Basically, Canada is wicked*. We just have a hell of a time figuring out how or why. We tend to define ourselves negatively- we are everything that we are not. We are not British, we are not American (and to the stocks with anyone who says we're the same as the latter), and we're not terribly sure what we are. But there's a strange, universal agreement among most Canadians that there's something profoundly, if subtly different between ourselves and those we resemble. One of the more famous attempts at defining our nation happened to be that Molson commercial. You know, "I'm Joe, and I am Canadian." It professed our love for things like peacekeeping, the word chesterfield (which I'm not sure I've actually ever used) and other bits of maple-soaked goodness. Molson took a lot of shit for that ad and most of it was being flung by the academic world who saw it as reductive, cliched and horribly contrived. It only made matters worse when Sheila Copps (who I think was Foreign Minister at the time) showed it at some international conference in an attempt to define Canadian identity. For those who need a refresher, take a look:
To be fair, I kind of felt the same thing. Like I said, I've never, with any level of seriousness used the word "chesterfield," I don't really speak French that well, and I've never slapped a Canadian flag on my backpack. So part of me, when the ad came out, really resented it for turning me into some national parks interpretive centre flavour of Canadian. I'm starting to reconsider.
While at school, I read a huge number of articles on Canadian identity, how we define ourselves in our media, what differentiates our cultural products form those produced by the American studios, and so on. One of these articles (whose name and author I've totally forgotten) discussed our difficulty in defining ourselves in the same way that Americans can. The author argued that American history is intrinsically narrative, and that American citizens identify and defend these narratives as their national identity. Stories like the fight for independence from the British, the harrowing, family-splitting tales of the civil war, the underground black resistance against slavery, for example. There's a reason that Americans never forget the Alamo. It's because American history reads like a series of adventure novels, and if someone were to forget stories like the fight for the Alamo, they've basically forgotten what defines them as American. Canadians, the author argues, are different. Rather than defining ourselves as players in some historical narrative trajectory, we identify with, and find definition through concrete institutions. Rather than defending our national narratives, we defend our hockey arenas, our belief in peacekeeping, our railroads, our mountains, our various syrups. While Canada has some grand tales, like the 1972 Canada-Russia olympic hockey rivalry, and the construction of the railways (probably one of our not-so-great moments, FYI), I'd argue that we identify more with the institution of hockey and the physical symbol of a cross-country railway more than we do with the tales behind them. Incidentally, I have a theory that this is why Canadian films struggle so hard to succeed outside of the festival circuit, but that may be another entry, altogether.
So maybe the Molson ad was a pretty decent attempt at defining us, and one that doesn't deserve all the flak it's taken for being reductive and cliched. It points out concrete, tangible things that make us Canadian, rather than the things that make us not American. Maybe we just don't quite understand yet that we Canadians worship at the idol of figures, rather than narratives. Maybe the things that are "cliche" Canadian are just really, really good examples of what is, in all honesty, Canadian- that's why we fall back on things like peacekeeping, not being fur-traders, our pronunciation of words like "about"- all the things that "Joe" from the Molson ad so adamantly points out.
Maybe it's in our polite nature to be self-deprecating and modest, and maybe that's why we rely so much on negative terms to try and define ourselves. I say, to hell with modesty. We DO spell things differently from the Americans, we DO make some damn fine breakfast condiments and we are, in fact, despite all our humming and hawing, Canadian.
I feel all riled up. I'm gonna go rustle me some buffalo.
*For an understanding of why Canada is wicked, listen to CBC radio, in particular CBC Radio 3, read magazines like Geist, and watch movies like C.R.A.Z.Y. and Radiant City.
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