The last Prix Ecrans gala, broadcast Sunday evening on the CBC, is a superb example of “happy colonized”.
It was not strictly speaking a gala, since it was extracts from the various “highlights” that marked “Canadian Screen Week”, a week of celebration of English-language television and Canadian cinema. This painful “canned” program is a real insult to the artists and craftsmen of television in English Canada.
The one-hour special would almost prove Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre right to shut down the tall building on Front Street in Toronto. I also wonder if the salvation of English-language television would not be precisely to get the CBC out of Toronto where, it seems, the only horizon for English-speaking artists is New York or Los Angeles.
As cicerone of this television hodgepodge, enlivened by the dullest of elevator music, we had chosen Samantha Bee, a naturalized American actress from Toronto, who has lived in New York for 20 years. I’m not sure she even deigned to travel all the way to Toronto to host a gala that started with a sketch of corny jokes about Toronto. It continued by featuring Canadian artists who had had the good fortune to make a career in the United States. We are colonized or we are not!
PIERRE BRUNEAU WAS IN IT!
At one point, we see Lisa LaFlamme, crowned the best news anchor in the country. Then, in his traditional fitted suit, our dear Pierre Bruneau, who was honored for his entire career. But you had to be careful not to miss them.
What do you want, neither Lisa nor Pierre have managed during their long career to rise to the level of the Americans.
Catherine O’Hara, the star of the “sitcom” Schitt’s Creek, has been named the “Academy Icon”. It is the equivalent of the person who receives in Quebec the Grand Prix of the Academy of Cinema and Television. Who do you think interviewed Mrs. O’Hara on this occasion? Hey! yes, none other than Amy Poehler, an American actress and director, who was part of the team of Saturday Night Live for several seasons. We are colonized or we are not!
THE Globe & Mail has a reputation for being Canada’s best-informed daily, but one might doubt that when you read its list of the 25 most influential Canadians in the industry.
Eager to do its part for the promotion of television, the newspaper published a few days before the gala the list of the 25 television people whom it considers the most influential in Canada.
WHERE ARE QUEBECERS?
As it should be, the first and second places were attributed automatically, if I may say so, to the Minister of Heritage, Pablo Rodriguez, and to the CEO of the Media Fund, Valérie Creighton.
That goes without saying, because this department and this organization allocate hundreds of millions to the industry each year. Without them, Canadian television as we know it would not exist.
Where we can really ask ourselves questions about the seriousness of this list is that it includes only one Quebecer, even though it is a couple: Sophie Lorain and Alexis Durand-Brault. They meet at 16e rank. But this glorious list includes the Canadian representatives of Netflix, Disney and Prime Video. We are colonized or we are not!