{"id":93836,"date":"2025-01-29T05:00:26","date_gmt":"2025-01-29T10:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=93836"},"modified":"2025-01-28T14:05:41","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T19:05:41","slug":"canadians-polite-lunatics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2025\/01\/29\/canadians-polite-lunatics\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadians – “polite lunatics”"},"content":{"rendered":"

In The Line<\/em>, Mitch Heimpel<\/a> talks about a Canadian culture from a time before a Canadian PM could get away with maligning the country as having “no core identity”:<\/p>\n

In recent days, The Line<\/em> has spoken of the need for Canada to go “full psycho”. To “Make ‘Canada’s back’ a threat”. And, specifically, to recapture a Canadian identity that was, not long ago, widely shared \u2014 Canadians as scary and even dangerous. My own mind had been on similar topics of late, and I’d been thinking, specifically, about how those representations used to show up not just in our pop culture, but in American pop culture.<\/p>\n

And in at least one place, you can find it still: Shoresy<\/em>, a hilarious comedy show about Canadian hockey hosers that has found success on both sides of the border.<\/p>\n

Shoresy<\/em> is interesting not because it’s new, but almost because it’s retro. Once upon a time, the kind of Canadian identity shown in Shoresy<\/em> was just … Canadian identity. Here’s a great example of what I mean that I suspect many readers will have seen: 1968’s The Devil’s Brigade<\/em>, a film about the First Special Service Force, a joint Canadian-American unit that would become the forerunner to the American Green Berets. The film is a remarkable reflection of the attitudes that the two cultures had about each other. In one particular scene, after the Americans (predominantly tough guy actors Claude Akins and James Coburn) have spent days making sport of the Canadians, a new Canadian sergeant \u2014 played by Jeremy Slate \u2014 is introduced in a mess hall scene. Mild-mannered, lithe, and even bespectacled, the Sergeant sits down next to Akins and begins to insult him. He starts by literally elbowing the American bully for room at the table in the Mess and proceeds to call him a fat tub of lard.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Sgt. Patrick O’Neill (Jeremy Slate) in the mess hall scene in The Devil’s Brigade<\/em> (1968).<\/p><\/div>\n

Once Akins has had enough, he attacks the Canadian sergeant, who reveals himself to be the unit’s new hand-to-hand combat instructor, and proceeds to pummel Akins while barely smudging his glasses. After having bruised the American’s body, as well as his ego, he returns to dinner and punctuates it by asking Akins for the salt. Akins hands it over.<\/p>\n

This was not a remarkable representation. The Americans used to view us as polite lunatics. This showed up not just in American media, but also our stories about ourselves. Characters like Slate’s sergeant Patrick O’Neill showed up in the songs of Stompin’ Tom, Ian Tyson, and even Gordon Lightfoot. They’re memorialized in the works of Robert Service and Al Purdy. Purdy, in particular, describes this archetype well, both in At the Quinte Hotel<\/em> and in The Country North of Belleville<\/em>:<\/p>\n

    \n

    backbreaking days
    \nin the sun and rain
    \nwhen realization seeps slow in the mind
    \nwithout grandeur or self-deception in
    \nnoble struggle
    \nof being a fool \u2013<\/em><\/p>\n

    A country of quiescence and still distance
    \na lean land
    \nnot like the fat south.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n

    In those few lines, Purdy captures Canadiana so easily. A people shaped by distance and the harshness of the land. Capable of the toughness needed to endure. With just a little foolishness mixed in for good measure.<\/p>\n

    Polite lunatics.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In The Line, Mitch Heimpel talks about a Canadian culture from a time before a Canadian PM could get away with maligning the country as having “no core identity”: In recent days, The Line has spoken of the need for Canada to go “full psycho”. To “Make ‘Canada’s back’ a threat”. And, specifically, to recapture […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7,13,230],"tags":[262,284,122,592,690,101],"class_list":["post-93836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-history","category-usa","category-ww2","tag-culture","tag-hockey","tag-movies","tag-poetry","tag-specialforces","tag-tv"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-opu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93836"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93838,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93836\/revisions\/93838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}