Corus is no longer dubbing The Simpsons into Quebec French, which sparked a backlash in the province.Fox via AP
If you have never had the unique pleasure of watching an episode of The Simpsons dubbed into Quebec French, you may just have missed out on one of the greatest examples of Québécois cultural affirmation since Michel Tremblay brought joual to the local stage six decades ago.
It may seem paradoxical that the dubbing into colloquial Quebec French of a quintessentially American animated television series could come to represent a major act of resistance against the anglophone cultural steamroller that Quebeckers have fought against their whole lives.
Yet, for more than three decades, Les Simpson (in French, surnames are not pluralized) has been exactly that. Not only was it one of the first U.S. series to ever be dubbed into Quebec French, as opposed to standard or Parisian French, but it remains the longest running one.
With its local references and expressions, the Quebec version of The Simpsons is a unique creation. Entire cohorts of Quebeckers have grown up watching an impertinent Bart yell “Mange de la crotte,“ or “Go eat turds,” rather than “Eat my shorts.” In the French-from-France version of the show, “Eat my shorts” is given an entirely different treatment: “Va te faire shampouiner,” (“Go shampoo yourself”).
It was no surprise, then, that Corus Entertainment hit a nerve in the province this week after announcing that it would no longer broadcast new episodes of The Simpsons dubbed into Quebec French on its Télétoon specialty channel.
It is not that large numbers of francophone Quebeckers even watch the show any more. Corus said ratings for the Quebec version have been in “significant” decline for years.
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Rather, the backlash stemmed from a broader concern that Corus’s move could be the beginning of a trend, as foreign streaming services threaten the financial viability of Canadian-owned French-language broadcasters, and as increasingly bilingual younger Quebeckers choose to consume the original English-language versions of U.S. movies and series.
Corus had assumed the full costs of dubbing The Simpsons into Quebec French, even though Disney, which owns the rights to the show, made the Quebec version available on its streaming service. After the two companies were unable to come to a cost-sharing agreement, the money-losing Canadian broadcaster pulled the plug on Les Simpson.
By Thursday, an online petition calling on Disney to offer new episodes of The Simpsons in Quebec that “reflect our identity and our linguistic heritage” had drawn almost 28,000 signatures and the support of the province’s Union des artistes, or UDA, the guild that represents approximately 950 Quebec artists working in the dubbing industry.
The economics of dubbing foreign productions for the Quebec market has always been a barrier, one that Quebec governments have sought to overcome with both carrots and sticks. U.S. movie studios are required by law to release a French-language version of their films into Quebec theatres within 45 days of the English-language release. And the provincial government provides generous tax credits to local dubbing companies to incentivize U.S. studios to have their films dubbed in Quebec rather than France.
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In 1999, after Warner Bros. stopped dubbing its movies in Quebec French, the UDA sought to mobilize public opinion against the move, using the slogan “On veut s’entendre” (“We want to hear ourselves”) to rally Quebeckers behind its cause. And in 2007, then-Action démocratique du Québec leader Mario Dumont tabled a bill that would have made the dubbing of U.S. films in Quebec mandatory. He complained that the dubbed-in-France version of Shrek The Third, which he had taken his kids to see, “contained expressions that Quebeckers have never heard and cannot understand.” The bill was never adopted, but industry pressure has continued.
“The dubbing industry is fragile,” the UDA and l’Association nationale des doubleurs professionels (ANDP) said in a 2024 joint submission to the Quebec Ministry of Culture and Communications. “On the one hand, advances in artificial intelligence have artists in the sector fearing the worst; on the other, the demands of [U.S. studios] require dubbing companies to invest large sums to remain competitive in the context of stagnating fees and more complex work.”
The groups called on Ottawa to require that any domestic English-language films or series that receive more than 50 per cent in federal funding be dubbed into French in Quebec, rather than France. Oddly, that is not the case now.
Still, the Quebec dubbing industry may be fighting a losing battle. According to recent Institut de la Statistique du Québec study, fully 71 per of Quebeckers between the ages of 15 and 29, and 60 per cent of those between 30 and 44, said they prefer to watch foreign (read: U.S.) productions in their original language; among Quebeckers over 60, the situation is the reverse, with about two-thirds saying they prefer dubbed versions of foreign movies and TV series.
Which, more than anything perhaps, explains why Corus is saying au revoir to Les Simpson.