Cherry's Coach's Corner segment on it, Bye Bye has long been an institution. Since the first one in 1968, it became a tradition for Quebecers who speak French to watch its often cruel lampoons of the past year's newsmakers and then analyze it, and it was a leading topic of discussion for days afterward. By the late 1990s, the quality of the show had declined, and there was no Bye Bye after 1998, until the Rock et Belles Oreilles comedy group, or RBO, revived it in 2006 and 2007. RBO was so successful in terms of advertising revenue that the show was described last week on the Infopresse advertising-industry website as Quebec's smaller-scale equivalent of the Super Bowl. Infopresse reported that for a 30-second commercial on Bye Bye, Radio-Canada was able to charge about double its advertising rate for other popular shows. So when RBO declined to do this year's Bye Bye, the show still had to go on, if only for financial reasons. But the producers Radio-Canada chose for Bye Bye 2008, Véronique Cloutier and her partner Louis Morissette, weren't up to the task. The show they produced was offensive rather than funny, and they themselves had trouble afterward explaining one particular sketch in which racist remarks were directed at Barack Obama by a snickering Quebec television interviewer. Nevertheless, last Friday, after returning to Quebec from a Florida vacation after the show, they apologized for that sketch, even if they did not appear to understand fully why they needed to do so. But they offered no apology for another in which they fell back on the last resort of the lame Quebec comic, which is to ridicule stereotypical English Canadians.
The sketch was cruder than those on 22 Minutes, but the humour was similar. Sure enough, the studio audience cheered. But while English Canadians are usually as safe a target in French as "the separatists" are in English, this time the joke didn't go over as well in Quebec living rooms. And just as it was English-speaking Montrealers who were first to criticize a 2006 Globe and Mail article blaming the Dawson College shootings on Bill 101, francophone viewers were quick to complain about Bye Bye's ridiculing of English Canadians as dull, sexless "inbreeds." Even some commentators who normally pride themselves on their political incorrectness said this sketch as well as others went too far.
This was well before most English Canadians themselves had even heard of Bye Bye. But some Quebecers feared that this sketch and the insults aimed at blacks would make them all look like racists, as they are depicted on 22 Minutes.
Even if RBO doesn't accept what is sure to be a generous offer to return to Bye Bye this year, Radio-Canada will probably go ahead anyway, for the same reason that the CBC keeps Cherry on the air.
The BBM ratings agency reported that nearly 2.7 million viewers watched the Bye Bye 2008 live broadcast, an increase from 2.5 million for RBO's show the year before, and another 1.5 million viewed the repeat the next day. That doesn't count those who recorded the show for later viewing or watched it on the web at www.radio-canada.ca/byebye.
While Radio-Canada executives in damage-control mode were issuing carefully worded non-apologies for the show elsewhere, the director of its commercial service was telling Infopresse that "we're happy with our performance. We sold well and delivered more than expected." And the controversy surrounding Bye Bye 2008 might result in an even larger audience - and more advertising revenue - for the 2009 edition.
Because in Canada, in French or in English, if there's a potential market for insults aimed at the other language group, the public broadcaster will be glad to supply them.
Publié le 12 janvier 2009 à 23:45
Par Élyse
Posted: January 12, 2009, 6:07 PM
John Moore: Good riddance to Bye-Bye
by Kelly McParland
Word is leaking out to English Canada of how 2.7 million Quebecers spent their New Years Eve, and it isn’t pretty. Close to half of the adult population was watching an annual TV sketch comedy year-end ritual called Bye Bye. The merits of each edition are always highly debatable but this year’s broadcast was such a singularly vile affair that the province continues to be consumed by debate and recrimination even as we approach the ides of January.
To Quebec’s credit, the population is uncharacteristically united in its revulsion at a staggering parade of baldly racist and hateful sketches. Perhaps most galling to those of us who have made a living in comedy: It didn’t even approach being funny.
Considerable criticism has been levelled at a sketch in which an actor posing as Barack Obama was interviewed. References were made to his endowment and the possibility he might steal the viewers’ television sets. It was also offered that as a black man it would be easier to pick him out against the background of the White House in order to shoot him.
But the evening’s most noxious moment came in a parody of former pop idol Nathalie Simard. The show mocked her for giving interviews in spite of having quit Quebec some time ago, insisting that she was seeking anonymity. The concept might have been funny had not Simard left the province after she finally broke her silence about the man who serially raped her when she was a teenager. It gets worse. That man is Guy Cloutier: the father of Véronique Cloutier, who produced the TV show.
Simard has been the butt of jokes all her life. First for being the younger and less accomplished sibling of national star René Simard. Later for a string of scandals including staging a break-in at her home and claiming items that were never stolen on her insurance. The day she finally outed the man who had gained her trust and then molested her when she was just a girl was the day Quebecers finally understood the turmoil and anguish she had been suffering in silence those many years.
Guy Cloutier pleaded guilty, went to jail and handed his successful TV production company to his daughter Véronique. It was that same production company that was used to humiliate Nathalie Simard all over again on New Year’s Eve. In a sputtering press conference held this past Friday, Vero, as she is popularly known, insisted she didn’t think people connected her to the sins of her father. Really, Vero? Do you honestly think you can attack your sex offender father’s victim on television and no one is going to draw a link?
Cloutier and her husband, the nominally funny Louis Morissette, declined to take any questions at the press conference. Their mea culpa amounted to the standard-issue apology people offer these days. Something like: If anyone was offended, then I guess we’re sorry. Now f--k off.
Celine Dion’s husband and manager René Angélil is largely regarded as the pope of Quebec entertainment. Up until his disgrace, Guy Cloutier was a close friend and might have been regarded as Angélil’s favoured cardinal. Angélil quite rightly characterized Bye Bye 2008 as setting back Quebec entertainment a half century.
Indeed, it’s a setback for the population as a whole. In its unabashed racism, vindictiveness and infantile tone, the show laid bare a cultural fault line that should bring shame to any of us who call ourselves Quebecers.
A wide swath of the population has vigourously denounced the broadcast. Now comes the time for consequences. Aside from having to personally present an abject apology to the wronged Nathalie Simard, the most fitting punishment for Véronique Cloutier and her husband would be for them to be banned for life from ever drawing another taxpayer dollar in the entertainment industry. Better yet, they should join Cloutier’s damnable father in obscurity forever.
John Moore is host of the drive home show on NewsTalk 1010 CFRB. He wrote and directed comedy for Radio-Canada for two years.
Publié le 09 janvier 2009 à 17:34
Par Élyse
Last Updated: Friday, January 9, 2009 | 5:01 PM ET
Producers apologize for offensive skits in Quebec New Year's Eve special
Véronique Cloutier says sorry to former child star her father abused
 Véronique Cloutier and Louis Morissette speak to reporters on Friday in Montreal.(CBC)
The producers of Quebec's wildly popular New Year's Eve Bye Bye special apologized Friday to Quebecers who were offended by the latest edition.
Véronique Cloutier and Louis Morissette took no questions from reporters as they held a news conference in a downtown Montreal hotel to respond to allegations that some sketches were racist and others were in extreme bad taste. The couple, who produced this year's edition of Bye Bye with their company Novem, said they were deeply sorry their humour was taken the wrong way. "We are sorry for having shocked people and [we are] saddened at this development because it was not the objective," said Cloutier. "All we wanted to do was have a night that would entertain people, that would be audacious, funny and find an equilibrium between things that are scathing and things that would interest another type of the public," said Morissette, referring to appearances by popular Quebec musicians. More than four million Quebecers gathered around their TV sets to watch Bye Bye 2008 which aired on Radio-Canada Dec. 31. By Friday, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission had received more than 170 complaints. Pair denounce allegations of racism An actor plays former child star Nathalie Simard in a skit from Bye Bye 2008. (CBC)
Members of Montreal's black community were particularly offended by a skit involving a news anchor interviewing an actor portraying U.S. president-elect Barack Obama.
After initially confusing the incoming president with a black Quebec singer, the anchor tells viewers that all black people look alike. He goes on to say that viewers at home shouldn't worry about Obama stealing their purses, but that he might steal their television sets. 'We are not racist, at all, at all. On the contrary.'
—Louis Morissette, producer, host and writer of Bye Bye 2008
Morissette said the writing team thought the sketch would highlight the absurdity of racist stereotypes. "Right now, the accusations of racism, it's a bit shocking. Me, I'm shocked by that," he said. "We are not racist, at all, at all. On the contrary," said Morissette. He said he was struck how some Americans didn't vote for Obama simply because of his race. "I couldn't believe it. That was what I wanted to underline, clumsily perhaps," he said. Cloutier apologizes to abuse victim Nathalie SimardCloutier took issue with critics who said she was insensitive to include a parody of former child star Nathalie Simard, who was abused by her former manager. The manager was Cloutier's father, Guy Cloutier. 'I am sorry to all those I offended. I apologize to Nathalie Simard.'
—Véronique Cloutier, host and producer of Bye Bye 2008
In one skit, an actor playing Simard is shown singing and packing a suitcase, a reference to the pop singer retreating from the public spotlight while at the same time selling her story to gossip magazines. "I understand and I am sorry. I am sorry to all those I offended. I apologize to Nathalie Simard," said Cloutier. "There is nothing funny about [sexual assault]. I supported her at the time. I am supporting her today. I will support her until the end of my days." She said the writing team decided to include the sketch because it was one of the big stories of the year. She pointed out that the writers discussed the sketch at length before putting it in the show's lineup. Cloutier and Morissette also expressed remorse for any troubles caused to Radio-Canada. The broadcaster's executive vice-president of French services, Sylvain Lafrance, has said he will factor the public's response to the program into discussions on future projects of a similar nature. Morissette said he hoped Radio-Canada would continue its tradition of supporting creativity on its airwaves. "I hope the whole episode will not change the philosophy of Radio-Canada," said Morissette.
 CBC
Publié le 09 janvier 2009 à 17:14
Par Élyse
JANUARY 9, 2009 5:01 PM
A Bye Bye apology
BY BRENDAN KELLY, THE GAZETTE
Veronique Cloutier (left) and Louis Morissette apologize for the controversy their New Year'sEve special caused. The press conference took place Friday Jan. 9, 2009 at the HyattRegency Hotel in MontrealPhotograph by: Marie-France Coallier, The Gazette
Véronique Cloutier and Louis Morissette delivered an emotional apology for the highly controversial Bye Bye New Year’s Eve special they created, saying they misjudged how the public would react to sketches lampooning U.S. president-elect Barack Obama and Quebec vedette and sexual-assault victim Nathalie Simard. The end-of-year satirical news revue has ignited a firestorm of protest since it debuted Dec. 31 on public broadcaster Radio-Canada, with many viewers complaining that the show was at best tasteless and at worst racist. “We’re sorry that we shocked people,” said Cloutier, who co-hosted the show and is president of Novem, the private company that produced Bye Bye. “The accusations of racism … we didn’t see that coming,” said Morissette, who co-produced, co-wrote and appeared in Le Bye Bye. “I was a bit shocked by that. We’re not racist.” But the married couple refused to take any questions at a packed press conference Friday afternoon at the downtown Montreal Hyatt Regency. The segment on Obama featured a slew of jokes about blacks, including one reference to assassination. The Simard sketches drew fire because Véronique Cloutier’s father Guy Cloutier pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting Simard. Another of the show’s criticized elements was the repeated heavy-handed jabs at English-Canadians. Read Brendan Kelly's reaction to the original brodcast on the Show Biz Chez Nous blog.
Publié le 09 janvier 2009 à 13:27
Par Élyse
JANUARY 9, 2009
Here's hoping it's bye-bye to racism and misogyny
THE GAZETTE
Radio-Canada's tasteless and unfunny New Year's Eve review show was a fitting end to 2008 : a terrible send-off to a terrible year. Drowning under an avalanche of well-deserved criticism from virtually every quarter, Radio-Canada executives argued the special nature of satire, pleading the "special balancing act" required for edgy, ironic humour. If so much as a glimmer of real humour had shown up on the hour-long broadcast, that might be a point worth making. But the jokes weren't funny and the slapstick was so broad it was like getting hit over the head with a two-by-four. Satire requires intelligence and a sense of playfulness to be successful. It can be offensive, but it also needs an objective. Satire involves holding human folly up to ridicule to make a point, not making ridicule the point of the show. In a number of the sketches, it wasn't clear that the writers had any idea that there is a distinction between spoof and stereotype. They served up crude, dated stereotypes for laughs, as though grabbing at a black man's crotch would have the audience rolling in the aisles. At its worst Bye Bye 2008 fell over the line that divides humour from racism and misogyny. A pretend Barack Obama was mistaken in one sketch for someone else because as the punchline put it, "All blacks look the same." Horribly unfunny was a sketch about domestic violence, in which hockey star Patrick Roy and his two sons took turns beating up Roy's wife. English-Canadians were called a "bunch of inbreeds" and were blasted for electing the "walking lobotomy" Stephen Harper as prime minister. Even if Radio-Canada executives actually found that these sketches fit their definition of what's permissible in the name of humour, it is extraordinary that they allowed Nathalie Simard to be mercilessly lampooned. She was sexually abused as a child by the father of Véronique Cloutier, who helped present and write the show. But there is a silver lining here : Quebecers of all backgrounds protested against the stereotyping. Many of them made the point that if Quebecers themselves had been on the receiving end of this "humour," they would have been outraged. It's a mature, generous society that can make fun of itself. One that insists on making Other People the butt of its humour is not. Here's hoping for a good laugh in 2009 - at everyone's expense. To check the level of humour for yourself, go to www.radio-canada.ca/byebye/
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