Parity in Quirkiness!

WELL, GREAT! The Canadian Dollar this morning hit parity with the U.S. Greenback for the first time since November 1976. This is, of course, great news for the Canadian Film and TV industry.

I'm kidding, of course. Like a lot of industries, our sector has leaned pretty heavily on the fact that currency made it cheaper to shoot here. So Thanks, W, you Rat Bastard! Way to Tank the Economy!

Now that we've lost our advantage, I guess the only thing we can take solace in is the fact that at least we're getting all those consumer goods cheap...

...oh wait. We're not. Right. Retailers and manufacturers haven't passed much (if any) of the savings on to me. Ah well. I guess there's always Amazon.com.

This morning Russell Smith in the Globe & Mail has an interesting column about U.S. cultural quirkiness, which riffs off an article by Michael Hirschorn in this month's Atlantic. It's interesting because, of course, quirky for quirky's sake has traditionally been a Canadian film and tv development ... uh ... quirk. From Smith's article:

The article has provoked condescending reaction, predictably, among the kind of person who spends a great deal of time arguing on Internet forums - that is, exactly the kind of contemporary hipster to whom quirk is most likely to appeal. Their objections focus mostly on Hirschorn's bathetic conclusion - that another American comic movie about urban life is the serious art to which we should aspire.

But they have also been railing against Hirschorn's job: He is a vice-president for programming of the television network VH1. That means he has overseen such reality television as Flavor of Love and The Surreal Life. He has apparently been a driving force behind a series called So NoTORIous, starring Tori Spelling. In indie culture, a guy producing Tori Spelling vehicles just has no credibility, no right to make any pronouncement on culture at all.

Interestingly, of all the movies and books Hirschorn names as examples of this trend, only one is not American (it's Mark Haddon's novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time). Clearly, this quirk thing is a trend in American art, but it's never named as such, even by Hirschorn's detractors. It's just called art.

This relentlessly narrow vision is familiar to any observer of culture: Those inside the United States tend to see its culture as culture, period. It's frustrating, but it's the way it is. (And frequently Canadian observers see the world this way too, which I find sad. Surely one of the great advantages of being Canadian is to be conscious of the rest of the world?)

That last sentence -- honestly -- is probably the prime reason why, with all the bullshit, I stay in Canada to work. Not the point of view that I currently see represented in a lot of our cultural output -- that's still a little narrow, a little too reactionist, a little too ... quirky ... but because of the potential POV we could bring to the world. Harold Innis. McLuhan. Both Canadian. Coincidence? I say, nay.

But anyway, now that we have quirky parity with our southern neighbours, I expect a Wes Anderson - Atom Egoyan Summit, where we discuss the new synergistic terms where we'll all stick it Hollywood together...in the name of the great almighty twee!

Parity for the dollar, liking a Russell Smith column -- it's truly dogs and cats sleeping together time.

Meanwhile, another article I cadged from the increasingly invaluable Tv, Eh? website goes sideways off the same riff -- with a special guest starring role from everyone's favourite screenwriting guru curmudgeon, Robert McKee:

Basically, McKee said English-Canadian film and television is currently a wasteland. Literature and theatre aren't doing so well either. Thanks to a combination of dark forces like the grant system, poetic prose, our fealty to all things French, cultural inferiority and a reflexive anti-Hollywoodism, we're making "art" instead of story.

But according to McKee, story is the highest art. And if Canadians want to express themselves, as storytellers, they must eschew the dark forces and embrace "classical design," storytelling as it has been understood since men and women gathered around the fire to entertain one another.

It's not as if Canadian screenwriters and producers have set out to make bad television and movies. It's tough to argue, for example, that Corner Gas is bad television: It's a huge commercial and popular success in a country unaccustomed to commercial and popular success. David Cronenberg, a Canadian, is one of the most interesting and successful directors in the world. "Since," McKee would argue, his finger in the air, "he said goodbye to the non-linear mumbo-jumbo and hello to classical storytelling."

If you've ever been to a McKee seminar, (and if you entertain any thought of writing film or TV professionally, you really should go see the show) you recognize all this. It's his whole bag. There are those near and dear to me who'll accuse your humble Stickster of being a bit...hyperbolic, shall we say, from time to time. Oh how I wish these people could see McKee up close. It's a show, it really is. But... though he's certainly, frequently an ass, from where I sit, he's also more right than he's wrong.

I'm thinking of changing my political affiliation to "story partisan."

Anyhow, John Doyle brings it all home by joining in the defense of the Trailer Park Boys against Jim Shaw.

Taking out newspaper ads to attack a successful Canadian production is the work of an oddball. If Jim Shaw doesn't like Trailer Park Boys, he doesn't have to watch it. If he loathes Trailer Park Boys and Kink, he can decline to offer the Showcase channel to his customers. But he doesn't, of course. Shaw Cable offers Showcase, along with a bundle of other channels, for $52.95 a month. Shaw obviously has some affection for the money generated by fans of Trailer Park Boys who want to see it on Showcase. In turn, he uses the money to condemn the show in newspaper ads and, by association, condemn everyone who enjoys the program.

Leave it alone, fella. We'll decide what we like to watch on TV. Then you deliver it on your cable service. If you're smart, and not the crank you appear to be.

Note to Doyle: "fatuous gasbag" has a nice ring to it, don't you think? Note to self: Is it just me or does McKee look a little like Jim Shaw? Ulp.

You know what? Let's let the Boys loose on the quirky. They'll sort it out right proper.

And then Bubbles will be nice to the kitties. Heartwarming ending. Roll credits.