Fanny Herrero: “We are not threatened by the “cancel culture” in France”

• Every Friday,

  20 Minutes

   invites a personality to comment on a social phenomenon in his 

  20 Minutes

  meeting  with…

• Fanny Herrero, the creator of

  Dix pour cent

  , opens Series Mania this Friday, with her new series for Netflix, entitled

  Funny,

  about the world of stand-up.

• The creator returns for

  20 Minutes

  to the phenomenal growth of this scene and how it allows us to tell about society and young people today in France.

The stand-up scene is booming in France.

A phenomenon that has not escaped the sharp eye of Fanny Herrero, brilliant creator of

.

She chose this arena for her new series,

, screened at the opening of the Series Mania festival in Lille and available on Netflix from this Friday.

She tells

how these comedy shows allow us to talk about society and young people in France.

After the worldwide success of "Ten percent", in what state of mind did you tackle this new project?

With great excitement!

After seven intense years of

, I needed a break.

For several months, I did nothing.

The urge came back when I discovered the young stand-up scene.

I was quite euphoric to take an interest in this environment that I did not know.

It was cool to work on a subject where people are very funny, to see lots of shows in

, to exchange with them.

These characters are younger than me, I took pleasure in reconnecting with this period of life, between 25 and 30 years old, when one begins to assert oneself.

What interested you in stand-up?

Three years ago, a friend took me to a

.

I've always been a fan of Blanche Gardin, I had watched a little American stand-up, but I didn't really know this environment.

I was not aware that this scene was so lively and vigorous.

Five

have opened in Paris over the past five years and it's the same thing in the provinces.

This very young art drains all kinds of people.

I had the conviction to hold a prism to speak about youth and society.

What surprised you the most?

So many things !

It is often believed that stand-uppers are young people who have the chat, take the microphone and improvise.

However, they work a long time before emerging, with pugnacity, before a joke works.

It touched me as an author.

I discovered a real author's work.

And then, the courage it takes to go on stage... There are a lot of pitfalls, flop.

They all say it, even the most confirmed.

Flops are moments of great loneliness and when you trigger laughter, it's such satisfaction, like a drug.

This allowed me to understand the interior of this profession, the emotions through which they go.

The stand-up is also a way to talk about our society…

Funny

is about four young people who, each in their own way, have a vocation, humor.

For me, humor connects people.

It is a collective experience.

Laughing together federates.

When someone makes people laugh, we empathize with them, especially with the stand-uppers who recount their unique, often intimate experiences, whether it's a vision of society or an anecdote.

shows how people with very different geographical and family origins can have a common ground.

It's a series about what we have in common, more than what divides us.

This is especially important right now...

It is very important to place your gaze there!

We can spend hours telling and showing what divides us.

There are also so many things that bring us together.

Starting with the experience of otherness, being able to listen to another way of seeing things.

Humor creates connection and a common narrative.

These young people, who speak with something of their own, take their place in a great collective French narrative of the 2020s.

talks about taking their place in a common narrative and creating, thanks to this, a collective ferment in a society.

What role do stand-uppers play in society in your opinion?

They have the ability to unite, without being afraid to hustle.

Through humour, we do a kind of little collective psychoanalysis, we scratch taboos.

Sometimes it hurts.

No matter how much we say this absolutely infuriating phrase “Be careful, we can’t say anything more”, we are in a country where we have immense freedom of speech.

And so much the better.

There have never been so many people who make humor, boys, girls, of all colors, sexual orientations and geographical, social, cultural and political origins.

People express themselves, we are not threatened by the

 in this country.

Sometimes it makes you cringe, and so much the better, it causes debate.

When susceptibilities appear, it tells society at a given time. Some jokes go out of style.

Those on the blondes caused a lot of laughter at family meals.

We don't really want to listen to them anymore.

Not because we are aggressive feminists, but because society is changing and we can invent other codes.

Minorities are now saying, “No, it's not funny.

It's banal, cliché, stereotyped and violent.

Comedians listen to these reactions.

They back off a bit if the joke isn't hyperfine.

Sometimes they believe the joke is necessary, and maybe they're right.

We are really not in a country threatened by censorship.

Three of your four heroes have an immigrant background, what is your view of the representation of ethnic minorities in French series?

It happened naturally.

It turns out that the stand-up scene attracts a lot of young people from immigrant backgrounds, but not only, because it's a popular art that requires few means.

I didn't have the idea of ​​a casting where we try to put diversity, which I absolutely agree with, but the subject called for that.

We have a responsibility in the series to try to show France as it is.

A story triggers imaginations.

When we aggregate these stories, it ends up making models, representations.

We have spent years putting women in certain jobs, in the end, we have received ideas.

And it's the same thing for people of immigrant origin, if we confine them to certain jobs, it ends up being a reality.

Our responsibility is to challenge stereotypes,

to be interested in people regardless of their skin color.

In

, we have characters with different skin colors, it's their life experience that interests me.

These four absolutely French young people have something to tell us about France.

We rarely see a character of Algerian origin as positive as Nezir… Is it political?

It is not a strategy, but a reflection.

I talked a lot with non-white people.

I am a 45-year-old white woman, I know that at some point, I have to show a lot of curiosity to access a truth.

I was careful when I was alerted by saying: "It's a bit cliché".

It is very important for me to be fine and true.

During the casting for the character of Nezir, many young actors offered a game that was sometimes a bit caricatural.

It pained me because I told myself that they believed that this is what is expected of them, the little pissed off suburban guy.

We are doing very badly in this country for the kids to have integrated these clichés to this point.

With Apolline and Nezir, you tackle the all-too-rare question of social class….

It's crazy !

We have an unfortunate tendency in France to omit social classes, to prefer to speak of origin or immigration where we should speak of social injustice and the sharing of wealth.

Apolline and Nezir are our Romeo and Juliet, one coming from a very popular and rather underprivileged background while the other lives in a private mansion.

They have humor in common.

This couple allows us to see that we can have both things that connect us and gaps of injustice.

When Nezir discovers this incredible private mansion, I hope we really take it in the face, like a slap.

He cannot suspect this world, it is very violent.

It's important for me to talk about it because we are in our industrialized countries under a capitalist economic regime that is quite frightening in terms of social inequalities.

With the character of Bling, you approach the question of the blank page, a way of exorcising his anxieties as a creator?

Bling embodies that moment as an artist when you lose confidence in yourself, when you feel like you're out of phase, you don't have anything interesting to say anymore.

He looks for palliatives, to act as if, so as not to confront his limits.

To be an artist is to be able to connect to where you are at the moment T and do something about it.

If we are sincere and we transmit well what we have gone through, it will affect a lot of people.

With Aïssatou, you tackle the question of reconciling career and motherhood…

I am a feminist.

It seems to me so normal and inevitable to be.

It comes through in my work, but it's not a banner or a manifesto.

I put in my female characters things that I have been through.

I have two children.

My daughter was born in the middle of

.

The couple, the family, the career, the dilemmas, the guilt, etc.

I really experienced it and I want to tell it.

Aïssatou is younger than me, at a time when everything begins for her.

She wonders where to put her energy: in her personal expression or in caring for her child she loves?

I also show the couple's point of view.

I find it beautiful to tell how his companion is destabilized by this and ends up being in support.

We need men and women to be able to share moments of their careers and their lives in balance and equality.

Younès Boucif, Mariama Gueye, Elsa Guedj and Jean Siuen, you have chosen new faces to play your heroes...

I strongly believed in actors who weren't very well known.

We considered taking real stand-uppers, but I didn't want them to convey their image.

With

, I gave into the mixture of true and false.

I wanted authenticity and truth!

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