The Quebec-based online video sensation Têtes à claques has soft-launched a new website and and anglo version with passable anglo accents.
The videos are the same as the franco versions, but they seem to lose some of the humour in translation. I’m not quite sure what it is, exactly. Maybe I’m just more easily amused by francophone humour. Maybe the québécois accent does something to make stuff sound more funny.
Meanwhile, Le Devoir today has a letter about francophone singers releasing anglo albums. Of course, it’s filled with the usual anti-English xenophobia you’d expect out of Le Devoir, but the gist of the letter is that artists shouldn’t be selling themselves short recording in another language just for the money, even if the English market is insanely lucrative:
La chanson est un art qui mérite le respect.
The writer is talking about Garou and Gregory Charles.
Yeah.
When I lived in France, the têtes-à-claques were insanely popular, and I would say that while individual jokes may have been a bit funny, what mostly cracked people up were the Québec accents and idiomatic expressions, especially anglicisms, which they found absolutely hilarious.
Also, nobody had any freakin’ clue what a “Pop Tart” was from the Hallowe’en episode, and most people I met seemed to think the characters were saying “Pop Toys.”
Upon reading the letter you link to, I can’t come to the same conclusion you have. The guy seems to be a bit incoherently saying that he’s pretty much okay with singing in English…
“En fait, a beau chanter qui veut dans la langue qui lui plaît. D’accord! Pourvu que ce soit fait avec talent et pertinence, et non pas pour tenter de se faire voir à tout prix par le plus grand nombre.”