Comedians seek “safe spaces” | The Press

Online harassment, sexist jokes, female under-representation, culture of silence: comedians no longer hear to laugh. They are “fucking tanned”, “exhausted”, “angry”. And some are setting up their own “safe spaces”, if such places exist.

Charles-Eric Blais-Poulin
The Press

The fall of Philippe Bond, accused by eight women of sexual misconduct and violence in an investigation by The Pressstruck a new blow in the world of Quebec humor.

“Everything is frustrating, but it is above all the laxity and passivity of our male colleagues that offend me”, rages at the end of the line Alice Lefèvre, who performs under the alias RadicAlice. “The culture of impunity puts everyone at risk. »

To prevent a “toxic environment”, the young comedian and his colleague Mathieu Chiasson officiate at the Snowflake Comédie Club. Here derided, the term “snowflake” refers to the neologism used to mock a generation deemed fragile and hypersensitive, like a “snowflake”.

These evenings of stand up, which are described as a “safer space”, are intended to be inclusive, equal and progressive. In short, fundamentally and proudly woke, no offense to the Premier of Quebec. Coco Belliveau, Mégan Brouillard, Alexandre Forest, Tranna Wintour or even Colin Boudrias have been there.

“Having equal evenings, not being the only person who is not a guy in the dressing room, that’s the basis”, believes RadicAlice, who is presenting a first solo show, Brittle. “It already creates a safer environment that takes us away from the locker room conversation. »

In a similar vein, Zoofest featured earlier this summer The Queer Show, built solely with talent from the “LGBTQ2S+ community”. “Women as well as queer and marginalized people realized that they had to take care of each other,” notes Alice Lefèvre.

More “safer” than “safe”

Despite all the precautions, RadicAlice – a pseudonym once chosen to avoid online attacks – regrets having already failed to ensure 100% “safe” events. Like this time, she says, when a well-known figure in the world of emerging humor showed up at an outdoor party at the Snowflake Comedy Club. The organizer, who did not know the man from Eve or Adam, was informed that he was the alleged attacker of a spectator en route to the event.

“I had to deal with all of this, when all the guys on the site knew about it,” she laments with these questions in mind: “Why didn’t you do anything? Why didn’t you go see him? Why didn’t you come talk to me? »

The comedian, who recounts having herself been the victim of online harassment from a colleague of the next generation, makes a connection with the “culture of silence” which long preceded the media revelations about personalities like Gilbert Rozon. , Eric Salvail and Julien Lacroix…

On Facebook, a private group of about 80 women in the laughter industry are posting their unfortunate experiences with co-workers as sisterly warnings.

“We are tired”, confirms on the phone Emna Achour, a former sports journalist who has migrated to humor. “These are names that have been known for years and there is a culture of silence. At the top, they know it and they continue to hire these people, as we also saw with Hockey Canada. We are fed up because we talk, we say things, but no one listens to us. »

Lists for want of anything better

In 2019, an anonymous email sent to media and industry members listed 21 comedians and authors from Quebec who allegedly engaged in “problematic behavior with women”.

“We use lists to have a common tool and group leads,” explains RadicAlice, without referring to this specific initiative. “It’s a protective mechanism between us to keep us safe. It goes back to those old client lists that sex workers hid in the toilet. But it is not a fix solution. That’s not going to change the environment. »

What about this environment? In 2018, Christelle Paré and François Brouard, from the Research Group on the Humor Industry, offered some insight into this in a survey on the perception of gender equality.

Four out of five women (78%) say they have been the victim or witness at least “a few times” of “sexually derogatory words” from a colleague. More than half (52%) of the respondents also claim to have experienced or observed “offensive sexual acts” in the course of their work. Not to mention that almost two in three women (64%) believe that they risk “being a whiner and tarnishing their reputation if they complain about a sexist situation to a member of the industry” .

female talent

In a gesture of “anger” and “feminine empowerment”, Emna Achour co-founded the collective and Les Allumettières evenings in 2019 with comedians Caro Monast, Isabelle Monette and Yasmeen Gregs. The name of the organization refers to unionized women workers who stood up to the bosses of the EB Eddy match factory in Hull in the 1910s and 1920s.

The Allumettières shows, which are due to resume in the fall, feature exclusively female or non-binary comedians. Let’s put the question bluntly to Emna Achour: does she consider the medium of toxic humor? “Yes”, answers the young woman immediately. Initiatives like Les Allumettières are ways around it, she says.

For their part, Noémie Leduc Roy and Anne-Sarah Charbonneau, graduates of the National School of Humor (ENH) in 2020 and 2021 respectively, launched the Womansplaining Showwhose title echoes “mansplaining” or “mecsplication”, that is to say the propensity of certain men to assume knowledge with condescension and paternalism.

The tagline of the series? “Let’s destroy the patriarchy one joke at a time! “Since the summer of 2021, Katherine Levac, Judith Lussier, Marie-Hélène Racine-Lacroix, Michelle Desrochers or even Zach Poitras have dilated hundreds of feminist and “allied” rats.

“What I’m most proud of are all the friendships we made in the dressing rooms,” explains Anne-Sarah Charbonneau, who was one of only two women among the 14 students in her cohort at the ENH. .

As a recent graduate, Anne-Sarah Charbonneau feels that the interactions between women and men in comedy are changing for the better.

“It’s better now, yes,” agrees comedian Emna Achour. But it was so muddy before that even though it’s better, there’s still muck. The lists that circulate and the denunciations, they are there. I have chosen in life to be a person who believes in victims. There are still a lot of names out there, and these people are still going about their lives as if nothing had happened. »

On Instagram, RadicAlice recently posted a short video that makes images. She explains that the world of humor is like an old smelly fridge. “But we only release one jar of pickles a year! At this rate, it’s going to be long. […] We should remove all the shelves and do a systemic cleaning, ”she pleads.

But no question, in 2022, that only women wear rubber gloves and plunge their hands into dirty water. “The responsibility always lies with the victims,” says RadicAlice. The witnesses, the organizers of evenings, the producers, the animators, the bookers, what is their responsibility to them? Nobody has that answer. »

A few possible solutions

• One-stop shop to receive denunciations
• Clear code of conduct and proactive policies against harassment from broadcasters
• Raising awareness and education with male comedians
• Presence of at least two women in each event
• Financial support for psychological assistance to victims
• Abuser Rehabilitation Protocol

It should be noted that in 2018, following the release of Les Courageuses against Gilbert Rozon, Juripop set up the resource center L’Aparté, which offers legal support to people who are the subject of or have witnessed sexual and psychological harassment in the cultural milieu.