You may know the story of the piano that Louise Forestier owned in the 1970s and that bailiffs tried to seize. But, seeing a note deposited on the instrument, they finally left it in its place.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
The singer had written on a piece of paper: “Don’t touch my piano, that’s all I have to put on my back. »
These words gave rise, a few years later, to The inputone of the most beautiful songs of his repertoire, magnified by music by the very inspired François Dompierre.
Sadly, not all seizure stories lead to a song and a happy ending. Just watch the show Bailiffson Noovo, to realize it.
In this series, which is in its fifth season, we can follow a group of bailiffs in their daily lives. We see them doing their difficult job, going sometimes to seize an unpaid vehicle, sometimes to evict tenants who have not honored their rent for months.
The images are taken with body cameras, the faces are blurred, the voices scrambled. There is an obvious climate of voyeurism.
Of course, we discover carefree, irresponsible and unsympathetic people there. But there are also vulnerable, fragile, deprived people.
Hence the deep malaise that we can experience.
Dozens of community groups in Quebec no longer want this malaise. They made it known loud and clear on Monday during a press conference.
They are therefore asking Noovo, owned by Bell Media, to remove the program from the airwaves and from its website. And for that, they are circulating a petition which, at the end of the day on Tuesday, had reached nearly 2,500 signatures.
Those responsible for the petition have brought to light an aspect that is incongruous to say the least. They wonder how the Bell company, at the origin of a campaign to raise awareness of the reality of mental health (Bell cause for the cause), can broadcast such a program.
Noovo assures its defense by affirming that, following discussions with Pixcom, the company which produces this program, and community organizations, we added to the content of the series the presence of socio-community resources.
“In particular, we observe a treatment of situations with more nuance and sensitivity and the addition of mental health workers, I was told. […] Resources are also available on the Noovo.ca website for people who might feel challenged by the issues and problems depicted in the episodes of the series. Bailiffs. »
This is indeed the case in the programs that are currently broadcast. We see social workers and municipal representatives who come to offer help and support to people in difficulty.
“For us, it’s too little, too late,” said Anne-Marie Gallant, mental health worker with Projet PAL, the mental health aid organization that is the standard bearer of this movement.
Above all, I don’t want to minimize the problem that owners may experience. Some show great patience and lose considerable sums of money in unpaid rent and renovation work that they have to assume after the departure of certain tenants.
And it is necessary to underline the empathy and the tact shown by the bailiffs in certain situations.
But bringing viewers into the intimacy of people plunged into great distress has something unhealthy about it.
We have the feeling (at least, it was mine) of being the spectator of a form of exploitation of human misery.
And of human misery, we see a lot. I am thinking of this single mother, victim of domestic violence, who received a bailiff. She believed that the latter had warned the DPJ of her setbacks. When the bailiff told her no, she expressed her immense relief.
The problem with this series is that we happily mix situations that feature crooks who do not meet their payment terms and others with people who live in deep and real distress.
For some viewers, this program may reinforce negative prejudices about mental health and about a class of people commonly called “the BS”. That’s what community groups believe.
“Human misery is not a show,” said a speaker on Monday during the virtual press briefing.
After seeing a few episodes, I honestly wondered what kind of pleasure one can experience in watching these sad situations.
We know this reality exists. The media report it every day in reports. What more can we learn from watching apartments become dumps, movers putting broken furniture on the sidewalk, or people leaving their apartments with their belongings in a trash bag?
What exactly are we witnessing? In the battle of the ushers? To the victory of justice? To the distressing spectacle of human decay? To the mind-numbing victory of reality TV?
Television is often the mirror of our lives. But also, unfortunately, a magnifying glass that we unconsciously shine on our prejudices.