Puppets Pushed Off the Air in Russia and France

0:00Today on State of the World, puppets pushed off the air in Russia and France.

0:09You're listening to State of the World from NPR. We bring you the day's most vital international stories, up close, where they're happening. I'm Greg Dixon. The recent controversy in the U.S. over Jimmy Kimmel's show being taken off the air and then restored, and the questions it brought up about political satire and censorship, got two of our correspondents thinking. In France and in Russia, there were recent examples of popular comedy shows that ran afoul of those in power. Surprisingly, both those shows involved puppets. So here's a look back at how each show was pushed off the air, from Charles Maines in Moscow and Eleanor Beardsley in Paris.

0:49In France, in the late 80s, a TV show called Les Guignols de l 'Info, or in English, The Puppets of the News, helped shape the national conversation with marionettes.

1:09Any French politician or celebrity could be transformed into a larger-than-life latex version of themselves and held up for mockery and ridicule. Les Guignols came on just before the nightly news and rarely ran more than 10 minutes, but their jokes lasted longer, getting picked up the next morning by the mainstream media, often as a measure of the national mood. Yves Le Roland was creative director for Les Guignols for 21 years. He says the big breakthrough came with the first Gulf War in 1990, which France took part in. Les guignols lampooned generals and government officials while poking fun at the video game-like coverage of the conflict.

1:54The fact that we did satire with marionettes made a kind of delay with reality that let us get away with a lot more than if it was a stand-up comedian who says things directly. Through childish marionettes, our humor appeared less aggressive. Ah oui? Qu 'est-ce qu 'il m 'a mis là maintenant? A favorite guignol was the hapless Jacques Chirac, mayor of Paris, then president. The show portrayed him as an everyman who just wanted a beer and a sausage. Turns out that portrayal may have helped him, says Le Roland. It was even said that by mocking Chirac so mercilessly, we made him look sympathetic. And in the end, it actually helped get him elected president.

2:47Kukli, or puppets, was Russia's answer to Les Gagnons de l 'Enfant. The show launched in the mid-1990s and similarly skewered Russia's political elite, including then-president Boris Yeltsin.

3:02Viktor Shendorovich, the show's key writer, says he quickly realized the power of satire against the powers that be. Laughter as a weapon is powerful, because laughter is irrefutable. You can win a case in court, but a court can't force people to stop laughing at you.

3:24The show was a test of new freedoms in a country where mocking Soviet rulers was done in private and among the most trusted of friends. And in fact, Kukli faced pressure from Russian authorities, only to see President Yeltsin back the show time and again, says Cinderovich. To whoever complained about kukly, Yeltsin would say, if I could put up with it, you can too. And he put up with it.

3:53That changed with Yeltsin's resignation on New Year's Eve in 1999. In his place, his young and still relatively unknown prime minister, a former KGB operative named Vladimir Putin. By now, he too had a puppet.

4:15But the real Putin was struggling to connect with the Russian public, so the Kremlin launched a massive TV campaign to cast him in a flattering light. When Putin came to power, most people didn't know who he was. And in the course of six months, they made him the savior of Russia. Shandorovich seized on the absurdity of Putin's sudden rise with allegory. He borrowed from an old German fairy tale, casting Putin in the role of a dwarf, mistaken through magic as a beautiful prince.

4:51Until the spell wore off.

4:56The fallout was almost immediate. Putin took it as a personal insult. his physical stature, that he was a dwarf. But for me, it was just a metaphor, not least because I am not tall. I am even shorter than Putin. The state soon launched criminal investigations into alleged financial mismanagement and demanded changes at the network. Among the Kremlin's key demands, Putin's puppet and NTV's critical news coverage both disappear for good.

5:29Senderowicz says the destruction of NTV would have happened anyway, but acknowledges Kukli injected personal animus into the process. In France, the shutdown was slower and more subtle. Enter Vincent Bolloré, industrialist and friend of the politically powerful. This is one of his friends in Gignol form, then-President Nicolas Sarkozy. Sarkozy, president! Sarkozy, president! In this skit, Sarkozy tries to shed his bling-bling image for working class by exchanging his Rolex for a swatch. Short in stature, Sarkozy begins to remove his famous elevator shoes, but... No, I think I'll keep those on, he says.

6:14Bruno Gaccio was another longtime producer for Les Guignols. He says the attacks on Sarkozy may have sealed the show's fate. Bolloroy tried to stop Le Guinion from President Sarkozy in 2007. He felt. It's impossible for him. It became possible when he bought the channel hosting Le Guinion, Canal Plus. Bolloroy's management team moved the show from primetime to just before midnight. Ratings dropped by more than two-thirds, says Gaetjeo. It's easy to cancel a show. It's very easy. The only thing that needs a billionaire is time and money. The show eventually folded, though Bolloré denied any censorship.

6:58His influence continues to grow. In the decades since, Bolloré has bought up newspapers, radio, and TV networks across the French media landscape. The rise of his right-wing media empire reflects the rise of France's political far-right. When you're a billionaire, you can buy any politics you want.

7:24Watching old clips of NTV on YouTube feels like a window on another country, a more pluralistic Russia that no longer exists.

7:35A news talk show that aired in Putin's first year in power even saw various political factions debate Kukli's future as Putin's puppet silently looked on.

7:47A quarter century later, Shenderovich says the status of satire and satirist is a direct commentary on the political makeup of a country. The show dragged on for another year or so, but with neutered political content, no Putin puppet and no Shenderovich. Ratings sagged. By then, NTV had been taken over by Gazprom, Russia's state energy giant. It was the beginning of an end of an era of free speech in Russia. It was never just about the fate of Kukly. After the show's end, the genre of satire disappeared. Under Putin, it became impossible to make fun of the head of state. Or it turns out his policies.

8:24Ivan Urgant is Russia's most popular and only late-night talk show host. In the wake of the war in Ukraine, new censorship laws banned even the mildest criticism of the Russian invasion, including by Ivan Organt, here with American late-night host Stephen Colbert, who appeared on Organt's show during a visit to Moscow in 2017. So we're more close to Fallon than to John Oliver. Does Putin watch your show? Organt's show was suspended in the spring of 2022 after Organt made an appeal for peace in Ukraine. Shindorovich, who now lives in exile, says that's no surprise. The years of relative freedom weren't long enough to become the norm.

9:10Unlike Russia, the West has a tradition of mocking its rulers, Sad Shindorovich. Even now, he still believes that's true. That was NPR's Charles Maines in Moscow and Eleanor Beardsley in Paris.

9:28And that's the State of the World from NPR. Thanks for listening.