Racism » Canadian Culture Thing

Yoga Hosers: Mr. Smith Goes to Canada.

by Chadwick Gendron Posted on September 15, 2016

yogahosers-harleyquinnsmith-lilyrosedepp

Here’s a favour to everyone. Watch this trailer and feel like you’ve now seen it without having to endure the entire film. This diaper load from writer-director Kevin Smith might be less offensive than Argo because it doesn’t spoof Canadian heroes, just hosers, but that’s not saying much. Like many films of the deep dark past when white actors played non-white characters, this one pours the American-style beet-sugar, fake maple syrup all over it’s cinematic trojan horse.

Years ago, it was very common for actors like Christopher Lee to play Fu Manchu or Laurence Olivier to play Othello in black-face but there are Canadian actors all over the place! Hollywood is filthy with them, not to mention Canada, where you filmed this. Under closer scrutiny CCT found that not only are the leads not Canadian, there isn’t one Canadian in the cast – not one. What?

The two young stars unknowingly I’m sure, play roles that nod to the historic racism of Hollywood. Kevin Smith’s daughter Harley Quinn Smith is to Yoga Hosers what Mickey Rooney was to Breakfast at Tiffany’s and for Lily-Rose, I’ll dig into the distant familial past to her father Johnny Depp’s horrific portrayal of Lone Ranger’s partner, Tonto. Lily-Rose Depp’s role as a hapless Canadian teen at least hasn’t completely deconstructed a beloved icon.

the-lone-ranger-johnny-depp-armie-hammer

Come on, Mr. Smith, no one needs your Canadian Trilogy. Canadians are masters of comedy and need to be revered as such. This film is too absurd to explain and a viewing of the trailer should be enough.

Posted in Aboriginal, Business, Canadian Celebrities, Entertainment, Manitoba, Movies, Pop Culture, Television | Tagged Hosers, Johnny Depp, Kevin Smith, Lone Ranger, Racism, Yoga | Leave a comment

Discussing Bigotry in Canada with Lincoln Alexander and Len Marchand – 1968

by chadwickgendron Posted on October 22, 2012

Lincoln MacCauley Alexander

On Friday, former Lieutenant Governor of Ontario Lincoln Alexander passed away at the age of 90. Having lived a great political life, politician and statesman Born in Toronto on January21, 1922, Alexander would serve his country in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II, graduate from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1953. In 1968 he ran in Canada’s federal election and became Canada’s first black Minister of Parliament and held the post until resigning in 1980.

In 1985 Lincoln Alexander was appointed Lieutenant Governor of Ontario and became the first black person to serve in a viceregal position in Canada which he held until 1991. A year later he was appointed to the Order of Canada.

Len Marchand

Leonard Stephen Marchand of the Okanagan Indian Band was born on November 16, 1933 in Vernon, British Columbia and after a career in agronomy, he turned his attention to native concerns and served with the North American Indian Brotherhood. He later turned his attention to Ottawa, lobbying for Native issues and after becoming a special assistant to two cabinet ministers, Marchand became the first person of the First Nations to serve on the federal cabinet. He was later to become the 2nd person of aboriginal descent to sit on the Canadian Senate. In 1999, he was appointed to the Order of Canada. He retired in 1998.

Below is a reproduction of an interview in the Toronto Telegram’s Weekend Magazine from November 30, 1968 with newly appointed Ministers of Parliament, Lincoln Alexander and Len Marchand. In it they discus their younger lives and how racism and bigotry had affected them. The Canada of the 50’s and 60’s could not stop professing it’s lack of racism, boasting the Underground Railroad and it’s forward thinking but it wasn’t until the late 60’s that this untruth began moving towards truth with the birth of a new Canada. In 1965 we chose a new flag, a truly modern flag for a new world and then in 1968 we chose a new kind of leader in Pierre Elliot Trudeau. In that same federal election, Canada elected it’s first black and first native person to sit as Ministers of Parliament and with that a New Canada began to be realised.