Mouhahahahaha! I started laughing when I read that CBC had the French version of one of its English podcasts produced in Paris. I was completely flabbergasted when I learned the reason given by the producer (monolingual English): it was to avoid the Quebec accent!
• Also read: A podcast from CBC Podcasts translated into French in Paris to avoid the Quebec accent
But then, friends, I laughed really hard when I listened to the famous podcast “made in Paris”.
Wow! The actress who does the voice uses the ridiculous accent of a Parisian woman on the loose. Suddenly I felt like I was listening to a caricature of a Parisian woman in “Emily in Paris.”
A baguette under my arm
Apparently we don’t care about the people at the CBC in Toronto.
Here is a CANADIAN state-owned company that wants to translate the podcast “Alone, A Love Story” by Michelle Parise (a CANADIAN author and journalist) into French (one of the two official languages of CANADA) and is instead reaching out to your colleagues in the neighboring CANADIAN province, Instead of contacting your colleagues at ICI RADIO-CANADA, go to the FRENCH capital!
More colonized than that, you die!
I can’t find a better example of the contempt and arrogance of English Canada, which spits out Quebec accents like we’re backward farmers.
“We didn’t want a Frenchman from Quebec to attract international interest,” producer Cesil Fernandes explained (in English) to my colleague Mélissa Pelletier.
What is a French Quebecois?
A porridge for cats, an incomprehensible gibberish outside our borders? As Bloc Québécois MP René Villemure further wrote
Did Cesil Fernandes really think that the French version with Joual would have been interrupted? Or that the actress rolled her “r”? Doesn’t Cesil Fernandes know that Quebec actors are quite capable of playing all sorts of roles with all sorts of language levels and accents?
Doesn’t he know that Quebec has an established dubbing industry with excellent actors?
Doesn’t he know that Quebec actresses like Marie-Josée Croze, Suzanne Clément or Charlotte LeBon have played, are playing and will play in French films that are seen (and very well understood) throughout the Francophonie?
To show you how ridiculous, pathetic and shocking this story is, even the host of 15-18 at the ICI premiere, Annie Desrochers, shared the Journal article on the matter on her social media.
The situation is serious: when even the company’s tradesmen find that CBC is putting them in a bad mood, it shows how disconnected Toronto is.
Linguistic acquisition
It’s still strange… We are constantly told about cultural appropriation, that it is very naughty to adopt the codes of a culture that is not ours.
But we can’t find anything wrong if it’s a French actress narrating the love adventures of a woman living in Toronto with a Parisian accent?
