The author of this letter shares the discomfort she had while watching the interview with the makers of the documentary Alpha on the show Everyone is talking about it from November 10.
Posted at 5:30 p.m.
Elizabeth Lemay
Author of the books Daddy Issues and The Summer of Anger published by Editions du Boréal
During yesterday’s interview at Everyone is talking about it in trio with the director of the documentary Alphathe specialist in questions of feminism and masculinity and the representative of this retrograde vision, everyone’s attention was more focused on the latter to make him see reason. As expected, it was a failure, but the problem lay elsewhere. This moment of clumsy television was even more catastrophic than we feared.
Despite public discontent, the broadcaster insisted on inviting a masculinist arguing that women are not equal to men in terms of skills and abilities. Initially, director Simon Coutu was to be accompanied by not one, but two of the characters from his documentary. - had no choice but to add an expert to balance everything out.
Listening to the interview, it was easy to understand why Everyone is talking about it wanted to make room for them. The presence of the Cro-Magnon man buried another conversation.
Télé-Québec chose to broadcast a trailer making us doubt the objective of the documentary. Listening to him, no one knew whether he wanted to promote this way of thinking or denounce it. The answer seems to be neither.
Without ever questioning the director about the scandal surrounding the release of the documentary, host Guy A. Lepage instead praised the number of views of the trailer. In our living room, we all wanted to shout that yes, of course, we listened to this trailer on repeat, because it made us mad.
The host implied that Télé-Québec and the director of the documentary had been caught off guard in this media storm. In my opinion, it is absurd to launch this fabricated trailer into the universe to sow controversy and say you are surprised by the attention.
It is difficult not to link this interview with the fact that the documentary’s director and production team is also working on Everyone is talking about it. This information should have been mentioned at the very least.1
I didn’t see Alpha and I will avoid this torture. For my part, it was enough to hear its director affirm that he in no way wanted to denounce the movement he was highlighting. Journalistic neutrality has its limits. For a subject as delicate as the rise of hatred towards women, we are entitled to have a treatment of information which goes beyond exposing their vision of the world from another era. Thank you, but we know that these men who hate women exist. And we probably know it much better than you.
1. Read Hugo Dumas’ column “Edition en tension de Everyone is talking about it »
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