Why The Giant Beavers & Flying Moose Mattered

Canada tried on a lot of hats these last two weeks. In many ways, the most surprising ones were the most familiar.

I didn't expect to howl.

The opening ceremonies had been so typical. From the unfortunate imagery of the flaccid column, to the inability to pick one torch bearer, to whatever Wayne Gretsky was doing in that truck, the whole thing seemed rather...mild.  Even the parts that split people artistically -- the slam poet, for instance...didn't provoke enough response to catch any kind of fire.  No, it was an empty, mild show. And the best you could probably say about it was some stray American commentator who thought Canada's moniker of "First Nations" was the best descriptor of indigenous peoples she'd ever heard.

But around the time the giant beavers rolled out last night in the closing ceremonies, I found tears rolling down my cheeks. And not the lame, emo, sad kind.  The Vegas-y gusto with which Michael Bublé sold "The Maple Leaf Forever" while rolling out every single trinket, token, or indicator of cheesy Canadian identity announced, "we're done with this, and think it's unbearably cheesy, even if you don't."  It was a tremendous break from the past.  It didn't ask permission -- and no, it didn't even say 'sorry.'

There were aftershocks from certain quarters, to be sure...nervous Tweets wondering what the world was thinking of all this, some saying it was a giant in joke and that was bad, some utterly failing to get that in joke -- which was bad too.

What seemed to have been forgotten around the edges was the last fifteen days. Where a different, vibrant, modern, urban Canada was shown to the world. If that didn't change minds or perceptions, then fuck it. Nothing in a closing ceremony could.

And that's okay.

See, it's the 'okay' that's actually the impressive part.

Canada -- and when I say Canada here, I mean English Canada -- French Canada is, as always, another story ... has suffered from its lingering provincial status for too long.

You see it every time an American show mentions Canada and it makes news here.  You see it in the "how do you like_______" parroted to every celebrity as they pass through a Canadian city.  You see it in the terrible, sad thirst for validation -- not from each other, no -- but from an American cultural gatekeeper whose default switch is always going to be indifference.

The Canada that's locked in a co-dependent relationship with a partner that doesn't even know there's a competition has to die if we're ever going to stride forward as a culture -- a culture who recognizes & celebrates our differences, rather than uses them as cudgels to batter one another.

A Canadian show that gets recognized as good at home, first -- not because Americans have picked it up. That's one measure. We've had a couple of those -- most notably Corner Gas & Trailer Park Boys.  We need more.

We need to recognize our actors before they go south and find fame and succour there.  So no, James McGowan shouldn't show up on the fucking 24.  You know what? One  of the proudest moments I've had in this business was helping to cast an actor named Sasha Roiz in Across The River to Motor City, the miniseries I co-created.  Sasha's an intense, smoldering screen presence currently heating up Caprica -- and getting noticed for that.  I helped give him a lead role, so when all the press start to swoon over Caprica or his next U.S. role, I can say, "where were ya? you're late."

We need to turn away from the gravity of political debates happening down south if they obscure our own.  The fact that the Americans continue to screw up health care does not abrogate our responsibility to fix our (mostly superior) single-payer system.  And NFLD Premier Danny Williams should not be a prism to debate both sides of that just because he went south for care. That in itself is a detail, not a rallying flag.  Look at the system, and fix it. Don't get distracted by the American optics.

We have cultural industry examples that do just fine, that have shaken loose their provinciality.  How interesting that as people grumbled over the choices of pop acts to close the night last night, most could generate a much deeper, hipper, more eclectic list of possible performers.  That, my friends, comes directly out of a rigorous system of content protectionism enacted in the 60's and 1970's. That is why today that industry -- even with all the troubles in the music business -- is mature, with bands and performers who we celebrate at home without particularly caring if the USA likes them or not.

I'm lucky enough to be an immigrant to this nation, from the USA.  Though I love the country of my birth and the country of my youth equally, I am forever amazed by the irony that so often, it's my American voice that gets drafted in defence of Canadian thinking and culture.

My friend Howard Bernstein told me a wonderful story from his youth when I worked for him, sigh, back in mine.  Seems like a lot of people of his generation, he took some time to do the longhair backpack through Europe.  And when the people got together and said where they were from, people would say the City and country. Sometimes with pride, sometimes as an afterthought. Then you'd get to the guys who'd say through their thick borough honks, "I'm from the City."

The City, of course, was New York City.  They didn't feel the need to explain that. Didn't even occur to them.

While I don't think Canada is ever going to get to that place, and while I think we will continue to fight our own, inner parochialisms, Newfoundlanders who cringe every time a CODCO cast member turns up on a certain detective show, who want to celebrate said show simply for how well it makes the city look, or who, conversely, can't abide the tourist ads because they reinforce stereotypes -- I'm looking at you;  And Quebecois who still fight with the tongue troopers, toi aussi...  I think last night was an exorcism of sorts.

Making the old skeletons dance might make you uneasy -- that's kind of why it's fun -- but I think it really does reflect a new attitude I see among younger people in this great country.  The cringing is less, as is the navel-gazing.  They are citizens of a fluid, globalized, instant communication world. And they want to say what they want to say -- without seeing if it's gonna play in N.Y. or L.A. first.

Woe betide the old media dinosaur that doesn't recognize that.  If you've got ancient style provincial thinkers assigning & writing your culture pieces, it is time to clean house.  The calcified forces wanting to drag CBC back to some imagined idyllic Anne Murray-driven 1970's -- off with their heads!  You know what? I hope some of those thinkers show up writing for the New York Times really soon -- cause honestly, if that's what we've got to offer here, I'm more than willing to let my subscriptions lapse. I'm probably too young to be reading a newspaper, anyway.

Navel gazing didn't get us the Highway of Heroes or the Arcade Fire or the Kids in the Hall.  It won't get us more good music, and it won't get us fine Canadian literature, or a more vibrant theatre scene.  Til the hate of Toronto & the jokes about Vancouver become comfortable old moccasins and not flashpoints for culture debates, we're not there yet.

But of all people, Michael Bublé rocking a past-it, "officially unhip" and quaintly controversial song like The Maple Leaf Forever as Moose & Beaver flew through the air might have shook the icicles loose.

Welcome to your new Canada.  Now shutup and create something -- and don't look south for validation. Look to the guy beside you, or the girl next to him.

Give'r.