The beaver bites back? : American popular culture in Canada

Canadians have demonstrated a remarkable sense of unity about protection of their "cultural industries" during the continuing national debate over free trade. This study of the effect of American popular culture on Canada is therefore particularly relevant. Contents Preface Contributors Abbreviations 1 Reversible Resistance: Canadian Popular Culture and the American Other PART ONE: COMMUNICATIONS AND CULTURAL PENETRATION 2 American Culture in a Changing World 3 Awakening from the National Broadcasting Dream: Rethinking Television Regulation for National Cultural Goals 4 Broadcasting and Canadian Culture: A Commentary 5 A Sweet Hope of Glory in My Soul: Television Evangelism in the United States and Canada 6 Inflecting the Formula: The First Seasons of Street Legal and L.A. Law PART TWO: AMERICAN SPORTS AND CANADIAN SOCIETY 7 Popular Cultures of Olympic Sport in Canada and the United States 8 Whose National Pastime? Baseball in Canadian Popular Culture 9 Ambivalence at the Fifty-five-Yard Line: Transformation and Resistance in Canadian Football PART THREE: STAGE, SCREEN, AND SOUNDTRACK 10 Mounties, Muggings, and Moose: Canadian Icons in a Landscape of American Violence 11 Syncretizing Sound: The Emergence of Canadian Popular Music 12 Our House, Their House: Canadian Cinema's Coming of Age 13 Wives, Whores, and Priests: Gender Relations and Narrative Voices in Two Quebecois Traditions PART FOUR: MERCHANDISING CULTURE 14 The Canadianization of an American Fair: The Case of Expo 86 15 Culture for Sale: American Dollars Preferred PART FIVE: REFLECTIONS 16 Made in America: The Problem of Mass Culture in Canada 17 American Popular Culture and the Canadian State: The Case of Pornography 18 American Popular Culture in Canada: Trends and Reflections Notes Index A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z The contributing authors explore three aspects of American culture: its transmission by means of print and broadcast media and through live events in sport, entertainment, religious evangelism, and other public productions; its influence on Canadian popular culture; and the variety of Canadian responses. They suggest that the Canadian version of American popular culture is far more than a copy. Instead, it is frequently a creative response - often parodic in tone and subversive in intent - that gives public expression to Canadian sentiment and sensibility and provides protection from, and resistance to, American domination. Ironically, it may be in responding to American culture that Canadian sovereignty finds its most meaningful and potent articulation. Specialists and scholars from a wide variety of disciplines, the contributors discuss a range of cultural forms and performances. Each example, while "made in Canada," is related to an American alternative but has a large Canadian audience. Taking a rich variety of perspectives on this complex relationship, The Beaver Bites Back? demands that Canadian popular culture be accorded its proper status. The contributors are G. Stuart Adam, Michael M. Ames, Robert Knight Barney, Seth Feldman, Bruce Feldhusen, David H. Flaherty, Reid Gilbert, Andrew Lyons, Harriet Lyons, John MacAloon, Frank E. Manning, Thelma McCormack, Mary Jane Miller, Bernard Ostry, Charline Poirier, Paul Rutherford, Robert A. Stebbins, Michael Taft, Geoffrey Wall, and Andrew Wernick.