Hooray for Cancon

[Re: “Cancon rant” Rant Line, March 26] I read something in the Rant Line a week ago and normally I would just rant back but I feel it’s an issue that’s important enough to write about. There was a reply to a complaint about the radio and the guy starts bashing Cancon regulations. My question is: why is it that Canadians are so ignorant and/or unsupportive of their own film/entertainment industry?

A few months ago, I was onboard a flight and there was this documentary by a Canadian independent filmmaker from Halifax about his own struggle to have the film he wrote, directed and produced himself with a small group in Halifax noticed, let alone screened in any major or minor venue across Canada. In the documentary, he interviews people across the country, at one point asking the simple question: “What’s the name of the yearly award show for Canadian film?” He couldn’t get one single correct answer. Even myself, getting totally burned up about the subject turned out to be wrong (I guessed the Geminis).

Another example: my best friend is a brilliant student who’s taken endless classes on English literature. The guy has studied some of the most amazing works ever written in the English language yet the thought of watching a movie made outside the United States usually makes him nauseous. We’re so surrounded by American media that I find the majority of us forget that there are creative interesting works made right here at home that have a lot of value. Movies like Bon Cop, Bad Cop or Walk All Over Me are fun examples of movies that don’t feel like a traditional “depressing Canadian movie.”

Back to music. Before I came to Montreal, I volunteered at CKXU, the university radio station in Lethbridge, Alberta. We had the same Cancon restrictions and the music library had little red stickers on all the Canadian CDs so that it would be easier to pick out your Canadian bands. I found really quickly in my experience there that the Cancon laws weren’t a restriction so much as a privilege. Canadian music rocks, and maybe if we could turn off the sickening media circus that spews from the gaping hole of the USA, we’d notice we have our own voice and that we have something to say.

>>Joshua Knutson

Question authority

[Re: Wise man wanted, Letters, March 19] Ed Hoyer points out our current state of affairs rather well, pinpointing some of the worlds largest social and political discourses over hundreds of years. This compilation concludes with the question Is there no wise man to show us the way?

Sifting through the list, I noticed that every example, in some way, shape or form, was led by some sort of wise man or perhaps a party, which are themselves still hierarchically structured. Political and religious ideologies all have their founding stewards and a herd to follow.

Eds question shines a bright light on our moral psychology: Obedience to authority is a fundamental aspect of human nature, a characteristic that we see early in life, as children are exposed to their parents rules. Authority and obedience exists in the animal kingdom as well. Eds question represents a culture finding their authority figure inadequate to their needs and taking a spin at the wheel only to replace him for another, and there is always a slot machine of choices. (Notice, however, it will almost always require a catalyst to do so.) This trend exists in all cultures around the world. The differences appear to be the parameters by which a given culture judges and defines authority, which would explain its varying degrees around the world.  

I think an appropriate question right now would not be who but why? Authority, in all areas from spirituality, family, business, politics etc. is one of our evolutionary design features, and it seems to be sending us full speed down an unknown path on autopilot. I think once we understand why natural selection has favoured authority, only then can we start to ask who and as a means to what end?

As it is, we corner ourselves in an ideology and wait for catalysts like a complete deterioration of our rights and freedoms (communism) or an economic crisis (capitalism) then take responsibility for our individual actions and kick-start self-governing and proactive thinking. This thinking seems to tire out fast once we get comfortable, then we wait for the next crisis like a summer breeze. Quite a vicious cycle. Thanks for the letter, Ed.

>>Lucas Marston

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