Canadians unhappy with how they’re shown on U.S. TV shows

Robin Sparkles, the alter ego of Robin Scherbatsky, portrayed by actress Cobie Smulders on the show How I Met Your Mother, was based on the early career of singer Alanis Morissette.  Photo by Ron P. Jaffe/FOX Television

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Many Canadians are miffed about how they’re portrayed on U.S. television shows, according to a recent survey from The Writers Guild of Canada. And a lot of it has to do with long-standing clichés.

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For example, 71.4 per cent of those surveyed said Canucks on TV speak with a “funny accent” — overusing the word “eh” and pronouncing “about” as “aboot.”

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Respondents also took issue with characters that were “overly dull and apologetic” (62.3 per cent), “hockey obsessed” (60.8 per cent), and only living in rural areas or the north (43.7 per cent).

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For Bruce Smith, the guild’s president, the findings reflect nuance in how Canadians want to see themselves represented as well as a growing willingness to speak up about what irks them.

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“I hadn’t really realized, although it makes total sense to me, how discerning we are about spotting the real thing versus a caricature Canadian,” he says.

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Smith cites Robin Sparkles, the Canadian pop star alter ego of Robin Scherbatsky on the CBS comedy How I Met Your Mother. As played by Vancouver-born Cobie Smulders, she sang about going to the mall and building “sandcastles in the sand.” She dressed in 1980s garb even in the 1990s, making her an enthusiastic yet cluelessly uncool icon.

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“(Early) Alanis Morissette was clearly the inspiration for Robin Sparkles, and we loved it even though it was making fun of us,” says Smith. “The actor was Canadian, but it was an American sitcom take on Canada … I think that was a portrayal that most Canadians loved, because it wasn’t malicious or condescending.’”

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The survey also found that nearly all Canadians support homegrown content. A full 91.7 per cent of respondents said it’s important to have content written and created by Canadians, and 76.7 per cent said that film and TV written by Canadians in Canada is important to preserve our country’s culture.

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For Smith, the sentiments are timely ones.

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“I do think it’s a very dangerous moment for us to say, ‘Well, let’s just let ourselves be swamped by American culture.’ At first glance, it looks the same and it’s better produced, usually because it’s more expensive,” he says.

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“But look at the difference culturally between the two countries right now. Our relations are strained, and our values are not automatically identical, so it’s an incredibly weird time to go, ‘Yeah, we don’t really need to make sure that our voices are being heard and seen and informing our culture and identity this time.’”

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Still, Smith is pragmatic about the media Canadians consume.

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“We’re gonna all go see their movies and watch their TV, but what the survey is saying is that people would really like to see some Canadian stuff and know that it’s actually Canadian,” he says.

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The Writers Guild of Canada, which represents 2,500 professional English-language screenwriters, surveyed 1,000 Canadians and released the results in May.

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