Franco-Maghrebi Actors and the Stand-Up Performances
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Chapter 3 Franco-Maghrebi Actors and the Stand-Up Performances If we don’t represent and define ourselves, others will. Beur motto ⸪ As we have seen in the previous chapters, the beginning of Franco-Maghrebi cinematography occurred in the context of the rise in visibility of the Beur movements in the 1980s. The themes treated in these movies were those related to their banlieues/Beur background: unemployment, delinquency, breaking through/failing the Republican educational system, etcetera. The universe depicted by these early artistic productions was the incarcerating space of the banlieues with only limited “escapes” available in the Métropole. If these escapes existed, their intent was only to make the characters realize that their space of comfort and familiarity remained in the place where they were born and raised, namely, the banlieues. The first roles performed by certain renown Franco-Maghrebi actors, in- cluding Gad Elmaleh, Jamel Debbouze, Sami Bouajila, Djamel Bensalah, and Rochdy Zem,1 were racaille2 (thug) roles, minorities in the French context who were uneducated and unemployed youth idling all day long without a clear 1 Gad Elmaleh’s first role was Alilo, an Algerian who decided to stay in France illegally for the sake of a woman, in Salut, cousin! (Allouache, 1996). Jamel Debbouze plays Youssef, a young banlieusard, in Le ciel, les oiseaux et … ta mère! (Bensalah, 1999). Sami Bouajila interpreted his first role as Kamel, a young man from the banlieues, in La Thune (Galland, 1991). Djamel Bensalah started his career with his short Il y a du footage de geule dans l’air (Bensalah, 1996), which would later become Le ciel, les oiseaux et … ta mère!. Rochdy Zem also started his career in 1991, with the role of Saïd, a young man of Arabic origin, in J’embrasse pas (Téchiné, 1991). 2 The term racaille appeared as an insult in the context of the French riots in the banlieues in 2005. As a reaction to the police violence, some young men at Clichy-sous-Bois went out on the streets, and in a sign of protest, they burned police cars and physically attacked some firefighters and policemen. The interior minister of the time, Nicolas Sarkozy, declared a zero tolerance rule in the French projects and called the young rioters insulting terms, such as racaille and voyous (thugs, hoodlums) in his speech on October 26, 2005. The whole nation © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004385450_005 74 Chapter 3 goal in life other than to tchatche.3 Even though most of the movies at that time were low-budget, independent productions employing amateurs and young men in search of an acting career, like the actors mentioned above, some of these individuals gradually gained public attention. The statistics about their popularity are gathered by Will Higbee in the second chapter of his book Post-Beur Cinema: North African Émigrés and Maghrebi-French Filmmaking in France since 2000, and they document the increasing success of ethnic com- edies in France and abroad starting in the mid-1990s. With the passage of time, since the end of the 1990s and beginning of the 2000s more precisely, the aforementioned actors became increasingly popu- lar. They started to act in important box-office films that were/are not only famous in France, but also outside the national borders. Examples are Amélie (Jeunet, 2001), Astérix et Obélix: Mission Cléopatre (Chabat, 2002), Indigènes (Bouchareb, 2006), Va-vis et deviens (Mihaileanu, 2005), The Adventures of Tintin (Spielberg, 2011). By acquiring these diverse roles, they demonstrated that their talent could go beyond an “amateur” ethnic production. Also, their success attests to the fact that they managed to overcome their origins and go further than their ethnic identity (faces, races, accents, etc.) indicated. In the last ten to fifteen years, moreover, they have shown their talent in diverse areas of show business, namely in acting, directing, and stand-up en- tertainment. Everything that they have tried has brought them success. The French and Francophone audiences like them equally and acclaim their public appearances. As a consequence, Jamel and Gad Elmaleh are among the top three of the successful actors in France, and they are currently the best-paid actors. They have regular shows on TV such as the famous comedy festival Le Marrakech du rire on M6 with Jamel Debbouze. The most popular entertain- ment shows on French TV, such as On n’est pas couché, Vivement dimanche, and L’invité de Bernard Pivot, invite these individuals regularly to their studios. They are also very involved in the cultural scene, as they promote new talents and help young actors with minority backgrounds to launch their careers in France. A relevant example is Jamel Comedy Club.4 was devastated by these events that were a visible sign of Republican intolerance toward the immigrant youth. 3 Tchatche(r) (in English translation: “to have the gift of the gab, jabber”) is an argotic term that refers to a person who can have a great linguistic creativity in speaking and who makes numerous jokes and cultural connections to whom others can relate. But lately, the term ap- pears in the banlieue context to designate the new youth style of speaking in today’s France. 4 Jamel Comedy Club is a comedy venue in the eastern part of Paris, at 42 Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle, which is owned and managed by Jamel Debbouze and his family. The club opened its doors in 2008, and it has become the heart of stand-up comedy in Paris. Called by the press .