Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Canada's peasant vision; why Maclean's gets away with making fun of George Bush

Know your critic, the saying goes, but it is hilarious to witness what passes for informed commentary about Canada. I have been watching the blogosphere for comments about the Maclean's cover showing George Bush as a clone of Saddam Hussein. I have learned several things:
1. No one can spell MacClean's, McLean's, MacLean's.
2. Most commenters had never heard about the magazine, despite its prominence here.
3. And most have not even the foggiest notion about what life is like in Canada, hence their bizarre explanations for these people north of the border satirizing their president.
(This is too easy.) Here, not as a representative or even reasonable, example, is one I picked up from Maffers Weblog:
Political humor is rampant in Canadian culture, as many Canadian children are raised on peasant vision, or basic cable, which offers CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), and not a whole lot else. CBC, being a nationally owned station, is understandably lacking in quality programming, but in one area they have shined for years; the field of Political humor. From “This Hour has 22 min” to “Royal Canadian Air Farce”, children of all ages have been bombarded with savvy (or not) political whit (sic), when they are not watching hockey that is.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I couldn't help it, I dug in, and it turns out the author of the post you quote is a student in Vernon BC. Things are even worse than they originally seemed.

10:43 am  
Blogger RedWritingHood said...

I was about to disagree... then I realized that I grew up with peasant vision... the CBC... and hockey night in Canada.

9:57 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I actually know the author personally. While we disagree on virtually everything political, I actually enjoyed this post from him.

6:40 pm  

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