We still can’t tell if Céline Dion is a child prodigy made good or a heartless robot bent on world domination

The title of our column is “That’s The Way It Is,” so it was only a matter of time before we tackled the larger-than-life subject of Céline Marie Claudette Dion, Queen of Quebec; Drag King of Las Vegas; seller of 200 million albums; Lady of the Seven Continents; record breaker; golfer; mother of René-Charles, Eddie and Nelson. Céline has now joined the rare league of artists who have managed to achieve and maintain success in the music industry across four decades. That places her up there with Barbra Streisand, Cher, Stevie Wonder, Elton John and Tina Turner. Given the disposable nature of pop music today, this is a feat that will surely become increasingly rare. So we want to take this time to honour (and lovingly roast) the polarizing legend that is Céline.

Céline released her first single, “Ce n’était qu’un rêve,” which means “It Was Nothing but a Dream,” on June 11, 1981. The song was written by Céline’s mom, Thérèse, with help from Céline herself and her brother, Jacques. Forty years later, it remains one of only five songs Céline has a co-writing credit on. 

The title of her first single is almost too perfect, given the enormous, long-lasting, hugely successful career Céline would go on to have. The song was sent to René Angelil, then-manager of fellow Quebecois legend, Ginette Reno. He famously re-mortgaged his house to finance the beginning of Céline’s career. A notorious gambler, he knew that Céline was the winning ticket he’d been dreaming of. Later, they would fall in love and get married. (Yes, they met when she was 12; yes, the whole thing remains very cringey. In Quebec, the wedding of Céline and René was celebrated on the same level as Princess Diana and Prince Charles’.) 

“A botched Photoshop job showing Céline wearing the Las Vegas Golden Knights uniform caused an uproar online.”

With René masterminding her career, Céline would eventually achieve international megastardom, the kind that is rarely seen. In the 1990s, she had three back-to-back albums that sold more than 20 million copies worldwide (The Colour of my Love, Falling into You, Let’s Talk About Love), she won five Grammys and her album, D’eux, was released, becoming the biggest-selling French album of all time. Starting in 2003, she single handedly revived Las Vegas and reinvented the Vegas residency. Céline is a bonafide institution, but you probably already knew that. 

This year promises to be another big year for Céline as she is set to return to Vegas in November at Resorts World. There’s also a completely ridiculous biopic that she has no involvement with. (It’s called Aline instead of Céline because they couldn’t get the rights to Céline’s story, and it’s technically only “inspired” by the life of Céline. But when you see the trailer, you’ll see that this is totally, undoubtedly Céline’s life story.) And just last week, a botched Photoshop job showing Céline wearing the Las Vegas Golden Knights uniform (not the Montreal Canadiens!) caused an uproar online. 

This week, we’re taking a look back at Céline’s illustrious 40-year career, trying to figure out how she became so successful, why she is so beloved and whether or not she’s actually a queer icon. 

Thomas: Céline Dion, at 53 years old, is celebrating 40 years in show business. Can you believe it?

Tranna: I can’t fully wrap my head around this anniversary. Who could have ever guessed that a little girl from Charlemagne, Quebec, would become one of the biggest, most successful international singers and achieve the hardest thing to achieve in pop: longevity. As a self-professed Céline hater, I am honestly baffled by her success. When you think of the great stars, you think of glamour—a glamour that’s larger-than-life and rooted in a kind of self-possession, a coolness. And I mean glamour in a way that goes way beyond appearance; I’m talking glamour as a state of being. To me, Céline always looks like someone playing dress up, trying to be glamorous. It’s not something she possesses innately like Tina Turner or Cher, for example. And I do have the receipts! If you look at Céline’s look on her 2008 Taking Chances Tour, she has all the elements down: great hair, great legs, beautiful dress. But when you add it up together, it still doesn’t equal glamour. Céline is a big dork! She’s your goofy neighbour! Why are you so obsessed with her?

Thomas: I never knew a world without Céline. Granted, that’s technically true for everyone under 40, but she has been particularly ubiquitous in Quebec for most of that time in ways that probably no other diva has dominated their home markets. She reigns over us; the Dion-Angélils are our royal family. Her life and work have been minutely turned into an endless stream of TV specials orchestrated by René. Mainstream Quebec media outlets all have a journalist assigned to the Céline beat—this level of propaganda would make the North Korean regime jealous. In many ways, I feel like I have been willfully tricked into being a gay Céline stan; that explains why I wrote the chapter on Céline in Quebec’s first collection of essays on queerness in literature and media. (Readers: if you understand French, you definitely have to listen to this four-part podcast series I co-produced for Radio-Canada). And of course, we hosted the cabaret show Sainte Céline at Just for Laughs and Fierté Montréal. I carry her in my bones. She has shown Quebecers that nothing is impossible.

“I can picture René opening a panel in her back and pressing the button for whatever country they were touring.”

Tranna: I’m fascinated by Céline’s international success. It has a lot to do with how she’s able to adapt and shapeshift to suit each market—this was particularly true in the ’90s, when the music market really varied from country to country. Now with streaming, everything gets released internationally at the same time. It’s really interesting to see how Céline changes the way she speaks depending on which country she’s in. When she’s in France she speaks French like a Parisian, when she’s in Quebec she speaks like a Quebecer and when she’s in the United States, she speaks like she’s from another planet. I’ve never seen any other artist do anything like that. It speaks to the extent to which Céline is a commercial product. There’s something robotic about the whole operation. I can picture René opening a panel in her back and pressing the button for whatever country they were touring: “U.S.A. mode successfully activated.” With the exception of her French albums D’eux and S’il suffisait d’aimer, which are legitimately good albums, I feel like the music is soulless. On the English side, everything feels so overproduced. “My Heart Will Go On” is unlistenable at this point. It’s awful and I wouldn’t miss it if I never heard it again. She doesn’t write any of her songs, which is not a big deal to me personally as a listener, but my problem is that even in her interpretation, there is no real emotional depth or resonance. And that’s largely thanks to her late husband and manager, René, who oversaw the production on all her albums.  

Thomas: Céline’s an Aries—she deserves more credit for being a force to be reckoned with! Sure, René the Capricorn did most of the business dealings, but when it came to delivering the goods, he knew he could count on her. I have always been inspired by her drive and persistence. My earliest memory of her is the Incognito era (1987), which Rita Baga paid tribute to on Canada’s Drag Race (the judges didn’t get it, but us Quebec queers were living for it!). At that time, Céline transitioned from awkward Catholic teenager to Madonna-inspired femme fatale ready to take on the world. At five, I saw her on the 1990 Unison tour, which sparked my obsession for early-’90s Céline (the dance pop production on the title track was GAY CHILD HEAVEN!). I was always on the lookout for the queer content in her incredibly heteronormative and family-friendly image.

Tranna: To me, there’s very little that’s queer about her. Of course, she has a massive queer following. There are queer people who love her genuinely, they cry when they see her in concert. And there are queer people who love her ironically. Over the years, there have been rumours that Céline herself is a lesbian. But there’s so little in Céline’s oeuvre complet that is made for her queer following, whereas everything Madonna and Cher do is essentially for the gays. Céline’s never really done anything substantial for the LGBTQ2S+ community. Every year we get a generic Pride message from her. One year she held the Pride flag upside down in her video message. I need a little more than that from my queer icons, personally. How do you interpret Céline’s queerness? 

Thomas: Hear me out: even though she isn’t known for her explicit support of the LGBTQ2S+ community (until recently, when she celebrated the release of her most recent album at a drag bar), there is a definite thread of queerness throughout her career. Dion chante Plamondon, her 1991 album, features two of Céline’s gayest moments: the girl-who-falls-for-her-gay-best-friend French anthem “Un garçon pas comme les autres (Ziggy)” (her first real hit in France) and the now-classic AIDS-themed power ballad “L’amour existe encore.” This song is considered by critics (read: Céline’s francophone fans) to be one of her three best French love songs (along with “Pour que tu m’aimes encore” and “S’il suffisait d’aimer”). That year, she also served one of many iconic drag king looks at l’ADISQ, the Quebec version of the Junos. Channelling her masculine energy with gelled short hair, a suit and a tie, she sings about a businessman who wished he was an artist. 

While Céline definitely looks up to female music legends like Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin and Tina Turner (her cover of “River Deep Mountain High” still irks me), it’s her channelling of male stars like Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson that make her an underappreciated queer icon. As a close observer of her style journey, I appreciate how she always seems more comfortable in a one-piece or pantsuit (as opposed to the elaborate gowns she wore during the second half of her Vegas years).

Before the pandemic, on the Courage Tour, she performed a medley of songs by iconic gender-bending musicians like David Bowie, Freddy Mercury and Prince. Even her most famous red carpet look ever, the 1999 Academy Awards reversed Dior white tuxedo, is a triumphant moment of creative gender expression. That day, Joan Rivers called Céline one of the “chicest” women in the business. If this is not a queer home run, I don’t know what is.

Tranna: I think Joan was being sarcastic. Part of the reason I don’t really connect to Céline is that I’m drawn to the self-made divas, women with a very strong artistic point of view. Her entire career was René’s vision and she followed what he layed out for her. I think we did finally see Céline start to channel something a bit more real a year after René’s passing, when she hired Law Roach as her stylist. His styling brought her to life and gave her a kind of credibility and star quality that I don’t think she ever fully embodied before that. I mean, that style cred got her featured in Vogue! 

In the ’90s, Céline and Vogue would never have been uttered in the same breath. That video remains one of her greatest moments. What I love is that even though she’s in Paris, dressed in the most incredible couture, she’s still being her goofy self. She’s doing a little air guitar, she’s throwing her shoes. The song choice of Boney M.’s “Daddy Cool” was perfect: “She’s crazy like a fool.” Working with Law Roach was much more than just a clothing makeover, it was a real revival. Actually, “revival” isn’t even the right word. He didn’t revive her, he made her into something she had never, ever been before: cool. People were actually calling Céline cool. Not me, of course. I personally can never acknowledge Céline as cool. But I will admit that from 2017 to 2019, she was the closest to cool she’s ever been. 

Thomas: Céline always had it in her to be a fashion icon. Her previous stylist, Annie Horth, planted the seeds of the fashion renaissance. After the catastrophic 2003 soccer mom look of her early A New Day residency, Horth was brought on board in 2007 to give Céline a makeover, dressing her in custom Atelier Versace and Lanvin dresses. I saw her paired-down second Las Vegas residency in 2011; she was as glamorous as ever, well on her way to become the fashion juggernaut we know today. Also FYI, Horth is Canadian fashion royalty and the creative director behind the iconic Elle Canada and Elle Québec cover images of Priyanka and Rita Baga respectively. Even though I was devastated when the two women parted ways, I love the work of Céline’s most recent image maker, Pepe Muñoz, a gay Spaniard who was, at one time, rumoured to be her boyfriend. And let’s not forget the incomparable 2012 V Magazine editorial, styled by legendary insider Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele. I believe that’s when the fashion gays really started to pay attention.

Tranna: We can’t talk about Céline without talking about her wacky interviews. My personal favourite is the 1999 Barbara Walters interview, in which she describes all her money and success as being “much too much.” 

Thomas: Her most famous interview ever might go down as her biggest political moment. Yes, I am talking about the infamous “take a kayak” rant on Larry King Live during Hurricane Katrina. If you pay attention, she is actually criticizing George W. Bush and the United States government. She wonders how a nation capable of attacking foreign countries is so unwilling to rescue its own citizens. The interview was panned and mocked, but I believe this is a testament to Céline’s profound humanity and regard for human life.

Tranna: In that Larry interview we got to see Céline wear her heart on her sleeve. One of the things I find interesting about Céline is the contradiction between her openness and evasiveness. In so many ways, Céline has shared her life as an open book. On Oprah she talked openly about fertility issues and having a miscarriage. She’s always made the big moments in her life public. The strangest iteration of that was René’s funeral. She held a public wake for René at Montreal’s Notre-Dame Basilica, where people—literally every random person off the street who wanted to go in—could offer their condolences to her personally. She was there from like noon to 9 p.m., some people asked her for autographs, and the whole thing was live streamed—truly bizarre! At the time, I couldn’t believe that a megastar like her would make such a private, difficult moment so public.

But then there’s this other side of her that is so guarded, especially in recent years. Often, instead of answering a question, she’ll just start randomly singing a song to distract or throw the interviewer off. It’s almost performance art. There’s a three-part YouTube video compilation of all the times she’s done it—that’s how often she does it! Even when Céline does share the real, personal stuff, it’s always done in this way that glosses over the darkness. Do we really know Céline? 

Thomas: I really think we do, to some extent. She is both a very complex and very simple public figure. Céline lives in the moment, she doesn’t dwell on the past or anguish about the future. That’s what makes her so fascinating to watch. There is a deep spiritual depth to this woman—no wonder so many of her songs have a religious undertone. She equates romantic love with godly love. She inherited a strong faith from her mother and I really believe love is the ingredient that made her the star that she is. She was a child star; so many things could have gone wrong. But through it all, she showed unabashed ambition and humility without a hint of cynicism or self-doubt.

Tranna: You are right about her not being cynical at all. I think to succeed you need a kind of joie de vivre, which Céline definitely has. It’s easy for fans outside of Quebec to maybe forget that Céline started so young. She was 13 when her first single came out. I feel like Céline never really got to fully develop as a person. There’s still something very child-like and stunted about her. 

Before we wrap up, I just want to say that of course I don’t actually hate Céline, I just don’t really connect with what she’s offering. But I am endlessly fascinated by her and the love people have for her. There is one Céline song I genuinely love: “Where Does My Heart Beat Now,” which I even covered on my album. It was her first English single and represents this time in her life right before she hit megastardom. I think the song itself is gorgeous, but I think part of why it resonates so much with me is that I associate it with the idea of this regular girl from Charlemagne, whose dream was about to come true in a way that she could never have fully imagined. I will always be a sucker for a Cinderella story, and even though her prince charming situation was fucking weird, there’s something sublime about the enormity of Céline’s success story, especially when you consider those humble beginnings. It is inspiring.

Thomas: That’s the power of love—or lurv, as she says it.  

Montreal-based comedians Thomas Leblanc and Tranna Wintour’s podcast Chosen Family streams on CBC, Apple and Google; new episodes drop every other Thursday.