How French comedian Paul Cabannes has taken Brazil by storm
Paul Cabannes charmed Brazil with his humorous observations on Brazilian life. We speak to him to find out how he captivated his audience.
As told to Fernando Augusto Pacheco.
In 2012 I married a Brazilian and we went to her homeland for our honeymoon. I loved it and almost immediately wanted to move there. So we did, relocating from Paris to the city of Maringá, where I began teaching French. After a few years I started a YouTube channel making humorous videos about being a Frenchman in Brazil. Because they were popular, I decided to try my hand at stand-up comedy, which I thought I would do as a hobby in front of about 20 people. Soon I was playing sold out shows across Brazil and now I tour the world performing at venues in cities with large Brazilian diasporas, such as London and Paris.
What I have realised through my time onstage is that, if you want to seduce somebody, you have to talk about them. When you do that to millions of people, you can seduce an entire nation. The second reason why my comedy has proven so popular in Brazil is that I notice small peculiarities about the country’s culture that people who have lived there their whole lives think are unremarkable. For example, when a Brazilian has a piece of food in their hand, they will almost always offer it to you, with the expectation that you will refuse it, which you have to. That way, both of you are being polite. But sometimes they actually want you to accept it and you’re keen to do so. But you have to refuse anyway. After the first refusal, they will try a second time but you must still refuse. Only when they offer it a third time can you accept.
Another thing that I have noticed is how difficult it is to leave a Brazilian party. If you say that you’re thinking of heading home, the host will reply, “It’s too soon,” and keep inventing excuses for you to stay – even if they want to call it a night. It’s considered even more rude to tell people that you want them to leave your party than it is to leave someone else’s, so you have to give off subtle (or not so subtle) signs, such as miming brushing your teeth. Even then, when your guests announce that they’re going, you still must say, “No, please don’t.”
Such habits are particularly funny when you come from a more direct culture, like France’s. The two countries have a lot of words in common, as well as religion. But apart from those things, there are few similarities between the two. In France, we say no quite bluntly. Once, I had the honour of being invited to a dinner hosted by Emmanuel Macron for Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at the Élysée Palace. At the end of the meal, I asked a guard, “Can we go to the garden to have a look?” He replied, “Non.” This is something you would never hear in Brazil. Brazilian people just don’t say no.
