Re: mixed effects warnings

Insane prison And crazy Both were rebroadcast this weekend on television with a warning message warning viewers that the “cultural representations” contained in the film may be shocking in today’s context. A way of doing things that might end up offending more than certain words spoken in these movies.

On social networks at least, many were offended this weekend by adding such a warning before insane prison, Presented Saturday on ARTV.

“This film is presented as it was created and may contain cultural representations of the period,” one can read before watching this classic French comedy. Adapted from a play from 1973, Insane prison Five years later, it became one of the first feature films to feature a male couple in ordinary everyday life on screen. After the fact, some denounced the stereotypes about homosexuality that are preserved in this movie, but Insane prisonFor others, it remains a pioneering work of gay cinema.

“We have judged that representations made by LGBT people and some remarks towards ‘servant’, who is a racist person, justify adding a warning,” Radio Canada ruled after reviewing the content. last year. In an email sent to a task, the Public Broadcasting Corporation clarified that the same warning was added to La cage aux folles II.

For a year now, such a warning has preceded a restart little lifePresented on Saturday evening. At the time, Radio Canada’s compromise was to put an online episode starring Norman Bratwright in the skin of a highly caricatured African professor whose withdrawal infuriated many viewers.

“I find him very childish. It is as if the audience were too stupid to understand that it was a comedy,” says Germaine Lacasse, professor emeritus in the Department of Art History and Film Studies at the University of Montreal. This specialist in Quebec cinema history also regrets that we are offended by Some of the terms in the movies are however camping in another era.

crazy

The latest example from one era judging another: crazy, by Jean-Marc Valli, which was released in 2005, but tells the story of a father (Michel Coty) who struggles to accept the sexual orientation of his son (Marc-Andre Grondin) in the 1970s and 1980s. TVA, the film, which has been awarded multiple times, is now accompanied by an initial warning intended to spare some sensibilities.

When I read the 2002 “CRAZY” script, no one was shocked. But today, we are no longer able to make a movie like that. You must find something else today.

Decision by mutual agreement of director and producer Pierre Even. Not so much because the dialogues are full of homophobic insults, which in no way can be separated from the topic of the film. Instead, Jean-Marc Vallee and Pierre Even came to the conclusion that adding a warning was necessary due to the use of the word “n” at some point in the film.

When I read the text crazy In 2002, no one was shocked. But today, we are no longer able to make a movie like that. Gotta find something else today [même s’il est vrai que cette expression était couramment utilisée durant ces années au Québec] ‘, due to the product.

Maria Chapdelin

Another feature film produced by Pierre Even that was the subject of such a precautionary measure, this one is much newer. Maria Chapdelin, who picked up the poster this fall, is actually entitled to open a brief reference on the cultural representations of the time.

It is the use of the term “savages” to refer to the indigenous population that poses a problem in the re-reading of the cult novel by Louis Hemone, set in the north of Lac-Saint-Jean, at the beginning of the twentieth century. .^e a century.

Neither Pierre Even nor director Sebastien Bellot initially thought it appropriate to add a caveat. Especially since several First Nations members were consulted while adapting the script. They all found justified the use of the word “Savage”, which was actually the term used at the time to refer to the aborigines.

It is rather while dropping Maria Chapdelin at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) that a spectator – otherwise non-indigenous – gritted his teeth, then told one of the film’s funders.

We felt there were concerns, but the decision came from us. We didn’t want a citizen to be shocked by this word, that wasn’t our goal. “We preferred to do too much rather than not be satisfied,” explains Pierre Even.

For Pierre Barrett, a professor in UQAM’s School of Media, these warnings are the “lesser of two evils” in the current context and at least allow period work to be published without the need to cut out certain passages. The general reaction of the public at the moment is shock at these warnings. Perhaps because of his vision, there will be a turning back,” he suggests.

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