Irony is a humorous device. What’s ironic is a comedian who takes another comedian’s joke badly. A joke about him, about his peers, about his generation.
The irony is Guy Nantel who criticizes Katherine Levac for not being funny enough because she made fun of him at the Les Olivier gala. While the host’s humor was widely acclaimed and the rising ratings of the ceremony testify to this. It’s the irony of the sore loser. Guy Nantel knows all about it.
In her opening monologue, Kat Levac joked about Nantel, whom she described as “not the most inclusive person on earth.” “Everyone has their own pace! “, she added, pretending to defend the former candidate for the leadership of the Parti Québécois. I laughed as much as Erich Preach in his seat in the Pierre-Mercure room.
“Some would win [à] be a little less inclusive and a little funnier,” Guy Nantel immediately replied on Twitter, once again provoking general hilarity among millennials. It is true that Kat Levac has little merit. In defense of Nantel, it was too easy. Jokes about him write themselves.
PHOTO ALEXIS AUBIN, ARCHIVES LA PRESSE
Guy Nantel at the premiere of his show If I understand you correctly, you are saying… at the Maisonneuve Theater of Place des Art, in Montreal, last October
The 50-year-old white man – this is how Kat Levac presented Guy Jodoin – took it for his cold on Sunday. Maude Landry mentioned the “graining” of Gaspé glasses (in reference to Kevin Parent). Math Duff spoke about the dentures of Râteau, the character of Jean-Michel Anctil. And Carole (Silvi Tourigny) imitated André-Philippe Gagnon’s famous saxophone number and thus qualified the duo Dominic and Martin: “That’s 30 years of innovation, surpassing, creation…”
Kat Levac regretted that her girlfriend, filmmaker Chloé Robichaud, had to submit for years many grant applications and reworked versions of her screenplays “to be told: sorry ! We prefer to finance Wild camping 2 “. It’s funny because it’s (almost) true, as the cliché goes.
24e gala Les Olivier, as noted by my colleagues Hugo Dumas and Dominic Tardif, has consecrated a new generation of comedians. A “new wave”, as described by the king of the evening, Pierre-Yves Roy-Desmarais, who cheerfully paid the head of the old one. It’s fair game. Young people have been laughing at old people since time immemorial, and they don’t always do so with apologies. You will tell my teenagers about it.
PHOTO OLIVIER JEAN, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Pierre-Yves Roy-Desmarais
I’m from the RBO generation, a group irreverent to older artists, who ended up composing a song to ask forgiveness from some of their Turkish heads (Belgazou, Roger Michael, Michel Louvain, Guy Boucher). Guy A. Lepage’s gang also apologized to Mitsou. “Sorry, sorry, Mitsou / For dragging you through the mud / For saying that your gray matter / Concentrated under your shirt. »
It is this kind of humorous text, common in the 1990s, that the indescribable number of the duo “Pat pis Mat” (Virginie Fortin and Arnaud Soly) tackled on Sunday. With their leather breeches and their Longueuil cut, they made fun of the jokes of my uncle of Hot pepper and of Testosterone.
“In our time, little redheads didn’t host galas, but they were waiting for us in the dressing room afterwards! », said Pat (Virginie Fortin) before singing Humor used to be better. “How funny we can be, it’s really clear / I used to do two hours of jokes about my mother-in-law,” Mat sang. “Astheure all good gags get censored,” added Pat. “We didn’t apologize for our wandering hands, recalled Mat. There were no victims, there were just lucky ones. »
A choir of children dressed up as comedian characters from the 1980s and 1990s (Uncle Georges, Ti-Mé, Hi! Ha! Tremblay, etc.) sang “Thank you la gosse de Maxim Martin”, before the duo resumed with enthusiasm the chorus: “Humor was better before / When we were just eight white guys… and Marie-Lise Pilote. »
It was enough for Dany Turcotte, a former member of Blood Group with Marie-Lise Pilote – and a 50-year-old white man – to write on Twitter that “the contempt of the new generation of comedians for the old seems be fairly generalized! »
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, PRESS ARCHIVES
Dany Turcotte
Contempt. Nothing less. Make fun of the machismo of boy club humor, which finally opens up to diversity – Welcome to the ladies! – would be contemptuous? When the comedians themselves have come to confuse humor and contempt, one wonders about their own intentions.
The irony is Dany Turcotte who criticizes other comedians for being contemptuous when he spent more than 15 years making awkward and inappropriate jokes in his role as court jester at Everybody talks about it.
No, the humor wasn’t better before. It was not even at the time of Yvon Deschamps, idealized by the boomers. Humor has evolved over time, like society. “Drop-toe mononcle! is not just the advertising slogan of a car brand from the 1990s. It is, fortunately or unfortunately, an injunction that still finds its full meaning today.