- an internationally renowned musician
- a decent singer
- a good piece of fruit
- a decent log
- a vaccine of any importance
- a railroad worth riding on
- combat troops with an ounce of heart
- a novel that anyone wanted to read
- a hand held device that people could use with their thumbs to check email
- a cutting edge communications theorist.
- a decent hockey player
Facts are terrible things. And facts in the face of an subjective element -- as in, say, cultural theory -- may be harder to establish, but consensus can still be reached. But it requires balancing and a clear head. People once overwhelmingly believed that the earth was flat, and that the body could be bled of vile humours. They believed that the bumps on your head told your deepest soul's stirrings. They believed that men owning other men was perfectly A-ok. They believed a woman couldn't hold her own intellectually with a man.
All of these are risible things. Demonstrably false.
And yet, the canard that "All CanCon Sucks" gets repeated blithely in every cultural argument, by the dead enders and the no brainers and the churlish "myyyy txxxx ddooolllrrrrrs" crowd.
It's bullshit. It's demonstrably bullshit. When these worm-like skeetly slugs are challenged with concrete examples, they back away -- they try to hive it off, declare it an exception, or whinge that it doesn't really count.
Fie on these tinkerers. These pea-brained, no-quarter, self-hating, dunderheaded fools. Meet them full throated and without apology. It's insane that in order to gain traction as "good", a Canadian show has to receive, what, a good review in the New York Times? Variety? Where's the bar, now? It keeps moving, it's so hard to keep track of.
Meet this attitude full on. It is the opinion of a philistine. An ignorant ass. And it's time that was pointed out EVERY TIME IT IS CLAIMED.
The small, the cowed, the self-hating, the twist-hearted, the sour CANNOT be allowed to drive the discussion anymore.
"All CanCon Sucks?"
"I'm sorry sir, but I couldn't help hear what you said, and I wish to extend my condolences for what is obviously the rotted, festering, maggot-ridden, syphillitc pustule of ooze and fear and loathing that your brain has become. I hope you die without pain. But do it soon, please. The rest of us have facts to discuss."
6 comments:
It's also worth noting that this myth pervades down South. Unlike any other profession in our highly developed and educated country, being a TV writer in Canada means as much to LA as being a doctor from Mumbai. Apparently our talents don't translate across the border. Which is interesting since many Canadians that are somehow able to navigate their way to LA seem to do just fine.
This is all probably tied to how we view our own content. If we think our own stuff is shit, then it's not surprising that other people think so too.
Bring on the decent Canadian pieces of fruit! (Most in my grocery store seem to be from elsewhere.)
Bravo, sir. Bravo!
It must be added that some of the best cultural thinkers in the last few decades have been Canadian too - Marshal McLuhan and Northrop Frye are both Canadian and they're like...the guys...y'know?
So no - CanCon gets a bad study because people don't look.
Where else do we have poetry about vegetables fucking that incites death threats?
Trevor: there's no reason for the Americans to think otherwise. They don't think anybody else can write TV as well as they can either. Even as famously Anglophiliac as they are, you don't see a lot of Brit TV writers making the jump. Format buys, sure.
Peter: the fruit metaphor obviously is less operative in the winter. You may score one pedant point and advance your game piece.
Elize: Frye, McLuhan, Harold Innis...yes, once upon a time we understood things pretty dang well.
Oh wait, now there's Gladwell and Doctorow, too.
Funny. The difference now I guess? Frye, McLuhan and Innis all did their best work in Toronto.
Today you want to be a cutting edge cultural thinker, and I'm paging you too, Naomi...you gotta get the hell out of Dodge.
Ah, the provinces. Such delightful thinkers.
Nah, I just meant we may be losing even more cultural ground on produce shelves than in TV ....
Post a Comment