blogorama

There’s one article from Chapter 5 that really got me thinking. In the writing about Steve Smith (better known as Red Green) he discusses the flooding of the Canadian television market with American shows. In it he mentions a number of things that struck a chord with me. For one, he said that Canadian stations are judged on the amount or quality of American shows they can import, and I couldn’t agree more. As far as I’m concerned there are 3 Canadian stations: CTV, Global, and CBC. And that’s the order I would also rank them in quality. I never ever ever watch CBC. I do sometimes watch CBC Newsworld so that i can watch “The Hour” with George Stromboulopolous. But I rarely think “I wonder what’s on CBC tonight” because my answer would always be “nothing good.” I associate CBC with nature shows, news shows, and bad Canadian sketch comedy.

Smith says that with “Canadians being constantly bombarded with American culture, there’s a natural tendency to assimilate and, with Canadians, if all they’re exposed to is American media, they will become more and more like Americans and less like Canadians.” I find this point to be veeery fascinating. What makes us Canadian? There are 5 things that I feel make me Canadian, besides of course my legal citizenship:

1. Love of Tim Hortons. I know that sounds like a joke, but i’m dead serious. Canadians love tims the way Americans love their KFC or whatever. And if it’s cold outside, like today, all I want is a tims hot chocolate. It’s in our blood.

2. Hockey. I went to a Flames game in LA in November and it was a completely different experience. My friend and I went to a bar in the Staples Center before the game and it was packed with LA Kings fans. The difference between a bar pre-hockey game in LA than in Calgary? Everyone in the bar was glued to tv watching a football game. And college football to boot. Another strange thing? At the game there were well over 3 dozen people that we saw wearing jerseys for other teams. These teams were not playing. So why would you wear a Red Wings jersey to a Flames vs Kings game???!? That’s just silly!

3. Pride. Americans are proud of their country. Why, I do not know, but they are. So are Canadians. I feel that it’s a completely different pride though. Americans are in your face, tshirt/bumper sticker/flag wearing patriots. We are just proud deep inside and only show this affection in public when we go to Europe and we sew a flag on our backpack. We’re awesome and we don’t need to rub in people’s face.

4. Beer. No explanation needed.

5. Not hated. As a whole I don’t feel that Canadians are dislike worldwide. Americans are, but we are peace promoting, friendly people.

So after all that, what is my point? I don’t think that watching American shows is going to take any of that away from us. Although our two countries are so similar in a lot of ways, we are also drastically different. Like when I enter a house, I take off my shoes. Why? Cuz I’m not rude and dirty. Anyways, I think Steve Smith made some interesting points and if you didn’t read the little blurb on him in the text, you should. I just think Canadian Entertainment moguls are a little touchy and are taking it all to seriously. It’s television.

I was just reading/watching the article from CBC and I found the second video really interesting. Although the date is not given, I’m going to assume it’s from the 60s. In this video Marshall McLuhan talks about a ‘global village’ and I’m astonished that even 40 or so years ago, people were aware of the difference that television was making in the world. Of course today we now have digital tv, tivo’s, cell phones and the internet – which only makes the idea of a global village even more important. McLuhan talks about the rise of television and the immense impact it has on the world. I can’t possibly imagine what he would he would think today! We no longer have to wait until 6:00 for the news. We can watch it whenever we want online or change the channel to CNN and watch the ticker at the bottom. We can even watch the news on our cell phones. It’s a very different world and even a different Global Village than what McLuhan though 40ish years ago.