Rock N'Roll, Cancon, and The Salt Eaters

JAN: How many voted for the Communist party, Max?
MAX: About two-tenths of one percent. It’s called the parliamentary route to socialism.
JAN: You got the strange gods vote: Marxism, Fascism, anarchism, kept on the side of the plate like a little bit of salt to bring out the flavour of English moderation. A thousand years of knowing who you are gives a people confidence in its judgment. Words mean what they have always meant. With us, words change meaning to make the theory fit the practice. We eat salt.

-Tom Stoppard, Rock N’Roll

ROCK N’ROLL is Tom Stoppard’s story of the life and times of several characters from shortly after the end of the Prague Spring in 1968, to the end of the “Velvet Revolution” which brought Vaclev Havel to power in 1989.

The show unfolds the stories mainly through the eyes of two protagontists. Max, played by Brian Cox, is one of the last unreconstructed Soviet-style British communists. Jan (Rufus Sewell,) starts out as one of Max’s students as Cambridge, but returns home to Prague to look after his mother.

But what Rock N’ Roll is really about is the intersection of culture and politics. It also, at the margins, tells the story of the Czech band “The Plastic People of the Universe,” whose persecution in the 1970s led to a sensational trial, and Charter 77 – a manifesto of sorts that for Havel and other dissidents, started the reclamation of their society from the Communist jackboot.

The love Jan has for music transcends politics, which is precisely what the above passage is about – it’s what makes it so dangerous. Through his thirty year journey, Jan, who starts out politically agnostic, is gradually pushed into dissidence simply because his desire to be left alone, to listen to the Plastics and music, can’t be accommodated.

Rock N’Roll is ultimately about so much more – the wilting promise of the sixties, paganism and freedom of thought and expression; a love story, a lament for Syd Barret (really). It’s meaty and provocative and vibrant and moving.

I’ve never been to Prague. I know very little about Syd Barret, pitifully little of the writings of Vaclev Havel – but such is the power of culture that I’ll be seeking each of these things out now.

For those of you drilled to think this way – there’s even a Canadian connection; Paul Wilson, the translator of much of the writings of Havel that Stoppard leaned on for the play – is Canadian. He was also a member of The Plastic People of The Universe. So there. There’s your angle!

I kid. That reductive, “what’s visibly Canadian?” angle is actually part of the problem. But that's another story for another time.

The true power of culture, of course, is when it can take a story like this one, a story that’s specific to a place, and time – and make you relate it immediately to something local and familiar. That’s the reason we’ve read Shakespeare’s “history” plays for five centuries. I guarantee you that there’s nary a soul anywhere who gives a toss about Henry Bolingbroke; and what does it matter that Richard III was actually a pretty decent monarch? Culture elevates us all. It makes us think. It tells us who we are, as it breaks us down and makes us look inward and outward at once.

And like it or not, the primary delivery system of culture today is television.

Now, let’s talk about words.

The passage I quote above – the argument between Jan and Max, sent a chill down my spine when I saw it on the stage of the Jacobs Theater last Thursday night. Because of course it (admittedly, with lower stakes than Russian tanks and secret police persecutions) echoes wonderfully the ridiculous masque that unfolded at the CRTC hearings into the Canadian Television Fund last week.

“Culture” and “Commercial” there were the buzzwords. The ostensible reason why the mechanism for funding domestic TV production could only be improved by splitting the current fund in two – each following one of those elusive, ephemeral definitions.

There were submissions through the week, by the creative unions, by the DGA and WGC and ACTRA; by creatives, by the CTF itself – which strongly disputed the idea that this differential was in any way meaningful. These unions came armed with Data: examples of shows that succeeded though they had 10/10 Cancon points – shows that were not as successful though they aimed for the 8/10 threshold that is the new savior proposed by the CRTC.

But unlike Jan’s words to Max above, we don’t have the confidence of a thousand years of knowing who we are in this country. Quite the opposite. As a nation that defines itself largely by what it is not, we tend to eat a lot of salt.

Or maybe salt’s the wrong analogy. Let’s call it… cheeseburger.

It’s good cheeseburger. The best in the world. American Cheeseburger. Very popular. Very tasty. I can haz American Cheezeburger. There’s simply no question that Canadians like the taste.

The reality is that this distinction the CRTC is currently peddling – “cultural” versus “commercial” – that’s a very U.S. way of looking at the problem.

In the U.S., “culture” is often used to connote the high-falutin – classical music, intellectual or literary novels, jazz, yup – theater too…things that are not designed to appeal to the mainstream. Culture is often to be suspected – part of a peculiar strain of anti-intellectualism that has always been at the core of American cultural life.

America, of course, needn’t worry about things cultural, since there is also the rubric of “entertainment.” And the U.S. is better at “entertainment” than just about anybody out there.

In other countries – countries like Canada, with real first world economies and everything -- this essentially American overlay of what “culture” means is not the understood meaning. And the results of this difference can be staggering.
In Great Britain, culture is Keeley Hazell and Page 3 and it’s also The War of the Roses and The Proms. People argue over the relative merits of this part of the culture and that part of the culture. They might even call it high, low, and middlebrow – but they won’t deny that it’s all culture.

There’s also a general recognition that supporting culture is good for building the nation. Why are all those British actors so goddamn good? Because they come up through a system of training in theatre that’s heavily subsidized. The British Film industry has its ups and down, but also has spates of being able to turn out films that run the gamut from challenging (anything by Ken Loach) to fun and still trenchant (Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Full Monty.) Comedies that are aggressively, specifically British still export – whether it’s types satirized in Little Britain, or the all-offense fest of Catherine Tait.

In France, there are very serious political consequences to not protecting the French culture. And yes, that culture includes some very silly comedies. And some very decidedly non-commercial dramas – both of which can become “hits.”

In fact, if there’s been a shift that Canada (the English speaking part, at least) has not been part of, it’s the rise of the domestic program. Other countries used to have an insatiable appetite for American shows, too. But somewhere over the last few years, from Germany to Italy to France and beyond, the populace has gotten a taste for their own cop shows, lawyer shows, medical shows. Nowhere was there a discussion or an argument as to whether it was cultural or commercial. There was a recognition that it was all culture, and that it was worthy of support. Most of these countries, to varying degrees, have the same challenges Canada faces – it’s a difficult playing field to compete against the American product. Because it’s difficult, it’s generally recognized – even as a point of national pride – that it’s to be supported. It’s good for the culture, which means good for the country.

This is also true in Quebec, by the way. It’s all well and good to put it down to the language barrier, but that doesn’t tell the full story. Les Boys is as worthy in their eyes as La La Human Steps. Which is as it should be.

But here in English Canada, culture comes smacking up against industrial policy.

And make no mistake, there’ s an industrial element to this, too.

When one country sells a product into another country at a cut rate, it’s called “dumping.”

If I have more cuttlefish than I can possibly eat in my nation, and I sell you my excess cuttlefish at a really cheap price, it’s good for me because I’m getting rid of it.

Of course, often, that means the cuttlefish industry in that country never gets going. That’s why tariffs are put in place.

What we’re in the middle of here is the side effect of an ongoing skirmish that concerns the industrial dumping of U.S. shows on Canadian channels. The system in this country is set up to allow for that. Simultaneous substitution practically demands it. The networks profit handsomely from it. They argue and lobby to keep their commitment to indigenous production low, as low as possible, to preserve it.

Adopting the U.S. definition of “culture” fits into this. So does a number of other things: getting people to run down the CBC, and question Canadian successes when they do happen. In order for all this to work, we have to keep alive that idea of “culture” having that slightly nasty, metallic, American definition to it. That way nobody notices what you’re doing. Nobody will rally to your cause.

Another component of this, and in many ways its most shameless part, is exporting and shipping off all your homegrown talent.

Ingrid Bergman was a star in Sweden before she went to the U.S.A. South Africa has a star system. UK bands always break at home first. Movie stars arrive from other nations with an adoring crowd in tow back home. But time and time again, a writer, or a director, or a star turns up in California having never really done anything or gotten anywhere in Canada.

And then if they are successful, then we claim them. It’s perverse.

Jim Carrey toiled for years here. There are still oldtimers here who, if you track them down, will run down how deeply, deeply Carrey was humiliated and ignored as he tried to make it in TV here. It’s not that he didn’t try. He did. He may occasionally mention his Canadian roots. But you notice that Carrey never comes back – never does a project here. Why would that be, exactly? There’s darkness in there – and memory of what it was really like.

Substitute Carrey for a lot of Canadian talent and you’ll hear a similar tale. People who couldn’t get anywhere here who left, and suddenly found out that driving 2000 miles south made them brilliant. Some will smile and wave and play the game and wear Leafs jerseys on Letterman. But don’t be fooled. Deep down, they know. They know.

It’s shameful. And we’ve been doing it to talent – both behind and in front of the camera – for decades in this country.

And the players in the system reinforce it. Shaw may say that what it wants is to be able to control investment in “Commercial” programming. But that’s not how he makes his money. He makes his money by being protected – by NOT doing exactly the thing that he accuses Canadian talent of not being able to do -- compete. Shaw, Rogers, CTV, Global – they all make money by bringing in U.S. signals. Shaw, in fact, instigated his brawl with the CTF soon after his request to bring in additional U.S. channels was turned down. This is not a coincidence.

Everybody in the system has a vested interest in making the U.S. definition of “culture” – ie: not for the people, not fun – stand, because that way they can continue the lock on the thing that makes them money, which is the industrial dumping of U.S. product into Canada, unfettered and unencumbered by limits.

Pushing talent away works for this, too. It’s better to have talented Canadians go south and learn to tell U.S. stories than it is even to keep them here to do a few things first – even if their ambition would eventually lead them to the bigger pond. If you don’t expand and encourage the talent pool, you see, then programs don’t get better. If no one can build on success, and move up the chain, and hone craft, and take that first staff writing gig or first feature script and go on to something better and get better – if in fact you can reinforce the idea that “if you’re any good you don’t stay here,” then you get to keep making your money off the dumped cuttlefish.

You can have truces. CTV, for instance, is so flush with a good run of successes that you do see them doing a bit more for Canadian homegrown material. They’re the best we have. Could they be doing more? Absolutely. But they still mainly make most of their money off the dumped cuttlefish.

The bottom line is, if too many people start watching Canadian shows, you have to say that the numbers don’t matter, and compare them to CSI or HOUSE.

And if shows strike a chord, like Trailer Park Boys, you have to figure out a way to run them down, too. Because getting a popular toehold in the culture and recognizing that might muddy that tidy split of “culture” and “commercial” that you’re trying to sell.

And if the CBC starts making you look bad by running way more Canadian shows – you have to go after them, because nothing can stop the forward momentum of the meme that Canadians don’t want to watch Canadian shows. Everything else depends on that, you see.

And you also have to make sure that the coverage the companies get when they go before the CRTC and talk about the “broken system” gets far more play than the voices of the creatives – because then you hope the people will hear “broken system” and swallow the lie.

And you have to make sure that it’s hard – too hard – too hard to stay if you’re blessed with actual talent, because if you were able to stay and train up and get better and have access to great actors here, if, in fact there was a whole bunch of talented people who could work regularly and advance both their expertise and craft without having to go to L.A. (like the class of Actor and creator who chooses not to leave Great Britain, for instance) then those empowered voices might juke your whole rotten system – and poke it for the sham that it is.

And if the result is that generations of Canadians think the crime rate is higher than it is, or that abortion is a third rail topic, or that you can plead the fifth here, or that racism is out of control in Canada, or that the War on Drugs is a noble and not an idiotic fight, or any one of a hundred other values that are not borne out in the Canadian reality are, in fact, real, then that’s a small price to pay, right?

And if you control all the papers and can reinforce this view, then that’s good too, right?

And if you can influence the regulatory body that’s supposed to oversee you, and ignore the experience of other nations, and just accept that American definition of the split between “culture “ and “commercial” well then that’s the best thing of all, right?
Sure, there’s a strong undercurrent of philistinism in the character of the nation that makes this possible. You couldn’t do it if there wasn’t already a glee to be had from chopping down all the tall poppies.

But still – you do need all these things marching in concert to maintain the status quo. Especially when shows start selling elsewhere, or the New York Times writes a good review, or you’re getting a million or a million two viewers a week..

There’s a moment in Rock N’Roll, quite near the end of the play where Jan comes home from being imprisoned. The secret police has been to his apartment and his records, which lined one wall – have been smashed. He looks over the terrible mess, and it’s at this moment that the friend who accompanies him remembers – he borrowed a record while Jan was away. Jan unwraps it and takes it out. It’s Pet Sounds. He puts it on and the two of them listen to “Wouldn’t It Be Nice.” It’s beautiful. It’s unbearable. It’s wonderful.

And it’s in music that I know that I’m right about everything I’ve written above.

For we were here before. With all the same arguments. With all the same hatreds coming from the audience who said, “we don’t want to have crummy shows rammed down our throats.”

Except that the shows were songs. And the medium was radio. And then, in the late 1960’s, the regulatory bodies – led in a large part by Pierre Juneau (for whom the Junos would be named) held firm and said, “no, we will carve out a percentage for our own material.”

And the result today is a cultural music scene that is vibrant and groundbreaking – successes at home and ambassadors to the world.

Cancon worked. And nobody made distinctions between “cultural” and “commercial.” The only distinction made was between doing it half assed, and really, really committing to it.

And so today we have Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene and Stars and Blue Rodeo and the Hip and K-os and Sum 41 and Holly Cole and Barenaked Ladies and Feist and Black Mountain and….and….and….

Toward the very end of Rock N’Roll, Jan finds himself back in Cambridge, and in a raucous dinner party, returns to his old argument with Max:

JAN: …All systems are blood brothers. Changing one system for another is not what the Velvet Revolution was for. We have to begin again with the ordinary meanings of words. Giving new meanings to words is how systems lie to themselves…

Amen to that. Funny how it took a play by a Czech-born British playwright seen in New York city to make a New York –born Canadian writer see that.

Or maybe it’s not so funny.

Maybe that’s exactly what culture is for.