Over the holidays, public broadcasting blogger Justin Beach said he thinks it should be legally banned against the law for Canadian programs to ignore their Canadian settings in order to make the show more ’sellable’ to American audiences.
He notes that while the first line of the CBC’s mandate says all CBC shows should “be predominantly and distinctively Canadian,” the popular sit-com Little Mosque on the Prairie deliberately excludes any references to Saskatchewan, where the show is filmed.
Justin quotes from an interview in the Regina Leader Post in which LMOTP producer Zarqa Nawaz tells an NPR reporter that they write out any Canadian references because “they hope an American audience will reference it as taking place in North Dakota and because ’sales are important.’ ”
Just feels this practice should be banned. “No program that receives tax subsidies should be able to do alternate takes to disguise the fact that it is Canadian.”
The issue, I think, is whether or not Canadians are seeing programming that references Canada. I don’t have a problem if the show shoots different takes for different audiences (”That’s why it’s always cold in Saskatchewan” for the Canadian version; “That’s why it’s always cold here” for the American version).
I would have a problem if the show shoots one version sans Canadiana then airs it here. Does anyone know which way it is?
What do you think?
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| Little Mosque on the Prairie, Our Mandate, Saskatooon | Posted at 1:17 pm (27 Dec 2007) |
