Did CBC Radio-Canada skit insult Barack Obama?

Fri,09 Jan 2009 14:48 GMT -4:00 http://www.p2pnet.net/story/18108

news view Politics | TV:- The CBC, trying to curry favour with the new Barack Obama government via a ridiculous 49th Parallel song contest, may have trashed its chances with a New Year’s Eve French language special in which some skits were said to be insulting and racist.

“The annual special Bye Bye is one of the most-watched television events of the year in Quebec, drawing four million viewers on Dec. 31,” boasts the CBC, going on:

“The program, which aired on Radio-Canada, parodied everything from the U.S. election to Quebec’s top news events of the year.”

But one skit went well beyond the pale, say, “some members of Quebec’s black community”.

It involved a fake interview between Obama and a news anchor, “who confuses him with the popular Quebec entertainer Gregory Charles,” says the CBC, going on »»»

When corrected, 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 he might steal their television sets.

More than 1,300 people complained, says Sun Media.

“Some topics were treated with very little respect,” it quotes professor Michel Filion, a communications expert and director of the department of social sciences at the University of Quebec in the Outaouais, as saying.

“It was gross humour done in a very, very low fashion.”

Says the CBC »»»

The program verged on racism, said Michael Farkus, the director of the community organization Youth in Motion in the Montreal neighbourhood of Little Burgundy, home to much of the city’s English-speaking black community. He said the skit was one part of an entire program that was in bad taste.

“The whole show was really low. That particular sketch was despicable,” Farkus told CBC Radio.

Farkus said the producers, Véronique Cloutier’s production company Novem, should not be allowed back next year.

Cloutier, who was also the co-host of the program with fellow producer-host Louis Morissette, issued a brief statement responding to the controversy.

“It is dishonest to claim that we showed racism,” Cloutier and Morissette said in the statement. “We reject this allegation with vigour. Each racial allusion in the skit served to highlight the ineptitude of the characters in the skit.”

The statement was also signed by the show’s writers and Jean-François Mercier, who played the news commentator who introduced the skit.

‘It is dishonest to claim that we showed racism. We reject this allegation with vigour.’—Véronique Cloutier, producer and co-host

Mercier said the writers intended to mock racism in the skit, not promote it. He said he was surprised by the reaction.

“It’s not everyone who found it bad. I have had many people tell me they liked the Bye Bye,” said Mercier.

In a statement, “Radio-Canada defended the program and its decision to put the writing in the hands of the Novem team,” says the CBC, adding:

“The writers, said the statement, are behind some of Quebec’s most popular television programs, including CA and Les Bougon.

” ‘As a democratic institution in the service of culture, Radio-Canada has a principal of respecting the freedom of its creative teams who contribute to its dramatic and variety programming,’ said the statement.”

There’s no word on whether or not Obama was insulted by the show, or was even aware of it, or if he plans to listen to any of the tunes in the 49th Parallel compilation.

But we doubt it on all counts.

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ridiculous collection of songs - 49 Canadian songs for Barack Obama, September 30, 2008

CBC - Quebec New Year’s special draws complaints of racism, January 6, 2009

Sun Media - Outrage over ‘gross’ CBC television show, January 8, 2009


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