Hi ENGL 470,
My name is EJ and I am a 5th year English and Cultural Studies major at the UBC campus in Kelowna. The primary reason I’m taking this course is to tick off the upper-level Canadian Lit requirement for my English degree. But that’s not the only reason. I’ve been troubled by a recurring question that has been posed by several CULT courses I’ve taken over the past two years (be it a course on globalization or pop culture): what is Canadian identity? The profs of these particular courses usually promise that I—and the rest of the students—would come to a clearer understanding of Canadian identity by the end of the term but I often find myself asking even more questions and even more confused. I guess such is the nature of cultural studies. Nothing is meant to be concrete and, supposedly, there is no answer. The CULT discipline emphasizes that one should not be concerned with an answer, but rather one should complicate the matter further by asking even more questions. And, ultimately, maybe the answers to the questions could be pieced together to create something bigger.
I’ve taken a few classes that have dealt with literature but none specifically on Canada or the works of Canadian authors. I can’t name many Canadian authors off the top of my head. Margaret Atwood comes to mind… then I start drawing blanks. My focus has been on courses that are more media-oriented. The past year I took a course on Canadian film and was shocked to discover that not all Canadian directors and producers knew what being Canadian meant. Jeff Barnaby at the Toronto International Film Festival confessed he had no idea as to what it meant to be Canadian. Even Ivan Reitman, a Canadian director and producer who had worked with David Cronenberg, a director highly touted in the film industry (think: A History of Violence), in an interview has been quoted stating: “[In Canada] I was attacked for making non-Canadian movies. What the hell does that mean? Everyone involved with these films is Canadian, from the actors to the crews to the writers. Is it non-Canadian unless it has wheat fields in it or something?” (qtd. in Vanderburgh 87).
I don’t believe I’m clever enough to formulate an answer. And as I said above, an answer isn’t really the point. I’m concerned that people who are representing Canada at such high levels are clueless of what it means to be Canadian. I’m interested in the history of Canada as a whole and what got us in this identity limbo to begin with. Pop culture and media courses have failed to better my understanding about Canadian identity, perhaps studying Canadian lit and its history will help.
Works Cited
Barnaby, Jeff. “The C Word: What Makes a Film Canadian?” YouTube. Youtube, 3 Jun. 2014.
Web. 15 May. 2015.
Vanderburgh, Jennifer. “Ghostbusted! Popular Perceptions of English-Canadian Cinema.”
Canadian Journal of Film Studies 12.2 (2003): 81-98. Web. 15 May. 2015.
I like that Ivan Reitman quote! This will be my first serious foray into Canadian identity since high school, but I have also been perplexed by the question. It seems to me that usually, a sense of nationalism arises from a shared culture attached to a shared place over a long period of time. Sometimes it’s helped along by myth-making, as in the U.S. with the exaltation of the Founding Fathers.
By contrast, Canada is a nation of multiplicity; we see that especially in Anglo-Quebecois relations and the successes of self-determination for First Nations. In the US, it’s not uncommon to hear rhetoric about “un-American values” in debates about law, policy, and multiculturalism. I don’t see a Canadian equivalent to this phrase. I think the general view is that, within Canada’s borders, all values are Canadian values.
On the other hand, I believe Confederation occurred in part out of fear that the ascendant United States would engulf the pro-British colonies to its north. We’re still afraid of being engulfed, in one way or another – hence the fear of cultural assimilation expressed in the criticisms of Reitman’s “non-Canadian movies.” If Canada has a founding myth, maybe it’s that.
Hope you have fun in this course! 🙂
Hi Mattias,
I’m glad you liked the Reitman quotation and it’s nice to know many people in this course are asking the same questions.
I was wondering what “Canadian values” meant to you. I don’t think there are many distinctions that can be made when the values of countries in the West are compared. If we were to make a chart and compare Canada and American values, for example, I doubt there would be any bold differences. I think this is largely due to globalization. It’s been argued that the world is becoming homogeneous. I do believe that we are afraid of being fully engulfed but I also believe that we have been engulfed to a point where we can no longer go back.
🙂
Hi there,
As fourth year, English and cultural major, who has takes courses at the UBCO campuses, in which they discuss Canadian identity, I could not agree more of what is being said.
With multicultural-ism that is prevalent across Canada, is difficult to pinpoint an identity that encapsulates all of Canada. It is nearly impossible. The question I ask is that in what ways does our history, the history of Canada, influence our culture today? Maybe by digging up a little history on the french and English cultural and historical battles, would be a good diving point into answering my question.
Also, did you have the Canadian film class with Dr. Keyes by any chance? Because at the end of the course, I wondered the same thing you did.
Hi Jeff,
Thanks for the comment. I do also think that the multiculturalism Canada embraces makes the search for identity nearly impossible. It’s hard since Canada is so diverse and it’s told to embrace this diversity.
And yes, I took the Canadian film class with Dr. Keyes. In his class I learned that there is a misalignment of how Canadians truly see themselves vs. how they are portrayed in the media. If you watch sitcoms like South Park, Family Guy, or How I Met Your Mother you can see the running jokes regarding Canada and Canadians. Canada is somehow always made to appear as the loser–other’d and foreign’d to the point of alienation. But that’s really not how we see ourselves. I think, then, it becomes even more difficult to find an identity because we’re also constantly rejecting an identity being given to us by an external source (in this case the US).
:0
🙂
Hi EJ – will you please adjust your settings so that comments are automatically posted without moderation – thanks 🙂
Hi Dr. Paterson,
Sorry for that! I’ve just changed the settings (at least I think I have). Hopefully it works now!
Hey EJ!
I’m happy to return a reply since you left one on my blog!
The topic of Canadian identity is so interesting to me. I have found myself in the same awkward position that you have. What is it to be “Canadian”?
The opening ceremonies for the Vancouver Olympics reinforced this question for me.. big time. I stared at my television and felt like screaming “beavers, maple syrup, the Mounties and the territories identify Canada? Really?”
I felt pretty embarrassed.
To be honest I find myself discovering more about Canadian identity through critical literature than I do from “Canadian” literature. I’ve learned more about what it is to be “Canadian” just be ruling out what is “isn’t” to be Canadian. If we look at the USA, for example, we see a melting pot where people are encouraged to drop their history and become an “American”. Canada, however, is more of a mosaic that invites the individual to live their culture and history. In my eyes they sort of become a “hyphenated” Canadian (eg. Indo-Canadian, African-Canadian, Japanese-Canadian etc.) and they add to the colours of our country.
What do you think?
Hailey
Hi again Hailey!
I think beavers, maple syrup, the Mounties, and the territories are things that identify Canada. And I’m just as embarrassed about these things as you are. I’m not sure why, really. As I mentioned in a previous comment, American media seems to always be making fun of Canada. Check out the South Park episode “Canada on Strike”, or Family Guy’s episode “Road to the North Pole” for example. These pop culture products (and it doesn’t stop just at these specific episodes, or even shows) make fun of how we are all too polite that we are pushovers; supposedly all have accents; and play hockey. I feel that it’s hard to adopt an identity when the American media turns a lot of things representative of Canada into jokes.
I do think that I’ve learned more about Canadian identity through critical literature; but I’ve barely scraped the surface with Canadian lit so I can only say that in relation to Canadian media (tv and movies particularly). I’ve come across a few articles written by media/communication scholars who refer to Canada as an “ethnic minority” though (again, in relation to media). I find it strange to refer to Canada that way because it overlooks Canada’s imperial and colonial legacy–almost like we were victims the whole time and never the culprit. Canadians never faced slavery, head taxes, etc as well so it’s questionable as to why some scholars would refer to Canadians as an ethnic minority.
I’m unsure of how relevant our question will be about Canadian identity in a decade because I actually think North America–as a whole–is turning into a melting pot due to the processes of globalization. The difference right now is that Americans have defining American characteristics (Football, basketball, apple pies, hamburgers) that they are not ashamed of whereas we Canadians don’t.
Thanks for your reply and discussion. I look forward to reading your future blogs/comments!