IN JOHN DOYLE'S Globe column today, there's this small little phrase, talking about Reality TV:
I think Battle of the Blades represents what we are. But So You Think You Can Dance Canada represents what we aspire to be.
Yesterday, The Toronto Star -- a paper founded in a progressive spirit that lately has been seized by the spirit of Labour Trouble...announced it was going to be offering voluntary buyouts to staff, in anticipation of what will probably be a horrible round of layoffs.
Such is the tenor of the times.
Y'know, for all the fooferal and amateur writing about TeeVee on the Web -- yours truly, included, I think we're in peril losing local voices who can offer a Canadian, and what's more (since we kind of all hate each other -- it's not just election results that fractionalize these days) a regional Canadian view on the activity that most of us spend a good 25 hours a week doing.
I know exactly what Doyle means when he writes what he writes in that quote. I suspect many of you do, too. But to an American reader, that sentence is likely to be incomprehensible. Even if you've seen snippets of both the shows.
At the Star, it's down to just Salem writing about TV. Bill Brioux freelances. Alison Cunningham got the chop awhile back and freelances now, too.
It's not like we ever had much of a Canadian perspective on the Box. There's not much more emphasis on Canadian writing about Television than there is on Canadian Made Television.
But we'll all be poorer when it's gone.
5 rumbles:
Y'know, I think Doyle's wrong. I think Blades is what we were - utterly predictable despite being theoretically new - and Dance is what we are - young and fresh and unbelievably talented, given the right showcase.
(Too bad it had to come to us via another country's format, and with that poor woman with the 300 word vocabulary as the host.)
I must admit to having noted Doyle's observation as well but unlike you I am not so clear as to what it means. At first I thought -- is he characterizing "Blades" as old school Canada -- white folks interested in hockey and figure skating while "Dance" represents a new multi-cultural Canada?
Or is he saying that Blades is old school in the sense that we are watching professionals entertaining us while Dance is more a showcase for talent yet to be discovered? If that is the case how does it differ from Canadian Idol? Or was Canadian Idol another example of what we aspire to be?
I kinda sorta hope not.
Is it because the participants of Dance are young and the participants of Blades not so much? Is it because we now aspire not to be professional and Olympic athletes and now aspire to be members of the chorous line in Jersey Boys or some kind of dance spectacle at Casino Rama?
Perhaps a more insidious interpretation is that we do truly aspire to be an American branch plant. SYTYCD (C) is an American concept with the world "Canada" awkwardly stamped on the end of the title. It almost seems an afterthought and makes me think of nothing more than an Oshawa Ford Plant.
As someone who is not involved in TV (but wants to be) and so has no expert opinion to offer, let me say it saddens me to think that a lot of "experienced" TV people sat around a table one day and decided that Dancing with the Stars on Ice was a good idea.
I can picture some CBC bigwig scheduling an all-day meeting in the wood-paneled corporate boardroom...the attendees arrive at 9:00 a.m., come up with this Blades idea by 9:02 a.m., and then spend the rest of the day smearing caviar on each other and whipping the hot young secretary with an oversized lobster tail. Oh man that sounds awesome.
I agree about the critical shortage but gotta give a shoutout to Cassandra Szklarski of the Canadian Press, Bill Harris of Sun Media and Alex Strachan of Canwest, too.
I have to confess I didn't really know what Doyle meant to convey either. I parsed it several ways before giving up and deciding to uncharitably think that he likes SYTYCDC and not BotB and needs a highfalutin' explanation for it.
It's a Rorshach blot, in that it reveals as much about the reader. It's koan like, I have my interpretation of what he meant (which was not writ here in the comments by anybody else. ) Strangely, "Oh I don't know exactly what he meant so I give up is pretty Canadian, heh heh.)
Jaime Weinman's been writing lately about how he doesn't like the moralistic wrapup at the end of Modern Family -- and I think that's part and parcel of the same thing. Leaving room for interpretation is something that we don't do anymore. Canadian TV, they practically throw fits rather than letting you give that space to the audience.
That's kind of why it's a perfect turn of phrase. And reinforces my point about local. Canadians might have several thoughts by what he meant by that -- Americans won't even have a way in.
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