Day 16: Complaining about movies

Hello again,

I recently watched The Proposal, the one with Sandra Bullock in it. I enjoyed the slow and calm humour, the growth of the relationship, and Betty White's "Baby Maker" blanket. What annoyed me though was that the premise of the movie, that Sandra (Margaret) was Canadian and was being deported, was totally and completely unbelievable. I know that Canadian and American culture is very similar. We watch their shows and their movies and they steal our pop stars/any celebrities that will defect. However, there are some very real differences no matter how subtle they are.

 First off, Canadians love hockey. Love. I mean it. I don't like hockey too much but you know I cared (and felt strangely patriotic) when we won two hockey golds in the 2010 olypmics. And gold and silver the olympics before that...and two golds the olympics before that. Tangent over, some of that hockey love culture should have shown itself in Sandra's representation of Margaret.

Second, we use different lingo. It is subtle, kind of like the difference between our accents, but it is there (Cultery vs. Silverware, soda vs pop, chocolate bar vs candy bar). Throwing in some Canadian words would have made the perfomance more believable.

Third, Canada is a rural country. We're the second largest country landmass wise, and 25% of our population live in two cities. Do city people never leave the city and therefore not know how to handle being rural/in nature? Have they never seen a cow before (this question is unrelated)? It is Margaret's (Sandra's) duty as a Canadian to pretend that she is okay with outdoors stuff, but they tried to make it funny instead.

Lastely, Canadian and American cultures are different in surprising ways. Canadians like to believe that we're polite. We also have a great sense of guilt, we try to be politically correct, and like to think that we're open minded. I didn't see any of that. I think that Sandra and the script writers should have put more effort into making her believably Canadian, because, since she doesn't seem Canadian, why should they deport her? And if there is no point in deporting her, why are they trying to hard to fake a relationship? Without a believable Canadian Margaret, the movie crumbles. Like crumbly bread, it still tastes good, it just falls apart easily.

The music video for today is Wrong Number by DBSK/TVXQ when all five members were with S.M. Entertainment. It requires little explanation other than there is a robot dog somewhere in the video.