By Andrea Macko
The jobs of a section editor include finding story ideas and helping reporters find the best angle on a story.
With a section like Arts, if you’re lucky, you’ll find a common theme in all your stories that nicely unifies the section.
In editing this week’s stories, I discovered there is an underlying theme in all of them, and it’s one of hope.
Arts funding seems integral to any story about Canadian art — and never in those splashy American productions to the south.
Canadians don’t want to support our cultural works because we don’t have evidence that funding is a sound investment. We’ve been relying on the United States for movies, music and theatre, and we’ve been spoiled.
Fear of American cultural takeover isn’t paranoia, but rather a necessity proved by history. It was the 1929 Aird Commission that first alerted us to the overwhelming American influence on our radio airwaves and lack of Canadian ownership and content.
The commission created the CBC and the roots of Canadian doubt in our own artistic abilities.
The same government that we run to when American companies are taking over other industries like agriculture and auto parts surely shouldn’t be protecting our culture.
Aside from a few token commissions and reports over the years, the arts have never been a high priority for the federal government.
The recent federal election didn’t change the broken record. Social programs were at the forefront.
But what’s more social than art and culture?
It’s always been mystifying to me why we’re so willing to forgo Canadian art forms in favour of American ones. Obviously, American corporations such as Disney, GE and Westinghouse know what Canadians want — we don’t.
When Canadian culture is an option, it’s usually shuffled to the far end of the cable dial or so blatantly over-hyped that its 15 minutes is over before it ever had a chance.
So, I’m tipping my hat to our local artists. Whether deliberate or not, they’re commenting on Canada, adding features to our collective cultural face.
And our support matters, because funding sure won’t come from governments or commercial groups. Building a picture frame is something we can all do to give our artists a leg up.
Of course, local art shows housed in a dank corner of a government building will never parallel Must See TV. It’s impossible to solve the culture conundrum retroactively when globalization is all the rage and Canada is giving up on building studios and the like in favour of the global village.
Don’t touch the dial before actually listening to what a Canadian has to say.