The Catalan government has asked the Audiovisual Council of Catalonia (CAC) to take action against the comedian Joel Díaz, contributor to Catalan public media such as Catalunya Ràdio either TV3, for a joke he made on the independent podcast The cassock on the name of the daughter of Sílvia Orriols, the leader of the xenophobic Aliança Catalana party.
At one point in the podcast, the medieval names that the ultra leader gave to her children are brought up. One of them is called Violant, which also means “violate” in Catalan. Díaz comments that “Violant is funny because it’s a gerund”, and after a few seconds he adds. “They are violent like Violant» (They rape the Violant, in its translation).
The ultra party then launched a pressure campaign on the networks in which they tried to transform an unfortunate comment about a name into a joke about the rape of Aliança Catalana’s daughter.
In a letter from the Secretary of Media and Broadcasting to the president of the CAC, to which elDiario.es had access, the government representative asks him to “urgently re-examine” Díaz’s comments because he considers that the joke “incites hatred and”. “to discrimination” and “generates a climate of unnecessary tension”.
“It must be emphasized that The cassock “It benefits from the public projection that Joel Díaz enjoys through public media,” the letter continues. “This implies greater responsibility in the dissemination of content that is appropriate and respectful of the fundamental values that govern public communication.”
Although the joke was not broadcast in any public media but in a podcast broadcast on YouTube, the government asks the CAC to analyze the facts and take “relevant measures” against Díaz to “preserve respect for democratic values which govern public communication. »
Díaz responded last Thursday that the gag referred to the name chosen by the xenophobic leader. “I’m obviously not, for God’s sake, talking about raping anyone’s daughter,” the comedian tweeted. “The only thing here is a childish, bad and quite vulgar pun on the name Violant.”
Second meeting between The cassock and the CPS
This letter from the government of Salvador Illa represents the second clash between the socialists and the comedians of The cassockan independent and humorous podcast about Barça financed thanks to the support of thousands of subscribers.
In January 2023, the CPS pressured TV3 to fire comedian Manel Vidal, also a member of The cassockafter making a joke in which he associates the socialist party with a swastika. The joke was broadcast on a TV3 show that Díaz was hosting at the time.
The director of the Catalan network described this joke as “intolerable provocation” and hit Vidal. The comedian’s dismissal resulted in Díaz’s resignation from presenting the program, a late at night which had been sold as an attempt by the network to revamp its content and attract a younger audience.
