Guy Rex RodgersWhat We Choose To Remember

Sugar Sammy is back with You’re Gonna Rire 2, his new bilingual show. I was curious. The friendly greeting Bonjour-Hi makes some people angry. The CAQ government’s campaign to eliminate languages other than French makes other people angry. What happens when you bring a random crowd together and set a rapier-tongued provocateur loose among them? Would they all laugh? At the same jokes? Or take turns seething with indignation?

Sugar Sammy advises the audience early in the evening, ‘You’re gonna hate 10% of my show. But you’ll love 90%.’ He delivers on his promise – everybody laughs, and everybody gets laughed at. This is the genius of his humour, it is grounded in how we see ourselves, how we see our neighbours, and how they see us.

Most of the time we are barely conscious of the tribes we belong to and the places where we feel like insiders.

Sugar Sammy asked an audience member his name – Antonio.  Based on that single piece of information he guessed the man’s tribe – Italian, which led to a prediction of where the man grew up – Saint-Léonard –  a clichéd guess confirmed true, and Sammy guessed, correctly, how many languages Antonio speaks – three.  Then Sugar Sammy riffed on Italian values, Italian mothers and Italian food. Italians in the audience found this hilarious, because these are stories shared within the tribe.

But why would these ‘insider’ jokes be funny, or even comprehensible, to non-Italians? This is where Sugar Sammy’s schtick rises to the level of art – and a profound understanding of human nature. We all look at life through multiple lenses. We are ‘insiders’ within our ethnic tribes, our social status, our gender, and our age demographic.  As insiders, we can question tribal expectations and even joke about traditions hammered into us by our elders. Within the tribe, we share experiences and a version of reality. We all live within multiple tribes.

All of us also have places where we feel like outsiders. Sugar Sammy has a clear affinity for underdogs, newcomers, the marginal and the powerless. Many of his sharpest jokes are directed at the overlords, the de souche, the privileged and the powerful. In Quebec, that group is largely populated by Francophones. One of the oddities of Quebec is that the ruling majority sees itself as a threatened minority. There is some truth to this belief, and also a large dose of self-serving nonsense that is laughable.

In May 2023, Le Devoir headlined an article – « Sugar Sammy, l’incarnation du Québec Bashing » To criticise the majority automatically qualifies as Quebec bashing. To laugh and mock is worse. Sugar Sammy gleefully fires away. He has developed huge audiences in France, the USA and English Canada.

One of the running gags in the show was about Quebec’s ‘fundamental value’ of male-female equality. Recent male immigrants, who hold tradition conservative values, see ‘modern’ women as loud, bossy and unattractive. This gag got a lot of laughs. Was the audience laughing at ‘progressive’ women or ‘regressive’ men? Or both?

I was impressed by the diversity in the audience, which reflected the reality of Montreal. The largest tribe was Francophones, of different ages and origins. The second largest group was Allophones, some of whom were also members of visible minorities.  Sugar Sammy presumed, and the laughter confirmed his belief, that Allophones speak both French and English well, and they understand Canada’s ‘founding peoples’ better than they are understood.

The smallest audience group was Anglos. Another of the running gags was that Anglos have become bilingual but are not yet bicultural, so Sugar Sammy had to explain all the francophone cultural references. This is a cliché, but the audience confirmed it is based in reality. A lot of Sammy’s jokes are based on realities that we rarely discuss in public and never in ‘mixed company.’

Sugar Sammy is an unrepentant provocateur. His show is offensive. And hilarious. And thought-provoking. I also found it profoundly optimistic. Thousands of Quebecers are flocking to see a bilingual show – horror! – that skewers some of our most sacred cows – double horror!  We laughed as insiders and outsiders, at a French-English show that would make little sense anywhere else. We came away understanding each other a little better, and remembering why we love this crazy place.

Guy Rex Rodgers recently returned to filmmaking. You can reach Guy at: [email protected]