Canada, Eh?: Difference between revisions

[[File:BearHugger_6964BearHugger 6964.jpg|link=Punch-Out!!|frame|[[Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series|In Canada!]]<ref>Eh?</ref>]]

{{smallcaps|''In accordance with Canada's official policy of bilingualism, this page is also available [[Fr/Canada, Eh?|in French]].''}}<ref>As translated with Babelfish. And without the examples section. Language equality? Ha! They won't even put up the money for [[Blind Idiot Translation|a decent translator.]]</ref><br />{{smallcaps|''En accord avec la politique officielle du bilinguisme canadien, cette page est également disponible [[Fr/Canada, Eh?|en français]].''}}<ref>Traduit avec Babelfish. Et sans les exemples. Égalité linguistique? Ha! Ils ne sont même pas prêts à payer pour [[Blind Idiot Translation|un traducteur acceptable.]]</ref>

In American media, [[Canada]] is a sweet, quirky and slightly backwards version of America, eh? ([[Canada Does Not Exist|Assuming it exists at all]], eh?) It's as if you took everyone from Minnesota, gave them an obsession with [[Ice Hockey|hockey]]<ref>Anyone who thinks this should be clarified to "ice hockey" will be stiffly beaten by the RCMP, with a hockey stick.</ref> (OK, ''more'' of an obsession), and made that an entire country, eh? Everybody's white (except the First Nations), eh, and everyone who isn't French has a Scottish last name, eh?

* '''[[EskimoThe LandGreat White North|The Arctic]]''', full of igloos, playful polar bears and parka-wearing Inuit, quite possibly [[Polar Bears and Penguins|penguins]], and of course cute little baby seals... at least until the polar bears and people find them. Which is awesome, eh?

Keep in mind that [['''Canada, Eh?]]''' has no West Coast (besides ''all'' of British Columbia), no Prairies (besides a fairly large hunk of the middle of the country), and certainly no punishingly hot weather (except for [[Stargate City|Vancouver]]). The hot weather stops right aboot at the border (unless it presents a passport), eh!?

Eeeeeh, Canadians [[South Park|eat nothing but Kraft Dinner]] (which is Canadian for "macaroni and cheese"), Tim Hortons, donuts, poutine,<ref>French fries with cheese curds, and enough gravy to partially melt the cheese</ref>, and <s>Canadian</s>back bacon, eh? Anglophone Canadians all speak with a stereotyped [[wikipedia:West/Central Canadian English|West/Central Canadian English]] accent, putting "eh" [[Verbal Tic|at the end of questions or affirmations]], and prominently raising the "ou" in aboot every word containing it, eh?

Our army consists of a guy with a BB gun mounted on a moose, our air force a paper airplane,<ref>And [[Too Cool to Live|the Avro Arrow]]</ref>. [[Berserk Button|Never forget]], eh!,?</ref> and our navy a guy in a canoe with a slingshot, eh?

Feel free to whack me over the head with a hockey stick, eh? And doon't feel soarry aboot it, eh!?

* Kate from ''[[Sketchbook|Sketchbook <nowiki>[[full color's]]</nowiki>]]'' comes from Canada (and for some reason writes "Canada" in kanji).

* The Canadian Gundam from ''[[G Gundam]]'' is a giant wood cutter as is its pilot. AllThe weshow getmakes tothe seecurious choice of setting the actualadventures countryin isCanada aat forestNiagara where...Falls thereand isthe Rocky Mountains, both geographical features shared with the woodUnited cutState.

* The ''[[Scott Pilgrim]]'' series, based in a surreal video game version of [[Toronto]], averts most of these stereotypes (it should be noted the author, Bryan Lee O'Malley, is Canadian himself), except for the occasional "eh." Also, American characters' dialogue will be spelled with words like "flavor," while the Canadian cast says "flavour."

== Fan FictionWorks, Eh? ==

* The persistent mentioning that shots need to contain "more Canadian content" by the director in ''[[Windigo]]'' serves to spoof the Canadian obsession with having expressly Canadian movies to maintain their identity.

* ''[[Rumble in The Bronx]]''. The Bronx apparently has a mountain range. (It was shot in [[Vancouver]], BC.)

* ''[[The Whole Nine Yards]]'' averts this, taking place in [[Montreal]] because it was filmed there, but generally lacking in Canadian stereotypes, except for Bruce Willis's rant about how Canadians put mayonnaise on hamburgers.

* [[David Cronenberg]]'s films are often set in his hometown, [[Toronto]], which he naturally portrays quite realistically. A realistic Montreal crops up occasionally, too. His 1986 remake of ''The Fly'' is shot in the downtown core of Toronto, and several prominent stores are visible during some of the scenes (such as Toronto City Hall, and, when Brundle walks down the street eating a chocolate bar, he passes he most random places.

* ''[[Scott Pilgrim vs. the World]]'', set in Toronto. For more on this, see the comic book entry.

* ''[[The Trolls]]'' has Aunt Sally both poke fun at and provide true facts about her life growing up with their father and the rest of the family on Vancouver Island. A lot of things she mentions, like a violin-playing test that's [[Serious Business]], she claims are normal for life on the island. Early on, she jokes that people in Canada have parties all of the time, but keep it a secret because they feel like they're "ghosts" and that America has a proper culture. For the record, no one in her stories say 'eh?'.

* After the airliner hijacking at the beginning of [[Tom Clancy]]'s ''Rainbow Six'' is foiled by John Clark and his son-in-law, the plane touches down in Gander, Newfoundland, and the protagonists are met on the tarmac by a "Royal Canadian Air Force" officer. [[Dan Browned|Canada's air forces havewere not been referred to byas the "RCAF" moniker sincebetween 1968 and 2011.]]. Particularly [[egregious]] for such a military enthusiast.

== Live -Action TV, Eh? ==

* ''[[The Red Green Show]]'' both embraces and pokes fun at nearly every [[Canada, Eh?]] stereotype.

* In ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'', Rodney McKay is a brilliant Canadian scientist, arguably the smartest person on the show. While many Canadians will use "zee" instead of "zed" while mostly around Americans, McKay ''always'' uses "zed". This leads the Zero Point Module to be called "Zed-Pee-Em"--even—even, on occasion, by American characters. During an episode where the team has to travel to Canada to track someone down, McKay states that CSIS ("see-sis") is assisting in the search, much to John Sheppard's amusement.

* On ''[[Lost]]'' Ethan claims to be from Canada when talking to Hurley, to which Hurley replies "Cool, I love Canada! They've got great... Uhh..." Cue Ethan's good-hearted laugh. Of course, {{spoiler|he was actually born on the island and was lying.}} Everything involving Canada was synonymous with lying, {{spoiler|except in Nathan's case, but that was to fool the audience into thinking he was lying.}}

* ''[[Red Dwarf]]'': Robert Llewellyn apparently based his performance as [[Red Dwarf|Kryten]] on a Canadian accent. Of course, Canadians claim they don't sound anything like that.

** Robert Llewellyn later admitted that what he eventually came up with was [[Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping|a ''bad'' Canadian accent]].

* In one episode of ''[[Malcolm in the Middle]]'', the family discover their granddad's second family who live in Manitoba. Cue funny accents, a very prim-and-proper Canadian grandmother who keeps everything bottled up (as opposed to Malcolm's violent [[Ruritania|Ruritanian]]n grandmother), and a family who are essentially them but better and happier. Also, Reese loves it because he can go out shooting small animals.

* A similar situation occurred on ''[[Frasier]]'', when during a road trip the group crosses the border into Canada, much to Daphne's horror -- shehorror—she doesn't have her green card yet.

'''Thomas''': Yeah, yeah, that's right, you know. But we're not gonna show 'em, you know, 'cause that's private. }}

* One game on ''[[Whose Line Is It Anyway?|Whose Line Is It Anyway]],'' "Foreign Film Dub," involves two of the actors [[As Long as It Sounds Foreign|faking a foreign language]] while the other two "translate" for them. One time, the "foreign language" given to them to fake and translate was "Canadian." In addition to the "film" being entitled "Oot 'n' Aboot," the "Canadian" language as faked consisted of nothing but the word "eh," interspersed with words like "hoser," and various hockey-related terms.=

** By the way, that's Jian Ghomeshi with the longest hair (known to much of Canada now as the previous host of the program ''Q'' on CBC Radio).

* [["Weird Al" Yankovic|Weird Al's]]'s song [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1Jybmtvcxw Canadian Idiot] parodies the stereotypes.

* "Take Off" by Bob & Doug McKenzie (like, those hosers from ''[[SCTV]]'''s "Great White North", eh?) with guest vocals from Geddy Lee of Rush.<ref>He produced the album.</ref> Ten bucks is ten bucks, eh?

* The Canadian rock band [[The Tragically Hip]], with their notable hits, such as "Little Bones", "Wheat Kings", "Queen of the Furrows", "Bobcaygeon" (actually named that because it was the only town they could think of to rhyme with "constellation"), "Courage (For Hugh MacLennan)", and "Three Pistols" (which starts with the line "Tom Thomson came paddlin' past"). Popular in Canada, too - their farewell concert ''preempted live Olympic Games coverage.''

* [[Darkthrone]], with their stirring anthem [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnLxun1gdz8 Canadian Metal]. This song caused some controversy among Canadian metalheads when it was first released, as for some it is hard to tell if it was meant as mockery or a genuine tribute. In interviews from around the same time they clarified that yes, they actually really like a lot of Canadian metal bands, and the lyrics are taken from song titles of classic Canadian metal bands.

* The band [[Great Big Sea]] likes to highlight their Canadian origins - fully half of their songs reference Newfoundland (specifically, St. John's) or other areas in Canada, or else are old British drinking/sailing songs with the lyrics redone to reflect Canadian sensibilities. (Played straight, too - no tongue-in-cheek.)

* Vancouver based folk-rock band [[Spirit of the West]] exemplified the 'soary' ideal in their song "Far Too Canadian". They also celebrated the Canadian-Scot heritage in "The Old Sod", and touched upon canadian life in many other songs.

Et je vais dire une phrase en francais, parce qu'ici on est bilingue <ref> and I will say a sentence in french, because here we are bilingual</ref>

* Oddly enough, [[Professional Wrestling]] completely averts this trope (well, ''almost'' completely; after all, [[World Wrestling Entertainment|WWE]] did have a [[Heel]] mountie in full dress uniform for a while; ironically, WWE wasn't allowed to use him in Canada at all), even though they embrace every single other stereotypical ethnic trope out there. This may be because half the wrestlers in North America (at least the well-known ones) are from either Canada or Texas. In fact, professional wrestling may be the only form of popular fictional entertainment where Canadians can be portrayed as jerks or outright evil.

* Canadians tend to have their own stereotype within [[Professional Wrestling]] involving superior in-ring skill and charisma ranging between "average" and "a wet slab of concrete." This is likely due to the fact that most notable Canadian wrestlers came from the infamous [[Training Fromfrom Hell|Hart family Dungeon]] whose graduates tended to fall into this stereotype. Notable exceptions include [[Edge]] and [[Christian]], who are from Ontario, and Chris Jericho, who did train with the Harts but is simply a straight-up subversion.

** A donation of $10 USD will get you a Mr. Accessory, often abbreviated to "Mr. A". $10 Canadian, on the other hand, will net you a "Mr. Eh?" which gives a bonuses to your stats based on the current exchange rate between the Canadian and American Dollars. Sadly, the KoL people have said that in the event that the Canadian Dollar is worth more than the American one (as it briefly was infor recenta couple of years), the bonuses granted by the Mr. Eh? will not exceed those granted by the Mr. A.

* [[MAG -ISA]] -- In—In this comic, a [http://mag-isa.thecomicseries.com/comics/pl/119674 school shooting occurs in an unnamed school in Toronto].

* Calamities of Nature comments on how [https://web.archive.org/web/20130523031932/http://www.calamitiesofnature.com/archive/?c=198 Canadian currency shamelessly copies American currency].

* In ''[[Antihero for Hire]]'', the Canadians have conquered a decent portion of America in the backstory,. andWith thegenetically onlyengineered dinosaurs. The first Canadian seenmet sowas fara islocal superhero looking basicallylike a walkinghuman tank. Also, apparently ''chainsaw dinosaur jousting'' is a national sport or something. Put simply, don't mess with Canada in AntiheroforhireAntihero for Hire.

* [[Bibliography (web comic)|Bibliography]] is set in the fictional town Tiltstone, in Canada. So far, it seems to be averting most of the stereotypes.

* ''[[Loading Ready Run]]'' does a Canada Day special once per year. Some specials will be in-jokes directed at their countrymen, but others play on Canadian stereotypes for laughs:

* [[Memetic Mutation|In Canada, milk comes in bags.]] (N.B.: True, but only in Eastern Canada (excluding Newfoundland) and not to the exclusion of cartons; milk can be purchased in bags in many places, including some localities stateside.) (Actually, I used to get milk in a bag in BC. I freaked out when I couldn't get it that way after moving to the Prairies. Didn't know what to do with a carton. Seemed so much more wasteful.) (Cartons are recyclable at the bottle depot now!)

* Andrew in ''[[Sailor Moon Abridged]]'' speaks with a stereotype Canadian accent and ends every sentence with "eh?", although he denies being Canadian. (He's North Mexican)

* Derek the Bard of ''[[Warning! Readers' Advisory]]'' is from Canada, and points it out in the episode where he mentions "[[World War Z|World War Zed]]ed".

* In ''[[The Grim Adventures of Billy and& Mandy]]'' episode ''Test of Time'', [[Cloudcuckoolander|Billy]], [[Heroic Sociopath|Mandy]], and [[Black and Nerdy|Irwin]] are studying book reports. Mandy had ''Drums of the American Revolution'', Irwin had ''The Canadian Revolution'', and Billy had ''A Not-So-Brief History of Time''. While Billy was goofing off and not studying at all, Irwin called him on the phone 3 times. The first time, Billy was eating pie and Irwin was dressed as a Mountie. The second time, Billy was watching a monster truck show and Irwin was dressed as a lumberjack. The third time, Billy was taking a bath, and Irwin, oddly enough, instead of wearing an outfit stereotyping Canadian culture, wore a Little Bo Peep outfit.

** In "The Secret Snake Club", Lake Ontario was the home of the legendary 8 &nbsp;km long snake Shnissugah, who would protect the nerds from bullies by swallowing them whole. {{spoiler|It turns out that Shnissugah isn't as mighty as the Secret Snake Club thought as it is 8 ''cm'' long, and can't eat the cool kids because Shnissugah says they're full of "trans-fatty acids".}}

{{quote|'''Dan''': Here's what I know about Canada. [[Anthropomorphic Personification|England and France had a baby out of wedlock, and that baby was Canada]]. Now, as for Canadians, first, they drink maple syrup directly out of the bottle. Second, most canadians are at least [[Half-Human Hybrid|half-bear]].<br />

'''Chris''': I don't think they're actually half-bear, Dan.<br />

'''Dan''': What do you know about it?<br />

'''Chris''': A little bit, actually.<br />

'''Dan''': Okay, Prime Minister, you tell me.<br />

'''Chris''': Canadians thrive in cold climates. They live in the shadow of a massive glacier, blissfully unaware of the horrific fate that would befall them, should the glacier ever collapse. [...] You could put a Canadian in a line up with a bunch normal people, and you wouldn't be able to tell. You have to wait until they drop "eh" or an "aboot," or (this is a good one) they say "sor-y."<br />

* ''Bob and Margaret'' (a cartoon series made in Canada), originally set in London, moved to Toronto during a corporate switch to air the show on [[Can West]]CanWest Global networks. The rather neurotic and stereotypically British titular couple began a new [[Fish Out of Water]] life with the "colonists". Canadian characters on the show are portrayed as varied individuals, some who exhibit these Canadian tropes and many who subvert them. Bob also learns that Indo-Canadians are just as plentiful, and make as good a take-away curry, as Anglo-Indians.

** "I know we don't call as often as we should, and we aren't as well behaved as our goody-two-shoes brother Canada - who by the way has never had a girlfriend... I'm just saying."<br />** Homer, when asked if the family can visit Canada:

* ''[[The Fairly Odd ParentsOddParents]]'': [[Evil Teacher|Crocker's]] Uncle Albert is from Canada, eh?

* The ''[[DuckTales (1987)]]'' episode "Ducky Mountain High" is set in the Great North Woods and parodies many of the region's stereotypes, especially with the local Beagle Boys.

* Ezekiel from ''[[Total Drama Island]]'' is a walking example oof this. Thick accent and all, eh.

* In an episode ofthe ''[[Kim Possible]]'' episode "Job Unfair", a top secret Canadian spy {{spoiler|who's actually Joe the Janitor introduced earlier}} ends his explanation speech with "eh", but it's delivery makes it sound like it's mocking the trope.

* ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'', Snails in the duo of unicorns Snips & Snails is a good, slightly more subtle example. He speaks at first with a lightened version of the stereotypical accent, to the point where it's ambiguous whether it's a Northeast American one or Stereotypical Canada, Eh? one. Confirmed finally when he in one scene adds the 'Eh?' to one of his sentences in frustration. (Possibly an inside joke as the show is produced in Vancouver)

* In an episode of ''[[El Tigre]]'', White Pantera gets depressed and can do nothing but lie on the couch and watch "Canadian soap operas". ("Don't talk to me abootabout love!")

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20140218101150/http://www.bustedtees.com/canadaamericashat Canada: America's Hat] eh?

* Ever heard an angry frenchFrench canadianCanadian [[Foreign Cuss Word|swearing in frenchFrench?]] Even if the words themselves are beyond your grasp, the emotion and passion in their delivery will make it impossible to miss their intent. To expand, English swearing basically has "fuck", "shit", and a few variantionsvariations of "damn" which express generic anger. French Canadian has pretty much ''the entire Church vocabulary'' bastardized to sound ''[[Black Speech|terrifying]]''. "Fuck" is actually a fairly mild word in comparison - francophone children who use it are rarely corrected by their parents. Note that this is also a completely different system of swearing to that from France, which generally sounds ''mildly comical'' to French Canadian ears.