From the 1950s to the 1980s, throughout Quebec, a number of kitsch businesses, driven by fabulous representations of foreign countries, sprouted like mushrooms. Restaurant, lounge bars and clubs were intended to be both exotic and immersive. Adorned with cheap exoticism, they invited the majority of society to immerse themselves in representations of the world to which cinema, hungry for clichés, had brought to life. The Historia channel talks about it in Kitsch QCa documentary series available in eight parts.
Welcome to themed French restaurants or Chinese restaurants with cardboard lanterns and dragons, passing through the fake souks of a compositional North Africa where belly dancers put on a show while people eat at their tables. Welcome to the wonderful kingdom of similifaux and similiverables that have become quite common.
Jean-Paul Grappe has managed four French restaurants in Montreal. On the eve of the 1967 World’s Fair, he came to America to open a luxury French restaurant called Le Concorde. Limoges earthenware, silver cutlery, waiters in livery… all the tricks to impress were required. In an interview in the series, he said: “I was fascinated by Quebecers who waited three hours to eat in a restaurant, while in Europe, after five minutes, they leave! »
The decorations were of great importance to Quebecers, remembers Jean-Paul Grappe. “When they entered a restaurant, for them, it was the discovery of a country. There they were traveling! » After only a moment, they looked at the menu. This is how international cuisine began in Montreal. Until then, Mr. Grappe further observes, there was only room for the American culinary culture of the “steakhouse”.
Very popular, the thematic universes will even be transported to shopping centers. At Place Laurier, in Quebec, the public could, for example, find themselves in the middle of a series of restaurants installed behind false Norman facades.
It is normal to force the line a little if we want to be understood and accepted for what we are supposed to represent, says historian Raphaël Weyland. Wouldn’t a Quebecer who opened a poutine restaurant abroad be tempted to say a little more than usual, while wearing a checked jacket, in order to clearly convey what he intends to embody in his business? Restaurateurs who offer Asian, Middle Eastern or other decors intend, using the same process, to suggest a change of scenery, even if it means exaggerating a little.
For a long time, these kitsch establishments served as cultural mediators, in a dramatized relationship between Quebec and the world. “Today, it is quite important to trace, look and [de] recognize the importance of these places,” explains Caroline Dubuc. In 2021, with Roxanne Arsenault, she published a book entitled Kitsch QC. Their work, winner of a heritage award from the City of Montreal, constitutes the basis of the TV series of the same name.
“Oriental” cuisine and dance
This is France Hébert, known for a time as “Souraya”. In a Moroccan restaurant in Quebec, she played an “oriental dancer”. However, for a very long time, she only had more than sketchy knowledge of the Middle East. No matter: a large part of the popular imagination has long been attached to it. We say, basically, that it is a question of “the South”, that is to say without distinguishing anything, in a sort of big catch-all.
Welcome to El Morocco, “restaurant, café, entertainment “. A major scene in the 1940s and 1950s in Montreal, this cabaret welcomes stars who parade in an oriental-inspired decor. Alys Robi sings there. Several passing American stars are seen there, in a pseudo-North African universe. The Egyptian dancer Fawzia Amir performed there before opening Club Sahara herself, with the help of the underworld.
-Fawzia Amir presents herself, to advertise herself, as one of the favorites of “King Farouk”. She will be hunted down by the City of Montreal, in the name of facade morality. To explain herself, she dances in front of a judge, who absolves her of all blame. These are the beginnings, in Quebec, of these restaurants which offer “belly dancers”.
As Fawzia Amir’s daughter explains in an interview in the documentary, the design and appearance of her mother’s club were more in line with what North Americans projected onto this North African world. In other words, these countries in reduced format where we invite ourselves for the evening, on the corner of the street, are only spaces of representation modeled from the images projected by the large-scale cinema, in a kitsch excess which is the norm in Kitsch QC.
Most of the places featured in the documentary series have long since disappeared. Thanks to archival documents, they still speak. They say something about the worldview of a society which asked for nothing better than to open its windows wide in order to get some fresh air.
Bochra Manaï, doctor in urban studies, explains it well: this way that restaurateurs represent the world in order to sell themselves says something, through a mirror effect, about the society they serve. During an outing to a restaurant, we live a myth, “but it still says something about the social and societal representations that we have of each other”.
To introduce them, Kitsch QC focuses on the exploration of cultural relationships with different communities, through these institutions which sometimes make you smile. Here we are in a Greek, Italian, North African and Chinese pseudo-universe, while all these places speak, fundamentally, of the evolution of Quebec society.
Where does this passion for what we call kitsch come from, with its exuberant, unfiltered, crazy side by dint of being freed from what most often takes the place of the norm? Kitsch; the late author Eva Le Grand highlighted the seductions. The craftsmen of this series too. In their own way.
“Often, people will attach a pejorative label to the word “kitsch”, as if it were strictly a question of taste, of bad taste,” explains Caroline Dubuc. They think, in other words, of kitsch according to its tacky or corny side, as we say in Quebec. » “For us, it’s the opposite,” says Roxanne Arsenault: “we really have an admiration for these places. There is an enormous respect that we have for these singular visions that we can define today as kitsch. »
