“Sharing a giggle with someone is better than an orgasm,” exclaims Christine Morency, who intends to take her audience to seventh heaven with Gracehis first show.
The scene, from the first episode of Z’s documentary series Christine Morency: no filter, seems from the outset only wacky, but carries in hollow, on closer inspection, something like a little allegory. Back home after taking part in a recording of The week of the 4 Juliesthe comedian tries to unlock his phone, showing him his face.
Problem: With the layer of makeup covering its owner’s cheeks, the device just doesn’t recognize it. A bit as if his phone wanted to remind him that it’s his real face, not to say his authenticity, that charms the public so much.
“But I don’t have any merit,” she says of her inability to not be entirely herself every second. “I wouldn’t be able to have a fake personality, it would be too much of an effort. I’m not hard enough for that. »
Busy schedule
This last sentence could hardly be more false, as Christine Morency’s agenda is overflowing this fall. But it is undeniable: it is this explosive alchemy of charisma and raw truth, impossible to fake, which nourishes the close relationship that the 36-year-old woman, born for the stage, maintains with her audience. You just have to hear it for two minutes with a microphone in your hands to realize it.
“But it hasn’t always been obvious to me”, says the one who grew up in a home carried at arm’s length by her mother (hilarious and endearing secondary character in her docu-series) and of whom Lise Dion was childhood idol. “Young, at 8, 9, 10 years old, I said openly that I wanted to be a comedian. I’ve always had this desire to be the one whose jokes in the parties of Christmas. »
But at some point, I realized that other than my mother, the people around me didn’t seem to believe it. It’s as if I let myself be convinced that I had no right to dream about that, that I had to have a plan B.
Christine Morency
Her plan B will be psychosocial intervention with homeless people, an experience she prefers to talk about in terms of gratitude, rather than the detour she could have done without before arriving at humor.
“The barriers, it was me who put them up, by not believing in them myself. Even the improv [son premier tremplin], it was a long time before I dared to do it. But at some point I was in a pass tough and my shrink made me realize the value I had, the benefits of loving yourself. Realizing that we have strengths, using them, is not boasting, it is knowing and loving yourself. »
Fall the barriers
This means that the birth of Christine Morency, the humorist, dates from a short time ago. From 2017, to be precise. It will not take long, however, to enter the hearts of a public who regard her with the same familiar warmth as a niece or a boyfriend woman, thanks to an essentially good-natured humor, inspired by everyday life, but which does not shrink from more serious subjects, such as fatphobia. Grace will be no exception.
In the third episode of Christine Morency: without filter, the radio girl suffers humiliation when the clothes chosen for her in anticipation of a photoshoot for her lunchtime show on Rouge FM turn out to be too tight. And suddenly, you take the measure: it is not enough to accept yourself for life to be sweet, when you are a fat person.
“That’s what’s difficult: sometimes even the public space isn’t made for you,” she laments. We’re going to install an access ramp for people in wheelchairs, but the tables in the restaurant are screwed into the floor, so I can’t get into the bench seat. »
For years I was a fat person asking for things and being told to go somewhere else. Now I’m putting my foot down, because the next person who isn’t Christine Morency, I wish she wouldn’t feel bad about demanding a chair that doesn’t pierce her sides.
Christine Morency
Is she afraid of feeding stereotypes about fat people, making fun of herself? “Sometimes people make jokes big on themselves and that doesn’t make me laugh, because we feel that behind, it’s not repaired. I removed a lot of them from my show, because there shouldn’t be too many of them. But there are some that are funny and that I will never take away, because the best thing about being able to laugh at something is that suddenly all the barriers come down. »
Grace by Christine Morency, on 29 and 30 November and 1er December at the Olympia and on tour throughout Quebec