Bambi loves “Les Filles de Caleb” [let’s call it Caleb’s daughters” in English]. When she was a student in Québec, as a Christmas gift, she offered her mom the three books of this series written by Ms. Arlette Cousture. When she visited her parents in Beirut this past summer, she came across this book. Indeed, her mom was having fun re-reading it.
Recently, Bambi learned about another stupid censorship story. This time, it is by Netflix and it involves “Les filles de Caleb“. Dr. Mathieu Bock-Côté’s article, published in the Journal de Montréal about this saga is sharp and straight to the point (https://bit.ly/3eBhD9S). Bambi will translate it for you below:
“We are talking about it: Netflix, the famous American platform, which has undertaken to broadcast Caleb’s daughters, has above all decided to censor an episode.
The reason? A character paints his face in black to play one of the three kings in a Christmas play.
I should point out that the series, shot in the 1990s, takes place at the end of the 19th century, in Mauricie. But Netflix does not understand Québec history and its officials have decided to see it as blackface, a reason justifying the censorship of the episode.
Censorship
Everything is crazy in this story.
First, a famous Québec series is censored, in the name of the new American morality, based on racial obsession. We take the liberty of depriving Québeckers of their own cultural heritage. What will our crazed censors say if they find out that in “Lance et compte”, what they call blackface is even used by National players as a symbol of anti-racism?
Second, this decision testifies to the pressure of the neo-puritans who want to impose their conception of blasphemy on us. They don’t like a series scene? They censor it. They don’t like the title of a book, they want to ban it, as we see with “Les nègres blancs d’Amérique” [As a reminder, there is a historical reason why Mr. Pierre Vallières’ book is entitled like this]. They don’t like a professor using the word “nègre” from a pedagogical perspective, they ruin her career, as we saw at the University of Ottawa.
Wokeism
Third, blackface does not exist in Québec. It’s all about context, and our context has nothing to do with the United States. This is imported trauma. In the name of “decolonization” and openness to “minorities”, American cultural colonialism is favoured in Québec.
We must liberate Québec from wokeism and deliver it from American racial neuroses. And we must restore all of the Daughters of Caleb”.
Bambi can only agree with Dr. Mathieu Bock-Côté. Netflix must restore all the episodes of this series from Québec. Like he did in one of his tweets, and in solidarity with Québec culture being under attack now, she will also end this post with the music of “Les filles de Caleb”.