NBC's Conan O'Brien Issues 'Apology' to Quebec

[sk8rboiiii]

I think its very wrong that he was literally forced to apolagize because of the flak Quebecers were giving him. I put this under Politics because thats what this is, the few powerful politicians enforcing political corectness on something that is supposed to be free, and usually is, but because it was aimed at Quebecers, it was made into a national issue.

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NBC's Conan O'Brien Issues 'Apology' to Quebec
26 minutes ago Add Entertainment - Reuters TV to My Yahoo!



LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Late-night comedian Conan O'Brien sought to defuse a flap over a recent segment poking fun at the French-Canadian province of Quebec by issuing a self-deprecating "apology" on Tuesday in French.


Reuters Photo



"People of Quebec, I'm sorry," the host of NBC's "Late Night" show said in English, as a translator recited in French, with English subtitles, "People of Quebec, I'm an albino jackass."


"We meant no harm with our comedy piece the other night," O'Brien continued, "translated" into French as: "The other night, I wet the bed like a little girl."


"I was a stranger in a strange land and I was very insensitive," he went on, with the subtitle: "I have a small penis."


The tongue-in-cheek mea culpa was delivered by O'Brien after his usual monologue during the taping of Tuesday night's show in New York.


O'Brien sparked a burst of outrage from the Canadian government last Thursday with a segment in which a rubber hand-puppet known as Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, a recurring character on the show, said to a Quebecer: "You're French, you're obnoxious and you no speekay English." The ribald puppet told another: "I can smell your crotch from here."


The controversial segment came during O'Brien's highly publicized road trip last week for a series of shows taped in and around Toronto to help boost that city's profile in the wake of last year's deadly SARS (news - web sites) outbreak.


But members of the federal government in Ottawa said O'Brien's jokes about Quebec, a province which has had separatist governments for much of the last 20 years and is a delicate political topic in Canada, went too far.


Alexa McDonough, a legislator for the left-leaning New Democratic Party, described the program as "racist filth" and "utterly vile." She demanded the government seek the return of the C$1 million ($760,000) subsidy paid by Ontario, the province of which Toronto is the capital, to General Electric Co.'s NBC network to help bring O'Brien's show to Canada.

 

[nicetommy2002]

His apology sounds very comical. Its a win-win for him. His English audience will get a kick out of it, and the Quebec crybabies should get a laugh out of it as well. Considering it will be partly En Francais, it should also make them feel very special. Hopefully they'll stop whining about this non-issue, and go back to whining about how they're not getting their fair share of transfer funds from Canada, and how the rest of Canada just doesn't appreciate their plight. Whaaa-Whaaaa-Whaaaaaa.

I guess this means the DVD won't be happening.

 

[sk8rboiiii]

I dont mean to be Are Be-ish in posting article after article (although this is the Are Be Politics section so it is routine), but here is another interesting twist, Peter Soumalias actually encouraged the writers to do this bit!

Aftershocks from Conan O'Brien's Quebec sketch reverberate in U.S. media
at 13:50 on February 17, 2004, EST.

TORONTO (CP) - Nearly a week after U.S. talk-show host Conan O'Brien stumbled into a Canadian political controversy, the aftershocks are finally hitting the American media.

And the Toronto businessman who spearheaded the effort to bring NBC's Late Night show to the city as a tourism booster says he "encouraged them to do the segment," even though the writers expressed concern about being insensitive.

In a sketch last Thursday night, the politically incorrect puppet-provocateur Triumph the Insult Comic Dog targeted French-speaking Quebecers in a series of envelope-pushing barbs. The issue landed in the House of Commons on Friday with politicians of all stripes denouncing the material and the fact that nearly $1 million in tax money was spent to help lure the New York-based show to Toronto for a week.

In a belated wave of reaction, the U.S. media pounced on the controversy this week, the incident getting an airing on Regis and Kelly and CNN and in USA Today and the Hollywood Reporter.

Even the New York Times weighed in, noting slyly that political satire is a big part of Canadian culture, including anti-American insults.

"Crude anti-French jokes are not uncommon outside of Quebec," the article said. "But they are generally told in private along with other ethnic humour considered politically incorrect."

But Peter Soumalias, businessman and founder of Canada's Walk of Fame, says while some of the political fallout was predictable, he has no regrets about his role in having Conan tape four shows in Toronto and believes the national public response has been overwhelmingly favourable.

"I did not receive a single complaint, personally," he said Tuesday. "As organizers, it far and away surpassed all our expectations. . .and we'd do it all over again and wouldn't change a minute of it."

Soumalias says some of the Late Night writers did express concern about being insensitive in their material but that he was the one who encouraged them, assuring them that Canada was mature enough in its comedy.

"I encouraged them to do the segment," he says, adding that if we Canadians can't take it then it speaks volumes about how secure we are about our national identity. He says the Conan crew was surprised that the material ended up as a big deal to Canadian politicians.

"If politicians are upset about something, then clearly we know we did something right.

"Government needs to stay out of the public airwaves. It's as simple as that."

Soumalias also expresses disappointment over CHUM Television's decision to excise the Triumph skit from a Friday night re-broadcast on its Star specialty channel, noting that CHUM got only 15 calls complaining of the content of the bit, but many more beefs than that when they censored it.

He also denies media reports that NBC was on the brink of issuing an official apology.

"I'd be disappointed," says Soumalias. "There's no reason to apologize in my mind.

"You can't apologize for creativity and you can't apologize for a hand puppet!"

He also indicates that in a couple of weeks, he'll have the results of a scientific media-value analysis that will show the positive fallout from the O'Brien visit will be in the tens of millions of dollars. And he sees no reason why they shouldn't do it again some time.

"The only thing I would change is I would not involve any government funding."

Meanwhile, the issue has been a heated one for newspaper columnists and for letter-writing readers. Last weekend, the Toronto Star gave over part of its front page to its TV writer who suggested everyone lighten up. But inside the paper, an official editorial told Conan to go home and not come back.

The message board for NBC's official website for Late Night also remains filled with comments from Canadian and American fans about the Quebec incident, most of them negative.

Iamcanadian wrote: "My reluctant thanks for uniting my proud but oft divided nation, as today we look beyond our many differences and speak with one voice, expressing unanimous distaste at your lame-o Quebec schtick."

From cityscribe: "Consider it fate's way of letting you know that you don't have enough information to 'get' why it isn't funny."

Gotti2k wrote: "If he would have said those things about black or Latino people he'd be fired and couldn't show his face in public. I hope you lose your job over this."

But Average Canadian posted this: "People who want to trash Conan for tossing about a few insults our way may want to take their collective heads out of their collective behinds. Canadians poke fun at Americans all the time. . .if you dish it out, be ready to take some in return."

Ground Zero for all of the hostility is humourist Robert Smigel, known not only for Triumph but his envelope-pushing animated contributions to Saturday Night Live, including Fun with Real Audio and faux super heroes like The X-Presidents and Ace and Gary, the "ambiguously gay duo."

JOHN MCKAY

 

[SD2]

Yes since he's from Toronto many are now placing the blame almost solely on Toronto for this LOL. That should make everyone happy :b

If he ever comes back...he should go to Quebec and do a bit about Torontonians...that would be funny.

 

[nicetommy2002]

I enjoyed the skit where they got the NYC taxi driver to drive that writer up to Toronto. I wonder if they have any more skits this week from Toronto.

 

[mimicocreek]

"I need to go to the Upper East Side ... of North America."

 

[janschot]

Vive les québécois sophistiqués

Yikes.
I guess it shouldn't surprise me that a couple of you would obviously assume the worst of Québec by blaming this controversy on them. If you had actually been paying attention to this issue then you would have noticed that most articles went to pains to comment that the reaction from Québec was one of complete indifference, except for the somewhat fringe Société Saint-Jean Baptiste. In reality the main offended reaction came from those, mainly politicians, from outside Québec. There was very little coverage of the event in Québec because there are more important issues to worry about, including the valid complaint of a fiscal imbalance - Ottawa having financed its deficit-fighting measures on the backs of the provinces. ¿You think it's just Québec complaining about this issue? Try asking any other premier and they'll tell you the same thing.

The depressing thing about Conan's visit to Toronto was the positive reaction the Triumph piece got from the crowd and how it revealed the persistence of English Canadian 'angry white male' syndrome towards French Canadians; see the comments below.

Check yourself dudes.


sk8rboiiii: "flak Quebecers were giving him"

nicetommy2002: "and the Quebec crybabies should get a laugh out of it as well. Considering it will be partly En Francais, it should also make them feel very special. Hopefully they'll stop whining about this non-issue, and go back to whining about how they're not getting their fair share of transfer funds from Canada, and how the rest of Canada just doesn't appreciate their plight. Whaaa-Whaaaa-Whaaaaaa."

 

[cdl42]

Re: Vive les québécois sophistiqués

Lol. As described in one of the newspaper articles, much of the laughter from the audience could be described as 'nervous laughter'. I think young people in Ontario know well enough that making fun of French people for being French isn't right nor funny. If anything, as stated by someone on the board, the laughter could easily have been at the ignorance of the puppet. ("You're in North America! Speak English!" Hahaha... Stupid puppet.)

At least among all the people I know, Quebec is simply the province next to us (as well as a political hotbed). Making jokes about Quebec is seen as no different as, say, someone in Alberta making fun of BC, or someone in New York making fun of New Jersey.

The moment this happened, I made a comment: "I have faith in the people of Quebec. They are smart enough to see this as a joke, and they know how to laugh. Nothing major will arise out of this." I still stand my by comment. People, such as fanatics and politicians (often one in the same) will use any circmstances that arise to their advantage, and we must remember to continue looking at this in context.

 

[SD2]

Re: Vive les québécois sophistiqués

Yikes.
I guess it shouldn't surprise me that a couple of you would obviously assume the worst of Québec by blaming this controversy on them. If you had actually been paying attention to this issue then you would have noticed that most articles went to pains to comment that the reaction from Québec was one of complete indifference, except for the somewhat fringe Société Saint-Jean Baptiste. In reality the main offended reaction came from those, mainly politicians, from outside Québec. There was very little coverage of the event in Québec because there are more important issues to worry about, including the valid complaint of a fiscal imbalance - Ottawa having financed its deficit-fighting measures on the backs of the provinces. ¿You think it's just Québec complaining about this issue? Try asking any other premier and they'll tell you the same thing.

The depressing thing about Conan's visit to Toronto was the positive reaction the Triumph piece got from the crowd and how it revealed the persistence of English Canadian 'angry white male' syndrome towards French Canadians; see the comments below.

Check yourself dudes.


sk8rboiiii: "flak Quebecers were giving him"

nicetommy2002: "and the Quebec crybabies should get a laugh out of it as well. Considering it will be partly En Francais, it should also make them feel very special. Hopefully they'll stop whining about this non-issue, and go back to whining about how they're not getting their fair share of transfer funds from Canada, and how the rest of Canada just doesn't appreciate their plight. Whaaa-Whaaaa-Whaaaaaa."

You have GOT to be kidding me. You are seriously think people who laughed actually hate French Canadians? Perhaps those comments from nicetommy, etc. are directed at the Quebeckers who are making such a big deal out of this?

For the Quebeckers who were offended by this skit (and there are definitely quite a few) it surprises me that they would assume the worst of Toronto by blaming this entire fiasco on it's citizens, and jumping to ridiculous conclusions, not to mention all the stereotypes that Torontonians are sujected to from across the country (funny how negative stereotypes are acceptable if you're talking about Toronto...).

 

[janschot]

Re: Vive les québécois sophistiqués

I'm not sure you followed what I said. I have yet to come across anyone in Quebec who even noticed the Conan O'Brien thing. I repeat: the negative reaction came from those outside of Quebec. No one in Quebec is blaming Torontonians for anything, they have not noticed the story.

 

[nicetommy2002]

Re: Vive les québécois sophistiqués

Other than measuring the Quebec media's reaction [negative reactions from La Gazette and others], and the reactions of the politicians, there is no way to measure exactly what % of Quebecers were, or were not offended by this joke. The CBC, CTV and Global however, all reported that French Canadians were very angry with it. As well, looking at the NBC forums, and at other forums on the net, one can see that they are overflowing with angry responses from Quebecers.

janshot - You can blame the so-called "English Canadian 'angry-white-male' syndrome" (btw, your choice of words speaks volumes about your own way of looking at English Canadians) on all the pompus Seperatists that are still very vocal, and ever so prevelant throughout Quebec. They have [with the help of media over the years] created a negative association in the minds of Canadians. Yes, it may be an incorrect association, but unfortunately it's one that is still alive.

As for my own views... I happen to like French Canadians very much. I always have. This winter I visited Quebec for the first time in my life, and I found all of the people to be exceptionally warm and friendly. It was a wonderful experience for me.

As for my comments about the whining of Quebec, they're a knee-jerk reaction borne from my disdain with the way Quebec has been governed the last couple of decades. I am very frustrated with the fact that it is still classified as a "have not" province. It bothers me very much that it should have to beg for money from the Feds, when it has such an abundance of resources and industry. With all it has going for it, Quebec should be an economic powerhouse... not stuck in a rut like it is.

 

[SD2]

Re: Vive les québécois sophistiqués

I'm not sure you followed what I said. I have yet to come across anyone in Quebec who even noticed the Conan O'Brien thing. I repeat: the negative reaction came from those outside of Quebec. No one in Quebec is blaming Torontonians for anything, they have not noticed the story.

Well you seemed quite clear.

As nicetommy said, we're going by message board response, articles in Quebec and other papers, etc...I mean, that's pretty much what we have to go on.

I didn't think Quebeckers would really care and I'm not surprised that you're claiming that's the reality of things...I mean, most people in the skit just laughed along.