The Canadianization of America
We're rapidly being colonized by the culture and landscape of British Columbia. What's that all a-boot, eh?
The United States won the land north of the Columbia River from Britain mainly by flooding the zone with settlers. The dispute came to a head with the so-called Pig War of 1859, when Americans had taken up settlement on San Juan Island, claimed by the British, and nearly fell into war over a dead porker. The war, of course, was not about bacon, but the borders of empire.
The Blaine Peace Arch was set up with the slogan, "Children of a Common Mother," to suggest we were one people merely separated by a line on the map. But as everyone knows, the border still means something. We might talk about Cascadia, but it's still "us" and "them."
America is commonly portrayed as the brute, the 900-pound star-spangled gorilla, but there's some evidence that the Northwest is slowly being Canadianized, at least culturally. The seeds, of course, were planted long ago.
Vancouver, BC has skinny towers, and Seattle covets them. We envy Vancouver's planning, the so-called "miracle."
Canadian sports such as soccer and pro hockey are the talk of Seattle. The Sounders are darlings, SoDo might soon hear the swoosh of skates and the Zamboni.
Puget, Rainier, Baker, Hood, Whidbey, Vashon: Brit, Brit, Brit, Brit, Brit, Brit. Our landmark icons ought to be celebrating the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.
And what about the proliferation of British and Canadian accents? You can hardly listen to KUOW these days without hearing news of the BBC and the CBC. During the afternoons, many of the interview segments carry the flavor of maple-tinged tongues. Hmmm. There aren't enough Americans who can conduct interviews?
Steve Scher, you'd better get a new accent.
Canadian viewers are also a powerful force on programming at KCTS, Channel 9. Years of Britcoms.
We used to complain about Texas excess, but now Canada has raised the stakes by one-upping us with Alberta. Canada's the one that likes Big Coal and Oil. Rick Perry, meet your people!
It's enough to make you want to swoon on the chesterfield.
But the biggest phenomenon is the way British Columbia and Vancouver have colonized film and television. It's the "Hollywood North" success of the film industry, which has gone full Canuck.
I got hooked on the TV show Alcatraz this year. It's about (aboot?) a bunch of time-traveling escaped convicts from The Rock who have somehow been transported from the 1960s to now. The guys who chase them frequently go into San Francisco's residential neighborhoods, which on the show are suspiciously green. The tightly-packed Victorians have been replaced by old turn-of-the-century box houses and big yards. You realize: this ain't Frisco, it's someplace else. Call it San Couver.
The Alcatraz series was mostly filmed in Vancouver. No wonder one of its lead characters is a fat guy who wears heavy sweaters and coats all the time. He'd dressed for winter in Kamloops, not the Castro.
The show was also created by the guys who did Lost, and that's just how its geography makes you feel. You find this again and again. Vancouver substitutes for Seattle (Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol), BC supplies the landscapes of everywhere from Ohio and Kansas (Supernatural) to Oregon (Eureka). Canadian towns stand in for the all-American midwest heartland that produced Superman (Smallville), as well as cities on other planets (Caprica). Even some of the Twilight series was filmed in Canada because they found a place that, I guess, made a more convincing vampire-infested Forks.
I was shocked recently when I learned a new movie set in Seattle, "Safety Not Guaranteed," was actually filmed in Seattle, in the offices of Seattle Magazine, no less.
For the most part, the America of our video dreamscape has been outsourced. Moody and gloomy are rapidly becoming the landscape of thee we sing, except it ain't really ours. It belongs to the Dominion.
British Columbia is such a presence on film and TV — there are red cedar, ferns and rain everywhere — that it's like global warming in reverse. We were supposed to get a California climate, but instead America is being brainwashed to believe that moist and green are standard in TV-land, aka reality.
They might have lost the Pig War, but Canada has counter-attacked with an invasion of the American psyche and cultural colonization in the borderlands.
Wake up and smell the Murchie's, people.
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Comments:
Posted Fri, Jun 15, 7:23 a.m. Inappropriate
Today's batch of BBC announcers bear little resemblance to the ones with perfect John-Cleese-esque "BBC English" that I used to pull in on the old Zenith Trans-Oceanic in my youth. The current crop seem to think that there's something stylish about talking like Naivid Froost. It sounds like everyone at Broadcasting House is suffering from sinus infections.
Posted Fri, Jun 15, 8:29 a.m. Inappropriate
Don't forget the present popular TV series, "The Killing," supposedly set in Seattle---with periodic shots of the Space Needle and skyline---but where scenes are shot in Vancouver, B.C. and many of the principal characters, including the Seattle mayor, his general-election opponent, and police officials all speak with distinct Canadian accents.
Personally, I don't mind the Canadian influences. It's a hackneyed but true characterization that Canadians are blander and overly polite whereas Americans can be fractious and crude. Remember, the Canadians are the ones who chose to stick with the UK, and not break away, and then repelled us when we tried to invade them in the War of 1812.
More credit to them for putting up with us.
Posted Fri, Jun 15, 11:04 a.m. Inappropriate
Given our continuing dysfunctional political situation nationally, I sometimes think it is a shame we won the Revolutionary War. Had we lost, we would have had a parliamentary system and actually gotten things done. Might not have agreed with the decision, but there would actually be a decision.
Posted Fri, Jun 15, 10:13 a.m. Inappropriate
I'm with TVD on thinking that bland and polite are looking pretty good right now. And Canadians are not frightened the way we are, thus not so likely to be stampeded over the cliff by snake-oil salesmen and other cynical profiteers. The denizens of the Home of the Brave are, alas, wetting their collective shorts. It's not a pretty sight.
As for creating Cascadia, it's not impossible but there are probably a couple of key steps involved. First, the Supreme Court declares Obamacare unconstitutional and Mitt (our own version of bland) wins the November election in a landslide. Then, with Obama no longer around to hate, the glue that now holds the fractious right-wing coalition together soon melts away and hungry red-neck vampires begin to sink their teeth into Mitt's tender, aristocratic hide. Not even a layer of homespun Mormon underwear as thick as chain mail will be able to protect him from that assault. And of course his claim to be able to turn the economy around simply by evoking the gods of Free Market Capitalism will be exposed as the sham it always was. Honeymoon over. Quickly.
Meanwhile we quietly start circulating a petition humbly asking the Queen of England to take us back. Duly chagrined, we confess that our bold little experiment in democratic self-government has clearly failed. Half the population is confused and panic-stricken, the other half drunk, stoned and indifferent. But all the free booze is gone. Party over. Mom, we're sorry. We'll even eat our Brussels sprouts and pretend to like it.
After that, it's easy. We're now again reunited as part of the happy British Commonwealth family with our beloved polite and bland BC brethren. So one afternoon at high tea someone casually asks the avuncular Governor General, Sir Richard Starkey, to kindly dissolve the border between BC and Washington. Gently flicking a crumpet crumb dangling from his drooping mustache, he readily agrees. It's done. Cascadia is born.
And the Peace Arch at Blaine is ceremoniously but promptly converted to a giant rest area midway between Seattle and Vancouver, appropriately renamed the -- well, most likely you've already guessed the answer to that one.
Posted Fri, Jun 15, 9:04 p.m. Inappropriate
Methinks this a plot that Ernest Callenbach considered, but rejected.
Posted Fri, Jun 15, 11:01 a.m. Inappropriate
Thank you for your plug for Murchies, they get a substantial endowment from pour household every Christmas as we resupply our stock of tea.
Posted Fri, Jun 15, 11:03 a.m. Inappropriate
That must have been a Freudian slip, yes we pour the tea, but it is "our" household.....
Posted Fri, Jun 15, 7:47 p.m. Inappropriate
The War of 1812....what could have been....we could have grabbed Canada 50 years before buying Alaska!!
Posted Sat, Jun 16, 9:52 a.m. Inappropriate
Since the powers that be at CBC Radio drastically cut their classical music programs, many listeners in BC have been supporting our local listener supported classical station, KING 98.1 FM. Yet another tie with our Continental Cousins.
Posted Sat, Jun 16, 9:54 a.m. Inappropriate
San Couver is great. And St. Helens, another Brit. As for hockey, we're coming up on the centennial of the Seattle Stanley Cup victory, so there's already a mutual history on that count. 50/50 started off with a shot of the Lion's Gate Bridge before establishing the "location" by having characters pass Seattle Times boxes on their walks.
I'll take all of the Canadiazation without the royals to counter the Mississippi model being pushed by Eyeman and the megachurches.
Posted Sat, Jun 16, 6:02 p.m. Inappropriate
Interesting that your best argument for the "Canadianization of America" are a few personalities on a radio station that has a very small audience and a few television programs that 99.9% of the audience believes are actually filmed in the NW. I don't see it.
Posted Sat, Jun 16, 8:46 p.m. Inappropriate
It's like both the good old days and the bad old days "up there." The bad old days because forests are mown down with practically zero restrictions, and there are essentially no environmental laws. The good old days because people seem friendlier, less stressed, and few of them are packing heat. Plus large areas are uncrowded to the point where you're glad to see someone.
Fun fact: B.C. is bigger than Washington, Oregon and California combined.
Posted Sun, Jun 17, 4:46 p.m. Inappropriate
It's probably just a coincidence, but two days ago I was grocery shopping at Sand Pt. Metropolitan Market and discovered a new section just installed amongst the canned food... British Imports. My discovery was prompted by an eye-level can labeled "Mushy". Wait, what? It turned out to contain 'processed green peas'. I spent some time just reading labels and ingredients and laughing. The Asian, Mexican and kosher sections have come to seem standard fare, and I was surprised at how different this British section seemed to be.
Posted Sun, Jun 17, 5:29 p.m. Inappropriate
Incidentally, in the world of sporty cars, there have long been close ties with the Canadians. After WWII when the G.I.'s began bringing sports car back from Europe, a club was created in the Northeast by owners and it eventually spread across the country. It evolved into a sanctioning body for road racing. But it was rather elite and class conscious so when it reached the Northwest it created some rebels. Meantime, much the same thing was happening in Canada. The result was a newly created regional sanctioning body comprised of local sports car clubs in Washington, Oregon and B.C. that functions to this day. The same is true for a more loosely affiliated group of automotive rallyists. Now it's also true for Vintage 'racing' (they technically aren't 'racing'.) There are some names involved with that endeavor that you would be familiar with.
Posted Mon, Jun 18, 7:35 p.m. Inappropriate
Mossback,
Are you kidding me? The heading "The Canadianization of America" headline has very little to do with your story. The headline implies that Canadian culture is overtaking America. But the details you provide that we have a bunch of "Brit" names (not Canadian) and BC does a lot of movies based in US. Well guess what, this is not new news.
I hope that the editors of crosscut created this headline and to drive readership (shame on you) and you did not create this very misleading headline.
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