28 - C’est l’histoire d’un Arabe…
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Constance Desloires
Jamel Debbouze’s Arab identity : a trademark, an asset and a trap
Le Temps des médias n° 28, Printemps 2017, p. 88-99.
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Jamel Debbouze, an Arab humorist, from a suburban housing estate who is Muslim and French, has been able to establish his vision of life thanks to his talent, and been able to demand visibility and equality for all minority characters he embodies. He has also given victims of discrimination control of the racist humor that he has re-appropriated. He represents a fringe of population that was rendered more visible by the 1983 March for Equality. He has played the figure of the fool, who evokes the evils of a society which has not yet accepted its immigrants from North Africa. Then he became the spokesperson of several somewhat ill-defined social groups-, and he has sometimes become trapped in that position, restricted by the constraints of television. He has gone further than his comedy predecessors, who had opened the way, and, in 20 years, he has had a dramatic effect on the image of Arabs in France.