Humor: leveling up

DAY

Saturday evening, I attended a show by a Quebec comedian. I know it's very hard to believe, but… the comedian in question addressed, for an hour and a half, the intelligence of the spectators. 

And you know what? They have it all figured out! And they laughed out loud throughout the show. And they warmly applauded at the end! It's crazy, isn't it?

At the Salle André-Mathieu in Laval, Boucar Diouf has succeeded in making people laugh with his show Nomo Sapienswhich talks about scientists (Darwin, Desmond Morris, Marie Curie), which refers to notions of biology, which dissects the theory of evolution and which debates philosophical concepts. 

Notice to young people comedians who, at the galas, make fun of the “old people”, who make jokes of mononcles: Boucar is 58 years old and his rooms are filled without a single inappropriate or disconnected joke.

IN LA SEARCH FOR LOST HUMOR

Don't think Diouf's show is prudish or arid, though. He talks a lot about sexuality (orgies, orgies, the size of great ape penises) and he has a whole segment about a baby monkey sticking his finger in his fart and then sniffing it. 

But the difference is that Boucar Diouf starts from these stories “below the belt” to take us elsewhere, “above the shoulders”. I hesitate to use the “R word”, but Diouf is able to make us “think”.

I learned more about the matriarchal system of bonobos, the only primates in which females took over.

I knew that we shared almost 98% of our genetic heritage with bonobos and chimpanzees, but I hadn't realized how much we had in common with great apes. In short, after Boucar's show, I went to bed less silly.

Boucar Diouf is not the only one to address the intelligence of his audience. 

Philippe-Audrey Larrue-St-Jacques too. 

I went to attend the premiere of his show at the Gésu recently. Larrue-St-Jacques is the Mathieu Bock-Côté of humour. He too speaks polished French, he too quotes great authors in the text and he too is capable of making sentences as long as Marcel Proust. 

Larrue-St-Jacques is the only person who is able to make a crowd laugh in Quebec by talking about the famous chicane between Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. (And I think even those who don't know anything about it may have gone to check on Wikipedia after the show). Like a dandy from another era, he quotes Alfred de Musset, George Sand and the great masters of the Renaissance.

The third comedian who makes us think by making us laugh is of course my friend Guy Nantel. 

Contrary to Katherine Levac who does not find him “inclusive enough”, I find that Guy's humor includes all the ingredients necessary for a sound, political and committed reflection on Quebec society.

NOT JUST FOR LAUGHS

In an interview, Boucar Diouf mentioned on several occasions that his type of humor was aimed “at the spleen first, then the heart and finally the mind”. 

We can never praise enough the risky bet of these comedians who, like Boucar, Guy and Philippe, address our spirit.