The Gazette - How do English-speaking Quebecers become Quebecois overnight?
Win a prestigious American award and then say "merci Montreal" and a few more words in French on American television.
That's how the Montrealbased, predominantly English-speaking music group Arcade Fire did it.
"Bravo Arcade Fire!!!!," the high priest of Quebec popular culture, Guy A. Lepage, tweeted shortly after the group took album-of-the-year prize at the Grammy Awards on Sunday.
And he promised to try to book the group for Sunday's edition of his popular Radio-Canada television talk show, Tout le mode en parole.
"Repeating it in French and English gives a modern, cool image of Montreal," the chairman of the Culture Montreal organization gushed in the next day's La Presse beneath the heading "Arcade Fire's victory at the Grammys: Montreal cool and multilingual."
Suddenly the Quebec music-industry association ADISQ found itself under attack because in Arcade Fire's 10 years in Montreal, it had never even been nominated for one of the association's annual Felix awards.
Morning man Paul Arcand of Montreal radio station 98,5fm tweeted that ADISQ's annual awards gala is "a parish festival that denies the Montreal reality. It's small and dusty."
An embarrassed ADISQ scrambled to announce that it would change its rules if necessary so that the group could be honoured at the next Felix ceremony in October.
And Quebec's minister of culture and language, Christine St-Pierre, issued a statement congratulating Arcade Fire and praising "la creativite des artistes Quebecois."
There was no mention that less than a year ago, these particular "artistes Quebecois" wouldn't have been allowed to sing their songs in their original language in their hometown at the televised outdoor concert closing the official, government-funded, Fete nationale holiday celebrations.
The concert's master of ceremonies had decreed that any anglophones who performed would have to sing in French.
The emcee, who also complained during the concert that "half the city doesn't speak French," was the same Guy A. Lepage who tweeted "Bravo Arcade Fire!!!!" after they won their Grammy and said he would try to land them for his show.
There was no protest in the name of artistic freedom from the culture minister or any other politician.
But everybody loves a winner, and politicians rush to embrace them -usually.
Some, however, still seem ambivalent about Arcade Fire's success.
A few weeks ago, when director Denis Villeneuve's film Incendies was nominated for an Oscar as best foreign-language firm, the Parti Quebecois issued a statement of congratulations the same day.
But with its leader facing a party confidence vote in April, the PQ hesitated before joining in the congratulations for a popular, Englishlanguage, Montreal-based rock band that represents two things the party stands against: the "anglicization" of Montreal and the influence of English-language popular culture.
All but one of the seven members of Arcade Fire were born outside Quebec and have English as their mother tongue, and all were educated in English. Almost all their songs are in English, only a few are in French, and their audience includes all language groups.
It wasn't until nearly two days after the Grammys that the PQ publicly acknowledged Arcade Fire's award, supporting a motion of congratulations in the National Assembly recognizing the contribution of "our francophone and anglophone artists" to spreading Quebec culture internationally.
A victory for a cool and multilingual Montreal is not a victory for the PQ.
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dmacpherson
X2L montrealgazette.com
Twitter: X2L MacphersonGaz