Here's an interesting profile of Crewson in the Queen's Alumni publication. She has very trenchant things to say about working both sides of the border.
“You can never be big enough [in Canada] to get a big role, because they’ll never give it to you because you’re not a star. But you can’t be a star because they never give you the role,” she explained.
“So you move away to the States and you get some TV role, you do a series or do something like that. Then when you come back, they’ll give you a big part because they’ve seen you on an American show and yet you’re a Canadian. Now when you’ve been away from the States, even though you haven’t been working down there, you’ve been working up here, honing your skills, doing leading parts. So when you go back down there, you have more chance in an audition because you’ve had that experience here. So it worked out very nicely doing work on both sides of the border.”
And here's Crewson on the current situation in Canada:
“In this culture right now, TV drama is the cornerstone of pop culture in the media. It’s the lynchpin of that. Without that, we have no voice that we all tune to, saying, ‘This is who we are. We’re showing Canadians, Canadians.’ All we see on our screens right now are Americans coming back at us. The only popular voice we have right now is the American. A country that does not own its own airwaves, does not own itself. Eventually, it will fall to the influence of whatever country it chooses to broadcast.”
Crewson said she thinks the Canadian government has been too lenient with broadcasters and isn’t doing enough to protect the arts in Canada.
“The CRTC has been so lobbied by broadcasters who no longer want to do any Canadian content,” she said. “They want to buy American shows, simulcast them and get the advertising money. They make all the money from that and spend all their money on American programming, putting nothing back into Canadian programming.” Crewson said her career’s temporarily on hold due to the economic situation.
Go Wendy!
1 comment:
Yeah, I get that little tingle on the back of my neck every time it's a celebrity rather than an industry expert who gets the first quote on an arts story. Having said that I'm a big fan of Wendy, both as an actor and as a voice for cultural workers in this country. She does her homework and puts in the time carrying the flag for the rest of us. Go Wendy indeed.
As for what she said about working both sides of the border, I couldn't agree more; and the notion isn't limited to actors. In my case, as a director, the credits from the south definitely are an advantage when I pound the home pavement in search of employment. But, to my mind, Denis, it's a double edged sword. Seems like it's all part of the push to "legitimize" ourselves using an American based scale -- and by that I mean: if it sells there it must be good, right?
What's that do for Canadian Culture? If all we're trying to do is please a "North American" audience (and to my mind that means American) what's to become of just doing good work for the sake of good work? I feel like we've begun to pander a bit. When Telefilm linked up with CAA and then the networks started selling shows south of the border, everybody jumped on the bandwagon...the bandwagon that says what I wrote before: if it sells there it must be good.
To my mind that's all part of a larger free market philosophy that I thought met its maker with the arrival of a guy named Obama. It's like we're in a time warp, as we here in Canada continue to subjugate to a fearless leader who holds true to Freidmanesque open market doctrine, especially when it comes to culture. Look at the CBC and everything else they've been able to either eviserate or let slowly whither and die. Throw in an economic crisis and this government is probably going to succeed completely on one of their not so secret agendas: the destruction of government support for cultural programs. Screw culture, they say, throw it to the dogs of the free market.
Being Canadian has never been a priority for this brand of Conservatism. Getting elected and a kind of Reagan-like eye on shrinking government is what they're about. And here we are playing right along to their tune. If it sells down there, it must be good.
Canadian culture is in its death throes.
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