375TH IN NEED OF COLOUR
Kevin Tierney laments the lack of diversity
I went looking for myself in the list of the city of Montreal’s 375th celebrations the other day, and I couldn’t find me.
I wasn’t expecting my bio or anything — just a passing reference to the lives of my family and their kind, their families’ families. Nothing. I am a white male, so there’s a lot about us as a species, but not of the audible minority persuasion, let alone much on visible ones. Imagine how non-white citizens feel when they go looking.
So I went where I always go to be reminded of my official status: Télé-Québec. I didn’t expect to find anything about anyone who is not white and francophone, but I like to punish myself from time to time. Culturally speaking, of course.
There I came across MTL, a 12-part documentary series that airs Thursdays at 8 p.m.
Its mission statement: “A history series to bring us all together based on the reality of today’s Montreal, its thousand realities, a quest: to decode the DNA of Montreal.”
The series is structured around themes, and features guests associated with the theme of the week. For example, the episode Lance et compte is about hockey and has Canadiens owner Geoff Molson as the guest.
He is also pretty much the only anglo to be found in the series.
Fortunately, all anglos live like Geoff, so I think we are well represented. The other guest of that week, Dany Laferrière, gets trotted out to describe his first memories of snow when his family arrived here from Haiti. Two minorities with one snow shovel.
Other themes include Neighbourhoods with Michel Tremblay, and the Main — who better to walk up St-Laurent Blvd. with than those famous Eastern European Jews, Geneviève Borne and DJ Champion?
Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, Emmanuel Bilodeau, Louis-Jean Cormier, his fabulousness Denis Coderre, Denise Filiatrault (who will not, I suspect, be disguised in blackface), Mado Lamotte, Denis Gagnon and Dominique Michel are also guests.
An impressive list of people. All pure laine.
That is what Télé-Québec calls “rassembleuse ... the story of the characteristics that define the Montreal of today.” Seriously? This series is partially financed by the Société du 375e anniversaire de Montréal under the auspices of Gilbert Rozon, the founder of Just for Laughs, known here as the commissaire aux célébrations et président du comité de programmation — the very same committee that had to pull a celebratory ad from the airwaves in November because it was more or less the same as what this series looks like it will be: white and francophone, like no one else has ever lived or now lives here.
In fairness (irony intended), Rozon later apologized for the ad.
The worst part of the ad — which was subsequently “colourized” with visible minority faces — is not that it was made. No, it is that its intrinsic, fatal flaw was not noticed by any of the participants.
The writers, the committee, the actors, director, crew, postproduction, the gamut of the creative team, apparently did not notice. Nor did anyone in a position of authority who signed off on it.
What this means, of course, is not that “they” necessarily dislike minorities — it is that they don’t even see minorities, that minorities do not exist. It is a horrible form of colourblindness. Live and learn, right? No. Just the opposite. “City of Montreal apologizes for ad criticized for lack of diversity,” is how one news outlet heralded another gaffe on April 28.
A video paid for by taxpayers and made to celebrate Montreal’s
The writers, the committee, the actors, director, crew, post-production, the gamut of the creative team, apparently did not notice.
cultural heritage depicts only white people. Once again, the video makes it all the way through the various levels of approval and storyboards and onto the airwaves and nobody says anything.
Three seconds after it airs on the city’s Facebook page and YouTube channel, 7,000 people see it, and the truth is as obvious as it is immediate.
“They made a mistake, end of story,” said Mayor Denis Coderre, adding, in an interesting change of pronouns, “We’re sorry, that won’t happen again. If it happens again, I’ll kick ass.”
Your Honour, if our recent history is any indication, you will be raising your leg more than a member of the Rockettes.