Читать книгу Let It Snow. Keeping Canada's Winter Sports Alive онлайн

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Not only did Conan’s live audience laugh, but at times proved these stereotypes true, as audience members would randomly chant “Go Leafs Go” during segments when Conan interviewed proud Canadian Mike Myers. Myers gleefully contrasted the differences between America and Canada, and embraced the crowd.

Despite dozens of stereotypical Canadian characterizations featuring cold weather dwellers, and igloo jokes, the only time Conan’s crew caught the ire of Canadians, and in particular Canadian politicians, was when his NBC crew went off the climate script, and did a segment involving a puppet dog poking fun at French culture in Quebec. The furor made its way to Parliament after the segment aired, further illustrating the point that Canadians will laugh, tolerate, and perpetuate jokes about their hockey-loving, cold-weather hoser image, but jokes about the more subtle tensions between Francophones and Anglophones are off limits.

While Canada is a nation made up of both French- and English-speaking Canadians, and has a unique culture, with their ancestors first fighting against one another and then living together, it’s not something to be rubbed too sharply or put at the forefront of discussion. It certainly isn’t something to be mocked. It’s a very delicate relationship, and one upon which politicians are leery about treading. A foreign comedian using a puppet dog to insult the French, put politicians from all sides, French and English, on a hot seat, and created a reaction the O’Brien crew simply could not anticipate. They eventually apologized having learned what humour was tolerated in Canada. In the world of comedy, it’s best to stick with something Canadians as a whole accommodate — the Canada identity as a Winter Wonderland. That’s funny.