This is, as they say in the colony, phoquing hillarious. The joke is lost on any who don’t know the French word for seal. It’s even better if you’re a fan of Beau Dommage. Which I am. Well, was. At one point.
For some reason, this former Anglo (from south shore Longueil, go figure) loves Quebecois * music. Although Harmonium is a little too oldschool for me, Dommage, Plume Latraverse, Daniel Lavois (the Quebecois man in black), Gilles Vigneault, and Robert Charlebois are all pretty solid with me. That probably comes form my having lived in Quebec** for a couple of months during the summer festival season. They all performed.
But back to the vid… it was put together by film maker Stéphane Rousseau (who, incidentally, was also born in Longueil in the same year as myself) to highlight the cuts to culture by the Harper government. Knowing that it’s a Quebec product makes the half a million hits in ten days even more impressive.
I’m not sure that the implied caricature of les têtes carrée is of a conservative, and not generally of Anglos in general. At least, I hope not. But even so, like most stereotypes, there is no little truth to it.
I especially love the facial expressions of le bonhomme trying to enunciate clearly. Anyhow, I hadn’t laughed as much since watching Bonne Cop, Bad Cop. Which you must run to go see, ifg you haven’t already.
* I wonder out loud if it should be Quebecoise… do I have to feminize the adjective if noun is written in English).
** Quebec should be understood as la ville de Quebec, or Quebec City. No one from there says “Quebec City”. We say le province de Quebec if we mean the province.
By way of background, it’s a