Making Meatballs: Canadian Film and Television Comedy by Monica M
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Making Meatballs: Canadian Film and Television Comedy by Monica M. Champagne A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Film Studies Carleton University OTTAWA, Ontario September 13,2005 Copyright © 2005, Monica M. Champagne Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Library and Bibliotheque et Archives Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-18243-7 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-18243-7 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives and Archives Canada to reproduce,Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve,sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet,distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans loan, distribute and sell theses le monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, worldwide, for commercial or non sur support microforme, papier, electronique commercial purposes, in microform,et/ou autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privee, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont ete enleves de cette these. While these forms may be includedBien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. i * i Canada Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Abstract Making Meatballs: Canadian Film and Television Comedy begins an academic inquiry into English-Canadian film comedy and argues that Meatballs (1979), Porky’s (1982), The Adventures o f Bob and Doug McKenzie: Strange Brew (1983) and Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy (1996) exhibit unique comedic sensibilities founded, in part, on their position as products of a film-industrial context unique to Canada. This project comprises a variety of sub-topics, ranging from film’s interface with television to practices of cross- dressing in popular entertainment. This study begins with an examination Meatballs and Porky's in relation to the Canadian debate surrounding the tax-shelter, as well as their position within die sub-genre of “Animal Comedy”. The second chapter concerns Strange Brew and its satirical approach to the problem of mandated nationalism. The third chapter explores the uniquely subversive cross-dressing comedy of the Kids in the Hall, as evident in their television series and feature filmBrain Candy. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table of Contents Introduction: A Certain Tendency of English-Canadian Film Scholarship 1 Chapter One: A Kinder, Gentler, Animal Comedy: Finding the Value in Meatballs and Porky’s, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Tax-Shelter .......................................................................................... 22 Chapter Two: Presented in Hoserama: Satire and Nationalism in The Adventures o f Bob and Doug McKenzie: Strange Brew............................ 54 Chapter Three: Taking It in the Face: Liberating the Unruly Woman in Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy..................................................................76 Conclusion: A Spaz, a Hoser and a Queen walk into a bar...............................110 Bibliography ........................................................................................................ 115 Filmography ......................................................................................................... 122 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Introduction: A Certain Tendency of English-Canadian Film Scholarship ...the “foreigrmess” o f Canadian cinema connotes its association with an international art cinema This use o f “foreignness’’ does not designate a geographical distance from the national territory, but a distance from popular cinemagoing taste. It makes sense to talk about how “at home” U.S. movies are in Canada and how “come-from-away” Canadian film s are. While plenty o f non-Hollywood texts, from James Bond to Mad Max, have made it into the mainstream o f international popular culture, the expectation that the minor cinemas o f the world will regularly contribute in this fashion is slim. And these exceptions carry substantial significance. For example, over the last few years there has been an insistent whine asking “When will we get our Full Monty?”a plea that willfully forgets that Canada has had a number of prominent entrants to international popular culture, as with Porky’s and Meatballs (Ivan Reitman, 1979). Thus, the cry is not ju st fo r a popular blockbuster but for the “right kind" o f hit (e.g., a humanist crowd-pleaser rather than a gross-out teen flick). The selective memory confirms a ruling sense of embarrassment about popular cinema culture, reflecting how bound by taste these appeals fo r a “proper" national cinema are. ~Charles Acland, Screen Traffic: Movies, Multiplexes, and Global Culture.1 While we were making On est au cottonwe were having a drink with the main character, and he asked us: 'Do you think that you people would be able to make a real movie? ’. We said: ‘What do you mean, what are we doing here?'. ‘No’, he said: ‘I mean a real movie that I could go to on a Saturday night with my wife ’. -Denys Arcand2 There have been four books published in as many years on the subject of English- Canadian cinema, none of which have allotted more than two pages to address film comedy. Most striking is William Beard and Jerry White’s anthology North o f Everything: English Canadian Cinema Since 1980 (2002), which fails to indicate in its 488 pages that any comedies have been produced in English Canada over the past twenty years. This is surprising considering that since the launch of the Genie Awards by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television in 1980, fifty percent of the Golden Reel Awards have been presented to film comedies. The Golden Reel is a special award “presented to the Canadian film that earns the highest domestic box office revenue of the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 year,”3 and has as its alumni such English-Canadian comedies as Ivan Reitman’s Meatballs (1979), Bob Clark’s Porky’s (1982), Dave Thomas’ The Adventures o f Bob and Doug McKenzie: Strange Brew (1983), and such French-Canadian comedies as Louis Sala’s Les Boys (1997), Les Boys 7/(1998), and Les Boys 7/7(2001). As regrettable as the critical neglect of such films may be for both the academic community and Canadianfilm fans alike, it is typical of Canadian film scholarship. In their desire for a neatly defined and distinctly “Canadian” national cinema, English- Canadian film scholars have worked to prescribe a national cinema that satisfies the Griersonian elitism upon which Canadian cinema was founded. In order to “put first things first,”4 critics concerned with defining English-Canadian national cinema have narrowed their focus to a tiny canon of approved masterpieces, casting aside all that does not belong in their ‘imagined community’ of acceptable national films. The main casualty of the exclusionist tendency in English-Canadian film scholarship has been comedy. The exclusion is curious in light of the fact that the two highest grossing Canadian films of all time—Meatballs and Porky’s—have been comedies. By ignoring film comedy, Canadian film scholarship is failing to acknowledge the sort of films produced in Canada that are popular with Canadian audiences. In effect, English-Canadian film scholarship has created an image of the national cinema which, as Charles Acland suggests in the opening quotation, feels foreign to the national public. With this in mind, the purpose of this thesis is to begin the process of situating popular English-Canadian film comedies within the current Canadian film canon. This study begins with an examination of Meatballs and Porky’s in relation (1) to the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 Canadian debate surrounding tax-shelter legislation intended to increase film production, and (2) to the position of these films within the sub-genre of “Animal Comedy”. The second chapter concerns The Adventures o f Bob and Doug McKenzie: Strange Brew in the context of its satirical approach to the problem of popular film and television’s role in the project of nation-building. Finally,