COMPLAINT SENT TO CRTC
On behalf of the Canadian Italian Business and Professional Association of Montreal (CIBPA), I am making a complaint with respect to the December 31 broadcast (11:15 pm) and the January 01 re-broadcast of a skit on Radio Canada's "Tout le Monde En Parle". Entitled "La Guerre des Glands", a parody of the game show Family Feud, A French Canadian family, the Bienveillant, faces off against an Italian Family, the Jamboni.
One hundred construction contractors were asked how to get a contract at the City of Montreal. The Bienveillant team member rings the buzzer first and answers: "You make the best submission possible insuring that there are no cost overruns and that time delays are respected." Wrong answer. The animator turns to "Frank" Jamboni:"You beat up the one who makes the best submission". Top Answer! The Jamboni family get the next two right: "Paolo", "You issue little brown envelopes to civil servants" and "Gian Carlo", "You invite civil servants on a little boat ride." The final answer by Gino, "Break a leg", while initially refused is, upon overt threat, accepted. The Jamboni family wins, get a thick brown envelope and walk off stage having visibly intimidated the game show host, the show's crew and the Bienveillant family as well.
The contrast between the two families cannot be understated. The Bienveillants (benevolent, good, kindly) dressed in shirts, sweaters and dress pants, look impeccably honest if not a little nerdy and naïve, unaware with the ways of the world. The Jamboni's by contrast are in dark garb, sunglasses, leather jackets or suits with overcoats and dark sunglasses with the family head having a very visible knife scar across his face. In short, they dress as Hollywood depictions of Wise Guys. All speak in an exaggerated stereotypical Italian-French accent; all make threatening gestures (such as mimicking a knife to the throat). The Bienveillants, a symbol of the hard working innocent Quebecer, get cheated, utter no protest and loose as good losers against those who impose corruption on Quebec society. This symbolism and point cannot be escaped: the corruption faced by the Quebec state has at its root, a foreign, imported and alien dimension. Furthermore, the Jamboni family is representative of the mindset if not ethnicity of the 100 contractors who were polled to provide the answers.
This Mafia stereotyping for the sake of a good laugh is despicable as there is nothing funny about organized crime. This skit treats common Italian and Mafia stereotypes as synonymous, in other words, one goes with the other. Case in point, Richard Therrien of Le Soleil, in his review of "La Guerre des Glands" praised the parody on corruption in the City of Montreal and noted how it was the "Italian Family" (not a mobster family, etc) that knew all the correct answers.
The common acceptances of such stereotypes which are exploited to generate a good laugh encourage prejudice and as a business and professional association, we deplore it. We are stunned how Radio Canada, our national broadcaster, could allow such an insensitive skit to be aired but one year after the terrible Bye Bye 2008 telecast which offended so many members of our Black Community and Anglophone Women, among others. An apology was offered to them following that telecast. Likewise, a serious and public apology should be offered to the Italian Community. Not to do so would mean that Radio Canada sets our community and its sensitivities at a lower standard.
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