Mired in mediocrity – and (apparently) loving it by John Doyle
Source : Globe & Mail
August 26, 2008
Hello, I'm back. And first this notice to readers: Due to rising fuel prices, inclement weather, saturation coverage of the Beijing Olympics, federal government cuts to culture programs and my recent tummy troubles, this column takes a dim view of everything. Normal service will resume later.
Anyway, thank heavens that's over. No, not my little vacation. (I did chores and wrote up some stuff about soccer.) I mean the Beijing Olympics and all that it wrought. I also mean this appalling summer, so rife with hand-wringing, angst and surliness.
The Beijing Olympics and us. Let's start there. Was ever a country revealed to be so mid-level, so mired in mediocrity, and so utterly pleased to be that way? The massive TV coverage of Canadian efforts - and they were "efforts," not triumphs, mostly - provided a startling insight into the delusional state in which Canada exists.
There was the long, long wait for a medal. Why, Pastor Mansbridge of the CBC was back home in Toronna before a Canadian came anywhere near a podium. The CBC's cheery response to the lack of medals was the self-loathing act of posting, nightly, a Canadian medal count of zero. Just in case everybody was unaware.
When the medals eventually arrived it was, Lord save us, in the wrestling, kayak, rowing and equestrian stuff. Glamour sports they are not. Hewers of wood and drawers of water, that's us. (No point getting testy about this. I was talking to my mother on the phone the other day and asked her if Ireland was winning any medals in Beijing. "Oh yes," she said. "Loads of them. In the boxing. The fighting Irish, son. You know yourself how it goes.") Rowing is our game. World-class, but in rowing. The rest of the world is not agog. There's no point deluding ourselves.
And on that note, here we go with excitement about Vancouver 2010. Winter sports. Yes! We can do that stuff. Makes sense really, but the reality is that hardly anybody cares. The number of countries that will air the Vancouver Olympics live on TV is rather small compared with the Summer Olympics. Soon enough, I'm sure, the angst will start about the necessity of Canada winning the Olympic gold in men's hockey, a sport Canada dominates. And there are, maybe, five other countries that care. It's all a bit pathetic, and utterly delusional.
While the Olympics played out, the minority Conservative government slashed its already diminished arts and culture funding. In particular it took aim at the funding of film and television. Among those hardest hit are the Society for Arts and Technology, the Institut national de l'image et du son, the Hot Docs documentary festival and the Canadian Film Centre.
Right, fine. Hewers of wood and drawers of water, we can't possibly make great film, television or any form of the popular culture, can we? Why invest in promoting it? Just asking. We're better off in the hockey and rowing competitions.
According to one informed source (a guy at another newspaper) the federal government's rage stems from media coverage of Bill C-10, which sought to deny funding to TV productions and movies it considered distasteful or offensive in some way.
In that case, then, it is all our fault. The Globe and Mail, that is. In February, I was up in Ottawa, covering some CRTC hearings. One day I was hanging around on the Hill, watching things unfold that we usually see through the filter of TV. I was standing around at the ethics committee hearings when a woman introduced herself. She said that she worked in Stéphane Dion's office. And she said this: "There's something you should look into. It's happening in the Heritage Department and it's what the Tories are doing to the funding of film and television. Look at the transcripts of Heritage committee hearings."
So I did. And was taken aback by the vitriol of Conservative members of the committee. Back in Toronna I had dozens of pages of transcripts and a deep sense of unease about what I was reading. I handed it over to my editors and said it was way too complex an issue for my column. There was much to investigate. My colleague Gayle MacDonald did the investigating and discovered the existence of those pesky provisions in Bill C-10, the ticking time bomb of the Conservative attitude to Canadian culture.
Now it's payback time. And the government unleashes a torrent of viciousness at the film and TV areas. Now that is something that makes us special and the rest if the world is agog.
Make this summer end. Please. And make normal service resume.
© Globe and Mail
Anyway, thank heavens that's over. No, not my little vacation. (I did chores and wrote up some stuff about soccer.) I mean the Beijing Olympics and all that it wrought. I also mean this appalling summer, so rife with hand-wringing, angst and surliness.
The Beijing Olympics and us. Let's start there. Was ever a country revealed to be so mid-level, so mired in mediocrity, and so utterly pleased to be that way? The massive TV coverage of Canadian efforts - and they were "efforts," not triumphs, mostly - provided a startling insight into the delusional state in which Canada exists.
There was the long, long wait for a medal. Why, Pastor Mansbridge of the CBC was back home in Toronna before a Canadian came anywhere near a podium. The CBC's cheery response to the lack of medals was the self-loathing act of posting, nightly, a Canadian medal count of zero. Just in case everybody was unaware.
When the medals eventually arrived it was, Lord save us, in the wrestling, kayak, rowing and equestrian stuff. Glamour sports they are not. Hewers of wood and drawers of water, that's us. (No point getting testy about this. I was talking to my mother on the phone the other day and asked her if Ireland was winning any medals in Beijing. "Oh yes," she said. "Loads of them. In the boxing. The fighting Irish, son. You know yourself how it goes.") Rowing is our game. World-class, but in rowing. The rest of the world is not agog. There's no point deluding ourselves.
And on that note, here we go with excitement about Vancouver 2010. Winter sports. Yes! We can do that stuff. Makes sense really, but the reality is that hardly anybody cares. The number of countries that will air the Vancouver Olympics live on TV is rather small compared with the Summer Olympics. Soon enough, I'm sure, the angst will start about the necessity of Canada winning the Olympic gold in men's hockey, a sport Canada dominates. And there are, maybe, five other countries that care. It's all a bit pathetic, and utterly delusional.
While the Olympics played out, the minority Conservative government slashed its already diminished arts and culture funding. In particular it took aim at the funding of film and television. Among those hardest hit are the Society for Arts and Technology, the Institut national de l'image et du son, the Hot Docs documentary festival and the Canadian Film Centre.
Right, fine. Hewers of wood and drawers of water, we can't possibly make great film, television or any form of the popular culture, can we? Why invest in promoting it? Just asking. We're better off in the hockey and rowing competitions.
According to one informed source (a guy at another newspaper) the federal government's rage stems from media coverage of Bill C-10, which sought to deny funding to TV productions and movies it considered distasteful or offensive in some way.
In that case, then, it is all our fault. The Globe and Mail, that is. In February, I was up in Ottawa, covering some CRTC hearings. One day I was hanging around on the Hill, watching things unfold that we usually see through the filter of TV. I was standing around at the ethics committee hearings when a woman introduced herself. She said that she worked in Stéphane Dion's office. And she said this: "There's something you should look into. It's happening in the Heritage Department and it's what the Tories are doing to the funding of film and television. Look at the transcripts of Heritage committee hearings."
So I did. And was taken aback by the vitriol of Conservative members of the committee. Back in Toronna I had dozens of pages of transcripts and a deep sense of unease about what I was reading. I handed it over to my editors and said it was way too complex an issue for my column. There was much to investigate. My colleague Gayle MacDonald did the investigating and discovered the existence of those pesky provisions in Bill C-10, the ticking time bomb of the Conservative attitude to Canadian culture.
Now it's payback time. And the government unleashes a torrent of viciousness at the film and TV areas. Now that is something that makes us special and the rest if the world is agog.
Make this summer end. Please. And make normal service resume.
© Globe and Mail
