Canada is a wasteland of peace, universal healthcare, parliamentary government, and moose. In many ways it is a distorted reflection of America, the distant relative living in the attic that resembles us and shares many of our personality traits while still managing to be noticeably different. There's a comedian, whose name escapes me, that once correctly stated that the entire world…that life… is a freak show and to live in America is to have a front row seat. So where does that place Canadians? Directly behind us politely looking on in their distinctive quaint manner while we Americans scream at the top of our lungs, flailing about as means of ensuring we remain the center of all attention? Oh Canada. There's a constant cultural dialogue that occurs between America and Canada, but you can rest your ego filled American head peacefully because that dialogue is more often a one way conversation in which we constantly dare Canadians to differentiate themselves from us, knowing we ultimately don't care when they do. It's because of the very unique nature of the American-Canadian relationship that Canada has been able to undertake a very successful enterprise that no other nation in the world could duplicate. Canadians are masters at selling us back to ourselves.
Justin Bieber. The center of the universe for every tween girl on both sides of the Mississippi and probably a few grown folks with no sense of shame and a weak understanding of irony—not to mention a poor grasp of the concept "grown." He's a teenage boy that sings watered down kid-bop songs about love on the playground and getting his parent's permission to go to the mall (I'm making an assumption here because I don't really know what Justin Bieber's songs are about having never listened to them). The Bieber phenomenon is in no way new, indeed he stands in a long line of Tiger Beat teens whose faces have covered the walls of young girls *sigh*…. and boys…throughout the generations. New Kids on the Block, N'Sync,…the Partridge Family I guess? (Again, I'm kinda outta my wheelhouse here). Anyway, I digress. The point is few solo musical artist targeting the tween demographic apply such a successful and dominant All-American boy marketing strategy as well as Justin Bieber. Justin Bieber is Canadian. Though there is nothing about him that denotes that fact, as is often the case with those crafty Canadians, he accomplishes an urban enough to be cool, but not urban enough to scare his fan's parents, aw shucks, white suburban American appeal masterfully. He comes across as the ultimate nice guy, who gosh dangit, just can't help but cheerfully sing about asking his parents if he can go to the mall. All the good without the bad. The American dream in adolescent form, that is so innocent if you look hard enough he eerily resembles a girl. He's selling us back to ourselves with sheer perfection. Justin Bieber is what every good American boy should be, but in reality can't because if Justin Beiber were American he'd be making his third visit to rehab by now. We Americans are all too close to the freak show. There's still a chance that may happen of course the more time he spends down here, which is why Beiber may want to spend all his free time back home in the wintry north retaining his precious Canadian purity, lest Bieber fever slowly morph into an underage coke rage (no, I'm not suggesting there's a proper age for cocaine usage, simmer down, it's just a play on words). Justin Bieber isn't alone in this endeavor to capture America by pretending to be it, packaging it up and selling it, that too is a long line he stands in. A Canadian tradition if you will.
How do you sniff out these Canadian implants, these fiddlers of the American imagination? Let's just say that like Bieber they ain't hit the big time because their music is so unbearably good. Who remembers Avirl Lavigne? I didn't until a did a series of Google searches that reminded me what her name was, but what I did remember was that she was Canadian—which only slightly lessened the search time because apparently this Canadian thing goes deeper than I thought. She was the "alternative" girl of the early aughts who hit all the stereotypical buttons of the socially outcast American youth, without all the emo suicide threats and trenchcoat mafia darkness that are inevitable when you're sitting too close to the freak show. It was the American version of America only a Canadian could make. *Hmph*…It's just so tough being a young skater girl in middle America…in a non-threatening Canadian way of course. Yet another example of America buying America as we want to see it, produced from the skillful hands of Canadians.
Here's another one that is well outside of my wheelhouse on multiple levels, that nevertheless I'm going to reference: Shania Twain. I have no idea what the culture is like in the vast barren lands of the frozen tundra that basically is Canada, save Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal as far as I can tell, but I have been to the American south. I have friends from the American south. And Canada, you're no American south. Not until you pick up the subtle idiosyncrasies of racism, resistance to change, and general fondness for all things slow and simple that make the American south and undergird country music (why do you think black people and vast oceans of Americans hate it). That apparently didn't stop Canadian Shania Twain from saddln' up once she got to the mason-dixon line and riding her southern stylin's all the way to the bank money in hand, which hopefully she kept safely in Canada where they don't have complete financial meltdowns. It's almost like she gets it. This is what a cow-girl is supposed to be. Smart, sassy, down home…Canadians truly are doing it for themselves, and from our perch in America it looks an awful lot like a really good version of us.
It's not limited to music though. America is filled with comedians who cut their teeth, literally, in Canada. I have personally thought for the longest time that a lot of comedians from Canada aren't really that funny and for the longest time I couldn't figure out why. Now I know…it's because so many of them are comically selling Americans back to themselves. A perfect example of that is Mike Myers, a Canadian, who perfected his skills as an American repackage specialist on SNL's Wayne's World sketch in the 90's. He played the archetype of an alternative slacker in the early 90's, something very American, the way a Canadian sees it. Eh,…not that funny (I won't even get into Austin Powers or his last movie, The Love Guru). Here in America we have the real Wayne's World and over the course of the 90's it slowly morphed into Marilyn Mason. See how it's done Canada!
Canadians you slick shysters. To a large extent I don't really blame the Canadians because as was implied in my "barren lands...frozen tundra" comment above, frankly there isn't much to do in Canada because all the fun stuff is happening down here. However I'd be lying if I didn't say it does slightly bother me that the Canadians take our cultural essence, regurgitate it as rainbow colored sprinkle filled rays of happiness, and sell it back to us. So the last time I was in Canada I went to a Casino and won $100 and now I don't plan on ever going back to that godforsaken country of impostors again. I figure it's about time an American gets away with taking something from Canada and giving nothing in return.
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