In the beginning...

I, Allison Vorstenbosch, hereby renounce all non-Canadian produced television.

Now, what would possibly lead somebody to take such a dramatic and, what most people would consider, insane step? The answer is really threefold:

Firstly, most people know that I’ve always had a fancy for Canadian culture. I believed that watching Canadian Idol was my patriotic duty. I worship at the altar of Douglas Coupland and will actually admit to liking Margaret Atwood. My musicals tastes always swayed to the Canadian, with Our Lady Peace, David Usher and Barenaked Ladies topping the list. And most pathetically, I admit, I always preferred the Moffatts to any Backstreet Boy or *N Sync. Then of course there was the show jPOD (and I can promise that you will all know about my obsession with jPOD before this blog ends). I will admit my Canadian cinema experiences are a bit weak though (do I get anything for owning Century Hotel?). On top of this, I have a sick love of reading books about being Canadian which led to a misguided application for a MA in Canadian studies. So really, it’s not much of a surprise.

Secondly, I have always been interested in the relationship between media and food. Weird, right? I know. But really, we consume media almost as much as we consume food. Often, both at the same time. However, we are more concerned about the food we eat and not the media we watch (for this purpose, I’m mostly talking about television here). Though I do think that people should consider going on a ‘diet’ for their viewing habits, what is more important is the current attention that is being paid to eating local produce. Farmer’s markets are the way to go and now Galen Weston is telling us the importance of having locally grown foods in the supermarkets. And of course, we all know that good things grow in Ontario.

Now, that’s all well and good. Eat local. Hoorah. But I think the same can be applied to the media you consume. This has gotten a little attention due to the economic downtown and so we’ve seen some commercials telling us to support local television (the poor A’s and just recently I saw one from Global). I think that as we appreciate our local farmers, we should also appreciate those who produce our local television or even any of our television, frankly. I still encourage everyone, however, to buycanadianfirst.ca .

Lastly, the real catalyst was a conversation I was having with my friend about media imperialism. To save everyone an academic headache, I’ll avoid most of the nerdiness and give a brief and over-simplified summary: media imperialism is the idea that “smaller countries are losing their identity due to the force-feeding of media from larger nations” (http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-media-imperialism.htm). I freely admit that I have been out of academia for a while now and have never studied this theory in any sort of depth, but that seems kinda right to me. From what I hear however, this theory has fallen out of favour (apparently one little study about Dallas and it’s all over). Now initially what irritated me was the seeming disconnect between academia and reality since it’s kinda hard not to believe in media imperialism when you look at the primetime line ups of Canadian networks. But what truly enraged me was what other Canadian people were saying in this regard. These are intelligent and educated people who believe that there should be no sort of regulatory body over Canadian content. The idea is that if Canadians wanted to watch Canadian television, they would. This was then followed the prevailing belief that Canadian don’t watch Canadian television because it sucks.

I was a little upset. In a perfect world, if Canadians wanted to watch Canadian TV, then they would. And I would be a very happy person. But this is not a perfect world and I am not a happy person. Trying to find Canadian produced shows (especially ones not based on an American format) is like me trying to find a good simile to finish this sentence (they really aren’t my strong suit). Especially when Global and CTV are both trying to reduce the amount of CanCon they have to produce. And combined with the belief that Canadian television is generally bad, what hope is there of getting Canadians to actually watch? Like Wendy Crewson said, “A country that does not own its own airwaves, does not own itself. Eventually, it will fall to the influence of whatever country it chooses to broadcast.” (quote stolen from http://heywriterboy.blogspot.com/)

So I’ve decided to take a stand. I want to see more Canadian television, so I’m going to watch only Canadian television. When my teachers encouraged us to watch Canadian films, they always said not to lower your standards but just give them a chance. I plan on holding Canadian shows up to the standards that I have cultivated over the years as a viewer. I’m not going to watch any less TV or change the way I watch TV. I’m just seeing what is available (note: co-productions are allowed as well).

Therefore, from this day forward, I pledge to only watch Canadian produced shows. Ne’er shall an American show darken my eye. Please, join me for the experience, by following this blog, where I will be posting my thoughts and observations. Or better yet, watch some Canadian shows along with me (but not literally with me, like in my apartment on my couch…though that might be nice too).