Welcome to the 1920s. What next, McCarthy?

"I'm all for casting Hoffman and Giamatti in Barney's Version. They are brilliant actors and it gaurantees better business but I think it is asanine to nominate them for Genie awards. Major fail. I am also, incidentally, all for any Canadian producer, director, writer or whatever getting nominated for such a movie. They are there to celebrate Canadian achievement in film. Feel free to disagree."
Actor Tony Nappo

Dear Mr. Nappo (so people don't think I'm talking to myself),

The Genies were never meant to celebrate Canadian achievement in film. Since when? They were always meant to celebrate achievement in Canadian film. There’s a big difference.

The first example reflects a protectionist (regressive) practice where only the Canadians who worked on a Canadian film could be celebrated and honoured; in the second, anyone who participates in and contributes to making a Canadian film qualifies, whether they be crew, actors, writers, producers, stuntpeople or gerbils.

If Hoffman and Giamatti are cast in a Canadian film why should only the Canadians who worked on the film be honoured? This is tantamount to the French having soccer player Zidane on their national team in 1998 (who wins for France the world cup) while his Algerian parents were repeatedly denied French papers/status or passports. France is not the only one: a couple of European countries love and welcome the foreign talent to stay over, sleep over, contribute, spend money, etc. but with none of the privileges granted the ‘pure wool’.

Anyone who works in a film affects the quality of the film, artistically,  possibly at the box office and the culture as a whole. So all should qualify when it comes time to celebrate achievement in Canadian film.

By your logic, only Americans in every American produced film, TV or play should be honoured at the Oscars, Emmys and the Tony Awards. Brent Carver should have turned down the Tony.  Drowsy Chaperone had no business being nominated on Broadway for best whatever, cause it wasn’t American.

Listen, if Canadians want to put into practice today what Fascist Italy did in the 1920s, by all means, that’s fine. It’s not, but, there’s little I can do in a climate as reactionary as the one we’re living in now.  But let’s be consistent, for crying out loud. Let’s make sure Canadian actors, writers and directors turn down Oscar nominations for having participated in an American film and that they can only be nominated where and if the Oscars have specific categories for foreign film, foreign actor, foreign writer, and foreign everything. 

The hypocrisy, of course, is that Canadian actors work way more in American made TV movies in Canada than in anything else. On stage Canadian artists are honoured every year, in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal for best acting, best direction and best production for their work in largely foreign plays or musicals.

Years ago a Canadian actor we all know and love turned down a British play produced in Toronto for the singular reason that he purportedly wanted to concentrate strictly on Canadian made plays. Soon after he was cast in a Canadian film that did very well, was subsequently cast in a Hollywood film and then moved to LA, and has never laid eyes on a Canadian play on Canadian soil since then.