Swedish Toast

This guy writes an article about how the film Juno is not considered Canadian by the Genies, Canada's national film awards. This isn't the first article written by him on the subject, but this seems to be the first that has made it to the New York Times (hardly the forum for crying about Canada). The irked knob reduces the debate over defining national cinemas to his own simple, Sarrisian logic, namely "there's Canadians, it must be Canadian."

It's a bigger issue, one that the knob doesn't care to acknowledge. Didn't the knob notice that the Oscars nominated Juno for best picture, not best foreign film as they typically do for Canadian films (think Denys Arcand and Atom Egoyan); so they must have considered it non-Canadian too. And how does the author handle the fact that Deepa Mehta is not Canadian but Indian - how could her films be considered Canadian? God, what a horrid system we have.

Bottom line - look at the production. look at who produced it, who financed it, who owns it. Films are not like biological children; they don't inherit the qualities of their direct parents. That's mainly because there are no direct parents. Films are collaborations, and therefore distinguishing the country of origin can be difficult. Articles written in the style of the irked knob do not do the system any favors. In fact, they could impede the system by raising flags where none need to be raised. In a subsidy-heavy country like Canada, impedance is the mother of prevention.

Just shut up and enjoy the movie, and remember that awards shows are not true mirrors of reality.