television
In defense of the CRTC
I recently found my way into a media and technology industry conference where I "accidentally" bumped into the chair of the CRTC, Konrad von Finckenstein, who was surprisingly charming. Our conversation couldn't have been more different from the experiences I've had at CRTC hearings, where commissioners bear down on you with condescending glares, like feudal lords against the backdrop of a row of flags, the CRTC logo hanging overhead in place of a medieval coat of arms.
Maury Chaykin's irreplaceable madness
Maury Chaykin died this week on his 61st birthday. Some obits called him a character actor. It's basically a film-TV term -- where Maury mostly worked -- as opposed to star. Another term is supporting actor versus leading man. It's a shame he didn't do more stage work, where physical typing isn't as great. I once wrote a play on the Montreal Canadiens; a sports type who met the actor cast as Rocket Richard said, "You can't have a fat Rocket!" But you can and we did. Maury was a beautiful guy in his prime but not a typical movie lead; yet he'd have made a great Lear or Prospero. Asked by Jian Ghomeshi for a role he felt he'd nailed, Maury joked, "Hamlet," making you think it may have been on his wish list.
Lament for civility
One of the most acrimonious and unproductive political seasons in recent memory breaks for summer this week with calls from an influential Conservative for more "raw debate" and an end to stifling political correctness.
Kory Teneycke is former media chief for Stephen Harper. He is now vice-president of a fledgling all-news television network, Sun TV News, and is ready to take his talent for stinging invective to a larger stage -- and, his critics fear, to accelerate the trivialization of our politics.
Bomb Girls is an explosive homegrown TV drama
I'm not generally a fan of network TV. Mostly because I have a kryptonite strength hate on for the reality television that tends to fill the air these days. However on this occasion, I raise a glass to Global for bankrolling, as well as promoting the heck out of "Bomb Girls," a terrific new dramatic Canadian mini-series about a group of women working at a munitions factory during WWII.
The detachment of watching hockey on television
I was at the Leafs-Bruins game last week at the Air Canada Centre. In the second period, when it was still close, a Leaf was tripped in the Bruin zone but it wasn't called, continuing what the crowd saw as a pattern. The Leafs sagged, as if in protest or pain, the Bruins jumped in, got an odd-man rush and scored.
Someone said, "That was passive-aggressive." It rang true. It's as if the Leafs, expressing the collective mood, were pouting to the officials, "If you don't do your job, we won't do ours." Passive aggression is often counterproductive but it's deeply rooted and hard to restrain. Yet I doubt it would've been noticed if we'd been watching at home, or in a bar. It made me think about the difference between hockey on TV, versus on the spot.
The 'boob tube' and feelin' Canadian
Feeling Canadian: Television, Nationalism, and Affect
(Wilfrid Laurier University Press,
2011;
$32.95)
Feeling Canadian, by academic and filmmaker Marusya Bociurkiw, explores the impact of television and corporate culture on Canadian identity.
Bociurkiw's book is not organized as a linear argument aimed at proving a thesis, however. Instead, she examines specific "traumatic points" in televised Canadian history. The cultural artifacts and traumatic points studied include the television shows A People's History of Canada and Loving Spoonfuls, the Molson Canadian television commercial "The Rant" featuring Joe Canadian and Pierre Trudeau's funeral. She studies these shows in order to determine how much the elusive Canadian identity is simply a product of commercial culture.