February 25, 2008

 

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
  

Well, it’s Oscar night. Or at least it was,
when I was writing this. Wedo “production”
(which means “putting together the paper”
in esoteric newspaper-talk) on Sunday
nights here at the OP, so I tend to miss a
lot of Sunday night television these days.
Sometimes it sucks—I am more behind in
Simpsons than I’ve ever been my life—but
when it comes to missing the Academy
Awards I could really care less.

I have a huge inherent bias against the
Oscars, namely because I just plain don’t
like movies. Oh sure, I can appreciate the
occasional cinematic masterpiece as much
as the next guy (though it should be noted I
have never bothered to see The Godfather,

Citizen Kane, or even Indiana Jones),
but in most cases I just find movies to
be long, boring wastes of time. Call
it a short attention span or ADD or
whatever, but sitting still and paying
attention to a flashing screen for two
or more hours is not something I have
ever been particularly good at.

But movies bore me for a whole
host of reasons that go well beyond
my obvious personality disorders.
I’ve never been a big fan of violence,
which naturally turns me off about 90
per cent of what Hollywood offers up
these days, including all the leading
blockbusters that center around people
being blown up or disemboweled in
various high-definition ways. I’m
likewise too much of a realist to have
much time for ridiculous fantasy
romps about elves or space people,
and if I want to learn about history I'l]
just read the book.

Watching the Oscars thus has about
the same appeal for me as watching the
American Gladiator semi-finals; I sort
of grasp the underlying concept, but
have no interest in the subject matter.

This year’s Oscar offerings have
added a new nauseating element to
an already irritating event— pompous
Canadian nationalism. For the last
month or so it’s been hard to crack
open the entertainment section of

any Canadian newspaper without
being subjected to a host of smugly
self-righteous platitudes about just
how wonderful it is that the Juno girl
comes from Halifax or the lead gaffer
from There Will Be Blood comes from
Thunder Bay or whatever.

The fact that so many Canadians
are nominated for Oscar trophies in
2008 is taken as some sort of grand sign
that our country has finally “made it,”
in a cultural sense. “It’s great that we
have a country that supports culture,”
said some guy in the Globe and Mail
the other day. “We’ ve become the envy
of so many other countries [because]
we have our priorities straight in terms
of supporting culture.”

But really, all Canada’s Oscar
successes prove is how thoroughly
false the mythology of “Canadian
culture” really is. For years we've
had the Federal Government’s various
cultural bureaucracies funnel our
tax dollars into all sorts of stupid art
films, terrible children’s cartoons, and
loser bands, all in a vain attempt to
create some sort of dynamic Canadian
cultural industry capable of taking
on the United States. But time and
time again these efforts have proven
remarkably unsuccessful for one
simple reason—Canada already has
a cultural industry, and it’s called

Hollywood. Canadians don’t watch
Canadian entertainment, we watch
American entertainment, because at
our core, we are basically Americans,
and thus don’t suffer from any sort of
enormous cultural disconnect when
watching US-made media.

The more successful Canadian
stars become on Oscar night (or
Grammy night, or Pulitzer night) the
more obvious it is that there really
is no Canadian culture to speak of.
Canadians are not winning these
awards because they have proven
anything to the Americans; on the
contrary, they are winning because
they have resigned themselves to
their proper roles as invisible partners
in a shared North American cultural
industry.

And this is a good thing, because
the sooner Canadians accept this, the
sooner we can direct our nation’s talent
where it really belongs—on American
screens, American televisions, and
American radios, and the huge and
profitable markets those venues
entail.

Just don’t ask me to watch the
movies.

J.J. McCullough
Editor in Chief of the Other Press

 

 

Legalized abortion reflects the will of the people

 

view, Canadian courts have

should abstain from trying to

Dear Editor,

In a recent issue of “The

Other Press”, J.J McCullough
set out to prove in his article
[“Abortions the byproduct of

a failing society,” February 4]
why abortion is the embodiment
of our failing judicial system.

In his attempt to be rational,

he maliciously called women
that have partaken in abortions
“careless” and “lethargic”.
Regardless though, this letter is
not to address the offensiveness
of Mr. McCullough’s argument.
My intention is to address his
description of our legal system;
“the rights of the careless and
criminal take overwhelming
precedence over the rights of
the defenseless and subjugated”.
This is basically his way of
describing how (in his opinion)
the Canadian courts have become
overzealous in their application
of the Charter of Rights and
Freedoms to legislation passed
by Parliament. In McCullough’s

become overly protective of the
individual freedoms of criminals
and less concerned with the
collective rights of society.

There lies a problem with
his line of thinking, and that is
the fact that in the Morgentaler
case he was initially acquitted
by a jury; in other words “the
people.” It wasn’t by the judicial
system, or lawyers, politicians, or
anyone else in the elite society. It
was the people of Canada. This
is why Morgentaler’s case was
so important in legal history;
it represents the changing face
of law. Morgentaler was not
simply acquitted on the basis that
abortion laws clearly violated and
infringed on the security of the
person; the law was struck down
because the society it reflected
was changing. With regards to
the actual question, whether the
Supreme Court had made the
right decision, I would therefore
answer in the affirmative. Legally
speaking this not a moral issue,
Mr. McCullough; criminal law

force people to live up to a higher
standard of morality. Undeniably,
any legal system that holds
individuals criminally liable

for not acting laudably would

be a system of utopian laws
difficult to implement. Teaching
people proper ethics is a job for
organized religions and schools.
The appropriate role of the courts
is to assist legislators in enacting
laws that reflect the will of the
people, and the values we hold
that are expressed in the Charter.
In the Morgentaler case that is

exactly what happened.

- Leeanne Lyons