Never have blooper reels been so popular. In addition to the team ofInfoman who reports to us every Thursday evening about the blunders of our politicians and the slippages taking place in municipal councils, we can count on Olivier Niquet, pillar of The day is (still) youngto accomplish this task.
To these is added Jean-Philippe Cipriani from the show Everything can happen who, in his weekly press review, does not fail to highlight several pearls. Cipriani’s style differs from that of his colleagues in the sense that the stupidity does not emanate as much from the comments of the targeted personalities as from the comments with which he sprinkles his clips. His approach reminds me of that of Yann Barthès, host of the show Daily In France.
And then, there is Frédéric Labelle who rages every morning at Paul Arcand, at 98.5. Quick on the trigger, this columnist excels in the art of highlighting buzz social networks. This leads him to shine a magnifying glass on the declarations of certain personalities, notably politicians.
In short, we like to laugh at the expense of the elite. Because that, ultimately, is the principle of bloopers: the jester who makes fun of the king.
A big consumer of the genre, I notice that what is stupid for some is not stupid for others. When Frédéric Labelle releases a clip where we hear François Legault raving in the company of children in front of the hole we dug so he could plant a tree, we will react differently if we are parents, if we hate the CAQ or, on the contrary, if we like this party.
Stupidity is first in the eye of the person who takes it and offers it to the public. Blooper writers are columnists (some would say with a clown nose) who convey opinions. Faced with social networks which only report the gaffes of personalities in short videos, they have added value.
I must admit that in the four examples cited, these designers take their role very seriously. Producing a good blooper or a spicy press review requires a lot of work.
We have always been told “words fly away, writings remain”. This is no longer true. Today, all public declarations have the right to posterity and can be repeated at any time in the public space.
Talk to Normand Marineau who was the subject of a sidewalk microphone in 1962 on Radio-Canada when he was 11 years old. More than 60 years later, he became a social media star thanks to the way he rolled his “r’s”.
Let it be said, we prefer to see stupidity in others, rarely in ourselves. However, we are all capable of stupidity. If our words were to be recorded daily for several minutes, it is certain that Olivier Niquet could feed chronicles until the end of his days.
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Olivier Niquet
Politicians and various personalities are fully aware of this hunt for stupidity. How many times do we hear them say: “It’s certain that I’m going to find myself Infoman telling you this. »
I understand these personalities whose statements are scrutinized to the comma to be careful. Put yourself in their shoes. On the one hand, we track them with a microphone and a camera, and on the other, we criticize them for making great use of wooden language.
We don’t like a politician to be beige and smooth. But ironically, it’s often when he makes a blunder that he comes closest to authenticity.
The journalist Michael Kinsley, who has been very interested in the blunders of politicians during his career (we call it a “Kinsley gaffe”), once said: “A gaffe is what happens when a politician tells the truth. »
One of the things that I think explains the wide choice of nonsense available to columnists is our propensity to extract personalities from their natural place. Ah! the famous phrase “I’m being taken out of my comfort zone!” “.
The animal is never stupid when it is in its natural habitat. But when he is placed in situations to which he is not adapted, he becomes stupid. This is the case with personalities who agree to go into settings that are not their own.
Our era is 20-20-20 fertilizer for stupidity.
Last observation, we tend to consider people who express themselves poorly, who speak loudly, who are rude, as stupider. Nothing could be further from the truth. Stupidity does not choose a social class. The only advantage that those who handle the language better than others have is to delay the moment when stupidity will be revealed.
How many times have I been bewitched by the words of a so-called intellectual to tell me at the end of his speech: “In the end, what he just said is stupid. »
Stupidity and those who propagate it have a bright future ahead of them. Lucky for us. We will feel less alone. And less stupid.