INTERVIEW
He was one of the creators of political humor in France. A great comedy talent, Guy Bedos, who died on Thursday, castigated hypocrisy and stupidity in his increasingly political sketches. In the 1970s, a text notably marked by its humor and the misunderstanding that it aroused among anti-racists: it is called "Holidays in Marrakech". At the microphone of Europe 1, Yvan Gastaut, historian specializing in immigration, returned on Saturday to the controversy around this sketch, presented in an era plagued by racist violence.
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"Marrakech? It disappointed us. It's full of Arabs. In Marrakech, there is only that," said Guy Bedos, giving the reply to actress Sophie Daumier in the sketch "Holidays in Marrakech". And at the time, these ironic words were not interpreted as such by all the spectators.
Yet, recalls Yvan Gastaut, Guy Bedos was a man engaged on the left. "It was in this movement which was to denounce the ordinary racism which was widely current in the beginning of the Seventies", he explains.
Racists and anti-racists "side by side"
Despite this desire, Guy Bedos also made another audience laugh, which he had not originally targeted. "The sketch is so well done that the laughter has burst into two dimensions. Racists and anti-racists meet side by side to laugh behind this sketch, to different degrees. It is one of the ambiguous sources of humor" , analyzes Yvan Gastaut, also lecturer at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis.
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Following this sketch, a controversy was created, dividing racists and anti-racists. Guy Bedos must have reacted. "He had to explain himself at length on several occasions about his intentions which sometimes hurt the Maghrebis", indicates the historian, who recalls the dark context of this time. "We can smell hints of the Algerian war and a colonial past in the sketch. The sketch captures this section of the French population," he continues.
Immigrants lynched in the 1970s
The 1970s were indeed those of ratonnades, violence directed towards the Maghreb population. "This is a period which will begin during which racist conduct takes place against immigrant workers, mainly men who came from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, to work in France," recalls Yvan Gastaut. "They find themselves victims of violent racism, attacks and punitive expeditions." For the immigration specialist, this sketch reflects this era. "'Holidays in Marrakech' is a sort of illustration of the humor in these tensions. It hit the mark," he said.
In this context, Guy Bedos felt misunderstood with his sketch, written in 1969. According to Yvan Gastaut, he "found himself in spite of himself pinned down for what he did not want to develop, that is to say say racist behavior and attitudes. " The historian even claims that this episode deeply marked the actor. "The fact of having been accused of being a racist and of having been banned from the airwaves or from performances with this sketch made him suffer a lot. It remained like an open wound in his repertoire," specifies Yves Gastaut.