Brilliant political ad from Québec

[jawnbc]

Funding for the arts might be a lynchpin issue for our Canadian election. In Québec in particular the issue of funding for the arts often resonates (6 million francophones surrounded by 300 million anglophones, etc). In this ad the singer Michel Rivard appears in front of a funding board. The board reacts a bit negatively to his choice of songs--and words.

This version of the ad should have closed captioning on. If it's not, click through to the actual Youtube page and select CC from the triangle at the bottom right of the page.

Rivard was the lead singer of Beau Dommage, a Québec folk rock group of the '70s. One of their big songs is "the complaint of a a seal in Alaska"

As he sings "somewhere in Alaska there's a seal..." Except the word for seal is phoque. The panel hears "fuck" and freaks out.

Then Rivard tries to expain "no worries, I can sing about a sea lion--it's easy to change a few little things." Except when he says petit the panel hears "tits" and freaks out even more.

You can probably follow the rest.



I hope this ad has a lot of traction in Québec, so people there don't vote for that phoquewit Stephen Harper.

Comments

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

oh my god, that's so accurate. jeezus it's dead on. holy shit.

bet this ad gets canned it's just too close to what really happens.

[aadroma.livejournal.com]

The commercial is simultaneously amusing and frightening.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

Lovely commentry on the band Holy Fuck losing their funding to play abroad. Of course nobody from the government listened to their music. They jet judged ignorantly. Thanks so much for sharing this.

[pectopah.livejournal.com]

You got that right.

Fortunately, the other parties have leapt on this issue in Quebec with a vengeance and even Harper has resorted to not making statements in French about it. We'll see if it works. Harper has been strongly wooing suburban and rural voters, especially in the regions around Quebec City, where the issue of arts funding doesn't have as much traction (another case of portraying Montreal as the Big Evil City).