Natasha St-Pier is an Acadian singer from the north of New Brunswick. She's best known for her romantic slow songs. There's currently a polemic surrounding the release of her latest video for the song Tous les Acadiens (a rough French to English translation could be: All the Acadians).
Natasha St-Pier is more famous in France - and its a really good thing for her. In France, people don't really understand who are the Acadians. In this video, Natasha St-Pier appears wearing a full headdress that normally, is only being wear by native American people.
In New Brunswick - among other places where Acadians can be find - white Acadians do not dress like native folks for fun. My personal problem is that its not ok for white people - Acadians or not - to dress up like native American people when they are not native themselves. I find it very disturbing.
In the video, not only that Natasha St-Pier is dress up like a little Pocahontas princess, but in some scenes, she's surrounded by dream catchers. In another scene, Natasha appears in a birch canoe... Come on! French of France are going to love this, but Acadians and Native people - so far, they don't like it that much.
I really like the reaction of Marie-Jo Thério to Natasha St-Pier Tous les Acadiens video. Thério said that its a commercial video basically design to please St-Pier oversea public.
If you want to know what a real Acadian singer look and feel like, Marie-Jo Thério is a killer. This is real, but Natasha St-Pier is not. Not exactly that she's not real, but she's mixing up badly stuff that don't belong to each other. I wouldn't mind if she would be native, but she's not. Its offensive.
Its hard not to cry when you hear Marie-Jo sings Evangéline... She understands what she is singing.
I once saw Marie-Jo Thério at a St-Laurent Montreal restaurant once. Unfortunately, I left her alone, I should had asked an autograph. Maybe next time. :-)
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