U.S. American-washing and Canadian Erasure in Film & Television
So, I’m getting really sick of Canadian Erasure in the North American film industry. It’s a huge problem that is barely talked about and it spans across the industry in various ways.
It happens on Canadian shows. Canadian show creators have a very hard time pitching projects internationally. They are hit with “Nobody’s going to watch a show that takes place in Canada.” and “No one will understand the cultural context.” So Canadian shows are forced to make a “vague, generic North American city” for the story to take place in. AKA a city where the U.S. Americans and the rest of the world assume that it takes place in the U.S.A. Some great examples of this are: Sanctuary, Lost Girl, and Orphan Black.
story time:
~~I remember back in University a show called “Falcon Beach” was filmed in my province, and someone who worked on the show told me that they would shoot two separate scenes if there was money shown in it, one with Canadian currency and one with American currency, because the U.S. networks wanted the show to appear American to their viewers.~~
Canadian Erasure also happens on the production level. Many U.S.American shows (and movies) come to Canada to film. When projects are in Canada, the crew, background actors, guest stars, etc. are either mostly, or all, Canadians. Canadian writers and lead/supporting actors often bleed heavily into the project as well. Truly making a joint Canada/U.S. project. However, because the funding comes from U.S. companies, Canada is cut out of claiming credit for these shows. All they get are after credits. Think of T.V. shows like: Stargate, Once Upon a Time, The 100, or literally anything on the SyFy network.
Even for those non-Canadian actors who move away from their home country to seek a career in acting in the U.S. have a much higher chance of playing characters that hail from their homeland. We all know British characters played by British actors in U.S. media. However, in Hollywood, a place flooded by Canadians, has next to no Canadian characters! literally the ONLY example of a Canadian actor who played a Canadian Character because of their nationality, that I can think of, is Cobie Smulders as Robin Scherbatsky in How i Met Your Mother.
story time:
~~Jewel Staite, a Canadian actor, who played a character in Stargate Atlantis, was written as Canadian by, Martin Gero, a Canadian write on the show. The show centred around an international space exploration project, so it made sense to have different nations represented. Then one of the American producers said that they already had “too many Canadians” (There was ONE Canadian) so they changed her character into an American. However, they had already shot a bunch of scenes with her in a military jacket with a Canadian flag patch on her arm, so in post they CGIed it to an American flag!!! because heaven forbid there are TWO canadian characters in one show!~~
This Canadian erasure is getting so strong that we’re at the point that when Canadian shows are openly Canadian, people STILL think they’re U.S. American. Just recently I saw a post on here about the T.V. show Wynonna Earp and people were arguing that it takes place in the U.S.A. The post literally started with these hallowed words “If Wynonna Earp isn’t set in the US then where the fuck is it supposed to be set???” and people genuinely hopped on the thread, sharing their opinions as to why they think it’s set in the U.S. despite the fact that it’s a very openly Canadian show that takes place in Alberta.
Now, I’m not expecting tumblr to solve this huge problem that’s been around since the beginning of an industry. However, I do ask that people are more open-minded to the possibility that not everything in the North American film industry is a U.S. only production, or is even U.S.American at all.