Politicians in Comedy Sketches – A Calculated Risk

Parti Québecois leader André Boisclair is getting roasted by other politicians and some pundits for his upcoming appearance in a Brokeback Mountain sketch on a TV comedy show.

The sketch shows actors as George W. Bush and Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper naked from the waist up. When the homoerotic action gets a little intense, Boisclair pokes his head into the frame and says, “Québec won’t get mixed up in something like that.”

The criticism suggests Boisclair stepped over the line of acceptable behaviour, especially since he refused to let his homosexuality be an issue while he was running for the party leadership.

You see them almost every day. Politicians and other public figures appearing on a comedy show, going along with a gag in which they are sometimes the butt of the joke.

I called this Borrowed Hipness, because they’re getting a bit of the positive glow from the show’s biting humour. In some cases, the stilted acting and awkwardness is part of the charm of the cameo appearance. In some cases, you wonder why they agreed to participate.

Comedy is such a slippery thing that it’s hard to know in advance whether the cameo will help or hinder. Most politicians are willing to take the chance, since audiences are increasingly ignoring the evening news in favour of news-based comedy.

More in the Globe and Mail. Video capture via CTV.

(I used accents in this post. If they don’t show up properly in your browser, leave a comment, so I know whether to drop them.)

Tags: canada, comedy, gay, politics, pr, public relations, quebec