Committed comedian Christian Vanasse has not calmed down since the days when he braved tear gas to demonstrate against the Summit of the Americas. From the housing crisis to systemic racism and the climate emergency, the 50-year-old is still in all the fights. In his new show, the ex-Zapartist openly poses as the antithesis of Guy Nantel by promising to laugh at all those who really hold power.
And those who exercise power are not green people, immigrants or the so-called “wokes”, specifies Christian Vanasse: “Those are easy targets for the right. The truth is that there are people who wield power and others who suffer from it. And I will always be on the side of the oppressed, never on the side of power. »
However, to attack Guy Nantel as he does, isn’t that also “an easy target” for a resolutely left-wing comedian? “Perhaps it’s easy to laugh at Guy Nantel because he’s everywhere. Still, he embodies power, he reinforces it. It is important to respond to these people, ”said Christian Vanasse, who also intends to attack the greed of business leaders and the climatic hypocrisy of the CAQ.
The columnists of Montreal Journal also go through the wringer, those who constantly shout at the ” cancel culture “, while “the right does only that, cancel”, mocks the comedian. “One day it’s Barilla pasta because of inclusive advertising. The other day, the drag queens read stories to children. They’re freaking out because of a course on intersectional feminism at UQAM, when there are 15 courses at HEC to learn how to cram the world, but that’s funny, it doesn’t shock them, “says ironically. he.
Out-of-the-box comedian
This new solo show, TW: Vanasse, will be presented for the first time, and perhaps for the last, on Tuesday at the Maison de la culture Maisonneuve, in Montreal. The title refers to the trigger warning “, a warning often used on social networks before tackling a sensitive topic. The public is therefore warned: Christian Vanasse is not afraid to disturb, including those who think like him.
On stage, he will be accompanied in music by his son, Colin, 17 years old. “I like that, the rock energy. In my last show, I found that it lacked music. I had thought of a show interspersed with musical passages, but I didn’t find it organic. Then, during the pandemic, my guy started playing guitar crazy. He became a multi-instrumentalist. He’s going to music next year at Cégep de Drummondville, and I tell myself that at his age, and at my age, we have to take advantage of it. So with this show, we decided to pay a nice trip father-son,” says Christian Vanasse, obviously proud of his offspring.
If the reaction is good on Tuesday at TW: Vanasse, the comedian does not refrain from adding a few dates in Montreal and elsewhere in the province. But with his very political statement and his references stuck on the news, Christian Vanasse does not claim to want to become the next Louis-José Houde, whose immense talent he nevertheless praises, even if their styles have nothing to have.
Since his debut with the Zapartists in the early 2000s, Christian Vanasse has made it a point of honor to keep a distance from the world of humor. He never had the ambition to be a star. He would feel like a dog bowling at a Just for Laughs gala or on the CKOI comeback show. This rabid pit bull, a virulent critic of big business, prefers to stay in his niche by sticking to militant humor.
“I’m very happy with the career I’ve had. It is sure that for some it is a failure, as I did not sell 200,000 tickets and that I didn’t do Everybody talks about it every year. But compared to where I come from, it’s a great success, ”says this son of a farmer from Saint-Nazaire-d’Acton, in Montérégie.
Christian Vanasse still lives in the countryside. In Saint-Jude, a small agricultural town of 1,300 souls lost in the valleys between Sorel-Tracy and Saint-Hyacinthe. He was a city councilor there for four years.
Active politics does not fail him. Christian Vanasse has been approached by Québec solidaire, but closes the door twice. “I am much too angry to be in the National Assembly. Next to me, Catherine Dorion, it’s nothing. I would be unable to remain calm seeing the face of Bernard Drainville and François Bonnardel in front of me every day, ”he hardly dares to imagine.
Full left
Anyway, he thinks that the stage remains the best place to assert his political ideas camped on the left, on the left of the left, some would say. At 53, Christian Vanasse assures that he has not become right with age, unlike others. On the contrary, he has never been so radical.
Everyone should be anti-racist!
“I hope I am radical, otherwise what will I be? Moderate ? Radicalism is often associated with extremism, but in reality, it means getting to the root of things. I am not an extremist. The extremist is the owner who kicks all his tenants out to squeal the block on the ground and make Airbnbs. The government accepting that we build in protected areas, that too is extreme! It’s much more extreme than the environmental activists who block access to oil companies,” he defends with conviction.
But being left-wing can sometimes be exhausting. The virtuous, the moralists, the hypocrites, Christian Vanasse loathes them and will not hesitate to let them know in this new show. “There are people who mark on social networks that they are anti-racist. Why do you feel the need to write it, crisse? Seems to me that’s just the basics. Everyone should be anti-racist! The right is wrong on a lot of cases, but it is right to say that there is a moralizing left which gives itself a good conscience, ”recognizes Christian Vanasse, who is probably not afraid to shock, including among his own.