Comedian Brendan Blackie never knew that a spontaneous joke during a roast battle would catapult him into the international spotlight for all the wrong reasons.
Brachie’s comedy group, the Danger Cats, Canadian Accent It was posted on YouTube in 2018. vaccine And that Firefly Light A huge marketing fail.
The group toured across Canada for years before branching out to the U.S. with their realistic, uncensored comedy. Group member Brett Forte has performed alongside Joe Rogan alum Brendan Schaub, and the group recently teamed up with Comedy Store legend Brian Holtzman.
As harassment of Tom Brady took social media by storm and edgy comedy made a big comeback, Danger Cats became a target of left-leaning media and was rocked by a string of cancellations. It all started after a vertical video of Blaquier reading out hate jokes on his phone was posted to Facebook.
Braquier, who goes by the nickname “Uncle Huck,” made a joke that mocked female comedians, comparing the number of sexual encounters they had had to the number of unmarked graves found beneath a Canadian residential school.
The unmarked grave points to a spot near or beneath which the remains of an Indigenous child were allegedly found. Boarding school, It was operated by the Canadian Catholic Church until the 1990s. News of the facility led to the burning of Catholic churches across Canada, sparking protests and calls for the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to investigate.
At the time of writing, the Canadian federal government has spent several years Over $8 million A search for a body in an area where there was no known gravestone. No body was ever found.
However, this did not stop complaints about Braquier’s stand-up comedy, with angry activists demanding that comedy clubs stop Danger Cat from performing.
“Trying to tell people what to laugh at and what not to laugh at is control, and that’s exactly what those in power today seem to be doing… they crave control.”
of Video Clip The poster in question is Shelley Lyn McKay, who describes herself as an “Indigenous content creator, stand-up comedian, motivational speaker” and “influencer”, as well as a “mum of four” and “TikToker”.
McKay spoke on CBC Radio’s “speed up“,” broadcast by Canadian national media.
“The first time I saw [sic] She posted the video in 2022. “I was really disgusted. I was just starting out as a stand-up comedian,” she told the radio host. When asked why she thought the joke was so hurtful, McKay said it was because of “how easy it was for someone to say something like that in a public place and make light of a really dark situation.”
“As Indigenous people, we’re still doing a lot of healing and this is just one of those things,” she added. “It really hurt me and it really hurt a lot of people who saw it, Indigenous people and our allies.”
Comedian Forte soon received word of the cancellation from a Winnipeg comedy club, who told him via phone that the group’s show was being called off immediately due to the controversy surrounding the event.
“They took it upon themselves to go to the media and their social media followers to protest the show,” Blakier told The Blaze News, “and they tried to force the venue to cancel the show. And that happened, and it seemed like those who were against us had won, and they went even further.”
The same activists then took issue with a third member of the comedy troupe, Sam Walker, who was promoting a T-shirt mocking serial killer Robert Pickton, which “attracted national attention and drew protesters outside the venue in Vancouver,” Braquier recalled.
Curiously, the activists who claim Walker is downplaying the crimes seem unaware or unconcerned about his opinion that the murders have not been properly investigated, as he stresses there are still families for whom justice should be served.
Protests at comedy clubs led to threats of arson, vandalism, and bodily harm if the group and venues hosted the group. Ultimately, eight venues canceled Danger Cat’s shows.
“I said, ‘Did you hear the joke?’ and he said, ‘No,’ so I said, ‘Well then don’t you know why you’re mad at me?'”
Government attention
The Danger Cats have drawn scathing criticism from Canada’s major media companies, most of which are government-funded, including, of course, the government-run broadcaster CBC, which has repeatedly debated whether the trio should be performing on the show.
“I don’t think we ever really trusted the media to begin with,” Uncle Huck said when asked if he expected the group would receive so many hit articles.
“The person holding the pen or writing the article has a specific goal they want to achieve with that article, but this is not any form of activism,” he said of his comedy.
“I think some of the jokes are thought-provoking. If you want to call it activism, go ahead and do it. I have no right to stop it. But our purpose on stage is to make people laugh. That’s difficult because comedy is subjective. When someone tries to dictate what you should and shouldn’t laugh at, that’s control, and the current powers that be seem to hunger for that control.”
Blaquier said he had reached a settlement with the major media outlets, who had “made it clear that they would not be attending the same dinner party again anytime soon.”
Joke misinformation
Perhaps the most frustrating part of the whole ordeal for Braquier was the fact that many shows had to be canceled or changed due to misunderstandings, meaning his jokes weren’t carefully planned, insensitive satire of Canada’s Indigenous history.
“There is not a single joke about boarding schools in my performance, but the media has portrayed me as if I spent 30 minutes talking about boarding schools and their consequences, victimization, etc. They made it seem as if I was doing a boarding school-themed performance, which is not true.”
Although the government has found no evidence of any buried bodies, the cartoonist said that if you listen to his joke, it’s actually an allusion to the fact that there are lots of bodies there.
“I don’t agree with what happened inside the school,” he added, but the comedian’s feelings didn’t stop the protests that led to the show being canceled, nor did they stop angry activists from attacking comedians whenever they got the chance.
But when confronted at the venue, Uncle Huck had the opportunity to change someone’s mind.
“I was having a public discussion with a guy, and he took me aside, and I made him talk about going to that school and how he shouldn’t joke about it. And after I made him talk, I said, ‘Did you get the joke?’ And he said, ‘I didn’t,’ and I said, ‘You don’t even know what you’re mad at me for?'” the comedian recalled.
The man responded that he was bothered by the fact that a comedian from Tabor, Alberta, was making fun of residential schools, but Braquier corrected him.
“No, I just found a really wild way to call a woman a whore.”
“Really?” the man replied. “That’s really funny,” the man said, laughing and walking away.
The subject is sensitive, “and it’s fun and dangerous to try to navigate,” he continued. “If we’re not willing to talk about it, I don’t think we’ll ever get to the truth.”
Danger cats Currently on tour It will take place across Canada and California, with tickets on sale until October 2024.
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