I’ve been asked to describe my stance on Canadian film and television production. Not necessarily the industry and production of the material, but the end product which we would view on our televisions or in a theater. I could possibly make a couple people angry by saying this but I honestly hate television programming. I find the majority of it heartless, mindless and gutless. We live in an age where the gap between prime time drama shows and prime time reality shows are so varied in quality. Sure there’s extremely popular shows out there like Breaking Bad and Mad Men which are extremely well written and entertaining. I totally support this thought provoking material, but the amount of shows that are of this calibre are few and far between. The rest of television is dominated with simple reality shows. The majority programs rely on objective viewing as the producers attempt to be introspective about the flavor of the month singer, the impoverished southern family, or the latest celebrity gossip. You could divide the entirety of television programming into two categories that I’ve taken the liberty of titling “Hey smart people watch this” and “Hey look at these people doing this stuff”. There’s nothing in between any more. Years ago the prime time spots were taken up with sitcoms which were funny and low brow but had great writing and a whole lot of heart put into them. Now there’s nothing in between. It’s like a debate between the low class and the upper class. We don’t have an even distribution of programming left.
I realize I have not touched on the Canadian end of this programming yet. As far as film goes I really do feel that actual Canadian productions don’t make it big outside of art house theaters and the only notoriety Canadian film really reaches is through french films which claim some credit with a specific audience. I may be coming off as an ignorant complacent viewer but in all honesty I don’t enjoy Canadian film. The Red Violin comes to mind when I think of large Canadian productions that I’ve viewed in the past. It’s a drama, but that’s about it. There’s a boat load of criticisms that I could list to accompany my review of that film but I clearly don’t have the space to include it in my rantings. I don’t enjoy Cronenberg material too much, and I haven’t seen many independent Canadian films that have really captivated me.
Canadian television programming in my eyes is pretty poor. Most of it over exemplifies it’s Canadian roots, much like many films do. There seems to be a forced effort in it to point out that the characters prefer curling over typical American sports, as one example. Comedy specials that forcibly display Canadian figures, historical shows that over glorify Canadian past, and dramas that are just too humble to spark a sign of importance. My final gripe with Canadian television is that if it isn’t attempting to be overly Canadian in style, it completely rides on the coat tails of American programming. Canadian entertainment shows and reality series are carbon copies of American series that are already low brow enough as it is.
I realize I have not touched on the Canadian end of this programming yet. As far as film goes I really do feel that actual Canadian productions don’t make it big outside of art house theaters and the only notoriety Canadian film really reaches is through french films which claim some credit with a specific audience. I may be coming off as an ignorant complacent viewer but in all honesty I don’t enjoy Canadian film. The Red Violin comes to mind when I think of large Canadian productions that I’ve viewed in the past. It’s a drama, but that’s about it. There’s a boat load of criticisms that I could list to accompany my review of that film but I clearly don’t have the space to include it in my rantings. I don’t enjoy Cronenberg material too much, and I haven’t seen many independent Canadian films that have really captivated me.
Canadian television programming in my eyes is pretty poor. Most of it over exemplifies it’s Canadian roots, much like many films do. There seems to be a forced effort in it to point out that the characters prefer curling over typical American sports, as one example. Comedy specials that forcibly display Canadian figures, historical shows that over glorify Canadian past, and dramas that are just too humble to spark a sign of importance. My final gripe with Canadian television is that if it isn’t attempting to be overly Canadian in style, it completely rides on the coat tails of American programming. Canadian entertainment shows and reality series are carbon copies of American series that are already low brow enough as it is.
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