Using LGBTQ+ and Nonconformist Artists as Punching Bags: Mainstream Media’s Forté

ARTS & CULTURE

Using LGBTQ+ and Nonconformist Artists as Punching Bags: Mainstream Media’s Forté

SIMONE BÉLANGER Arts & Culture Editor

The media is a hell of a scary place for queer people. From casual harmful jokes to death threats, few are spared. It is even scarier that prominent reporters and columnists fill the media with barely hidden hate. Although not all media engage in such discourse, some do on a recurrent basis while appealing to a large audience.

Such articles propagate at a high speed and often target the same personalities, manufacturing them into “suitable punching bags”. The artist themselves are mere paraphernalia for such articles, as what remains at their core is an excessive effort and relentlessness to scorn queerness and anyone who dares to tackle gender norms. Why is this manifestation of bigotry taking over? It makes a “buzz”, and an extremely harmful one.

Media such as Quebec’s top newspaper (most read in 2022), “Le Journal de Montréal,” thrives on giving shocking titles to chronicles, endlessly targeting a few artists who are already villainized by the masses, and weaponizing terms known to polarize (such as using the expression “woke” to turn issues into blatant mockery).

This topic can’t be addressed without evoking some of our iconic nonconformist artists and what the media put them through. Hubert Lenoir, a singer and songwriter born in Quebec City, blew up in 2018 after releasing the album Darlene, which earned 4 different awards at l’ADISQ gala. He is known for his vibrant androgyny, incendiary personality, and desire to stay authentic, but also for the frightening amount of animosity received from the media both in Quebec and France.

Clémentine Goldszal, a respected music critic writes in La Dispute: “Three years ago he was in a folk band, and now he convinced himself that wearing lipstick was actually cool […] This kind of pre-chewed provocation, it annoys me.” Here, Goldszal’s issue with Lenoir is completely unrelated to his music. It is about makeup. Quite alarming how artists who diverge from gender norms aren’t judged on their actual art but on how they present themselves instead.

One of her collaborators, Pascaline Potdevin, even qualified Lenoir as “having obsessive themes”. Knowing some of the major topics addressed in his work are alienation, gender fluidity, sexual identity, and gender identity, this criticism comes off as highly disturbing. Because how exactly is fighting the existing oppressive gender norms obsessive? I simply can’t tell. Sounds more like poorly concealed bigotry to me.

It is also worth mentioning that in Le Journal de Montréal’s 2018 list of Quebec’s personalities who impacted the year negatively, Hubert Lenoir was ranked 8th. Right after Gilbert Rozon, Éric Salvail, Couillard, Trudeau, Alexandre Bissonnette: an exquisite assortment of rapists, corrupted or distasteful politicians, and a killer. An artist shocked people by his lack of care for gender and societal norms to the point his name stands right after some of the province’s most sickening individuals. How is this even real?

Another queer artist who suffered from constant mediatic criticism, hate, and threats is Safia Nolin. Born in Limoilou (title of her first album in 2015), Safia gathered multiple awards and even more nominations throughout the years. Yet, her success is far from being unanimous.

Last February, Sophie Durocher (Le Journal de Montréal) was publicly asked by Bonsound, Safia’s label, to stop writing about their client. This request is the result of multiple articles published in a very short span which downright bully Nolin, minimizing her sexual allegations, defending her aggressor (Maripier Morin) and mocking her appearance. No wonder vulgar hateful messages surfaced downtown following this kind of vicious criticism; she received several insults and threats, such as “fat cow”, “bitch” or “ugly,” and many internet users accused her of sabotaging Morin’s career. I think we can all agree on this; the only person responsible for the fall of Maripier Morin is Maripier Morin herself.

It also illustrates how sexual allegations in the LGBTQ+ community are not treated with the serious heterosexual ones are granted, and carry a minor weight in public opinion. Less than two years after Safia Nolin spoke up, Maripier Morin had already made her comeback in the film industry. Nolin reacted with: “It is difficult enough to see that two years later, my mental health, my safety, and my career are still awfully affected, added to the fact I now see her face everywhere.”

The other issue is that there are rarely debates around her ideas or talent; her body, clothes and sexual orientation are the main targets of criticism. To such hypocritical and sensationalist journalistic practices, we must say farewell.

Throughout the decades, LGBTQ+ and nonconformist personalities were never spared by the media, and a crippling homophobia still lurks in our society. But the mouths of the marginalized artists will never be shut. No one should justify themselves “in the face of conservative, imbecile and homophobic people.” To all the fools, Hubert Lenoir replied with a quite direct: “Fuck you all.” p

Photo VIA HUGO-SÉBASTIEN AUBERT