Throw rocks at me if you want, but Mike Ward’s “little Jeremy” number, I laughed at back then.
I’m a Mike Ward spectator, knowing that his humor really isn’t for everyone. Ward is a bit like porn: we’re embarrassed to say we like it. In her shows, part of the fun comes from feeling uncomfortable laughing, because oops, it comes out on its own, like premature ejaculation.
He practices black, raw, cruel and vulgar humor, and there is an audience for that, usually of age and vaccinated. I know as many people who hate it as I know people who adore it – especially people with disabilities who sometimes have more humor. crunchy than those who defend them. Because it is possible to laugh at everyone, Jean-Marc Parent proved it with his famous number on a paraplegic.
But 10 years later, I wonder if I am part of the scum of humanity because I laughed at the joke of “little Jeremy”, described as one of the most disgusting things ever heard about. scene, from what I read all over the place.
This segment lasted only two or three minutes in Ward’s show, which particularly attacked the untouchables among public figures in Quebec.
All the humor was based on the fact that, in fact, we couldn’t really laugh at Jérémy Gabriel, a child with a disability who had sung for the Pope, and whose feat was repeated on all the news bulletins.
We were all touched by this story, but at one point, the media frenzy, with bizarre hints of Catholicism, made us feel like Jeremy was being exploited.
The comedy in the sketch came from Ward’s character on stage who believed Jeremy had an incurable disease – despite having Treacher Collins syndrome. In the issue, Mike Ward stands up for the boy, wants him to live his dream, and ends up being exasperated that he doesn’t die, feeling the victim of emotional blackmail. We laughed more at the character’s stupidity than at his remarks about Jeremy’s handicap, in my memory.
When I left the show, I felt no contempt for this child, whom I found cute, in truth. But Mike Ward had put his finger on a discomfort.
I covered the Just For Laughs festival for over 10 years – sometimes at the risk of losing my sanity, because eating too much humor can end up taking away the taste for laughter and making you depressed. I’ve heard of all kinds, sometimes worse than Ward’s. Flat jokes, lazy, sexist, racist and homophobic, in any case, which would go really less well today. But coming off a Mike Ward show, I never felt like I was participating in hate speech. Extremely silly and rude at times, but not hateful.
Because he practices “black” humor, Mike Ward is not all enlightened in his audience. We forget something at the origin of this legal saga which ended in the Supreme Court with a narrow victory in favor of the comedian. These shocking remarks which should have remained in the shadows of a show between consenting adults came out of the context of the room at the same time as social networks took off in 2010. The unacceptable and real intimidation of which Jérémy Gabriel was victim a lot has been the work of fools, Ward fans or not, who love to torture others behind their keyboards. They went after Gabriel and still do today.
Even though I understand what Mike Ward wanted to stand up for, I would have liked to have felt more compassion from him towards a boy who was the butt of jerks gone from humor to aggression. Because what is also disturbing in this long quarrel is that Gabriel and Ward received so many death threats from each other from the most cringe through debate.
To be frank, I would have preferred it to be settled out of court from the start, even if it means removing this segment of the show, but things got worse. And it made it all the way to the Supreme Court, with a lot of pain along the way.
Despite everything, I was satisfied with the judges’ decision, which would have set a precedent if it had proven Jérémy Gabriel right. It would be untenable to use humor with the threat of lawsuits, which in no way precludes criticism, debate, and even demonstrations if a comedian decides to play with fire. But this is a somewhat bitter victory, considering that Gabriel’s bullies will continue to crack down. Mike Ward has been pretty quiet in his post-judgment response so far, and I hope he stays that way.
On the other hand, I want to add that during this quarrel of a decade, we saw Jérémy Gabriel become an adult. A brilliant and courageous young man, who commanded admiration, when a whole millionaire industry was against him. I found him very dignified in his reaction to the judgment. “During these 10 years of fighting, I will have learned more about humiliation than I would have liked to learn in a whole life”, he declared, recalling how much this saga had cost him personally, but that he did not regret his fight. “If there’s one lesson I’ve learned, it’s that we should never underestimate the value of our struggles or the strength of our convictions. You all live up to the principles you stand for, you are all worth it. ”
That last sentence brought tears to my eyes, because it also applies to Mike Ward, basically.
Jérémy Gabriel has become a public figure in spite of himself, and I have the feeling that he will go far. With what he experienced as attacks for years, in this fragile period of life when you are looking for your place and identity as a teenager, when you don’t have the aura of a Mike Ward, I have it. found more than solid. I have nothing but respect for him and I would see him playing politics. He has the makings of it, and the rind that’s tough enough for this jungle.