Quote:
Originally Posted by Gerrard
Now if you were also trying to make the point that English speaking Canada is somehow more culturally rich because it is far more open to and accepting of the cultural output of the continent versus a small region of it, then you'd be correct there as well.
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The problem arises when what you are "open" to happens to be one of the most insular cultures in the entire world.
Way back when when I was going to university in Ontario I took some classes in Canadian studies from a cultural angle. One day the prof rolled out some statistics that showed that anglophone Canadians took in something like 97% of "foreign" films and TV programs, whereas francophone Canadians had much higher rates of domestic movie and TV consumption. Domestic TV consumption among francophones was particularly high and represented close to three quarters of viewing time.
So ensued a lot of self-congratulatory comments and back-patting from my classmates, about how English Canadians were so much more open to the world than French Canadians.
The professor then brought everyone back down to earth by saying that that "foreign" stuff was almost all U.S. stuff.
So if you think people are worldly because they are watching The A-Team, BJ and the Bear, Cosby Show and Die Hard (popular stuff at the time), then you go right ahead and think that buddy.
American popular culture is so all-encompassing that it more often than not leaves very little room for anything else. People may be watching technically *foreign* stuff but it's not Akiro Kurosawa, Lars von Trier or Wim Wenders...
In Quebec, if I may say without getting killed here, the cultural diet appears to be a tad more balanced, with homegrown Québécois jostling for position with American stuff (of course - I would never deny that it isn't ubiquitous here), and some stuff from other countries - especially France of course - coming up the middle between the two.
Consider that dubbed Swedish, German and Italian movies show up at
mainstream cinemas in Quebec cities as small as 25,000 people every once in a while. Not sure this happens much in the rest of the country, where even large city dwellers complain they can't even get to see all of the *Canadian* films nominated for the Genie Award for Best Picture.