The Great White North: Difference between revisions

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[[File:dennis.jpg|link=Dennis the Menace (US comic strip)|frame|Dennis, your racism is adorable.]]
 
The far north counterpart to [[Injun Country]], and part of the [[Hollywood Atlas]] dealing with [[Canada, Eh?]]. Expect any Inuit villages to be a mishmash of outdated stereotypes. [[Polar Bears and Penguins]] are the only wildlife features in the otherwise blank white landscape. The plant life is non-existent, the snow never ever thaws. The only people around are Eskimonatives who never, ever take off their parkas, and they spend each and every day dog sledding, ice fishing, and seal hunting. They eat nothing but blubber, their ice igloos are their permanent residences ([[Did Not Do the Research|rather than their actual use as temporary shelter]]), and they know nothing about the modern world. And, of course, they send their old people off to die on ice floes.
 
Note''A note about names:'' In somemany places, ''especially'' [[Canada]], the word "Eskimo" itself is considered politically incorrect, derogatory, or both. It's a mispronunciation of Inuit ("The people" in Inuktitut), with "Inuk" being the term for an individual of this group. On the other hand, "Inuit" itself is specific to a single EskimoNative American people, and in some places Eskimosnatives who aren't Inuit welcome being called Inuit about as much as Welshmen relish being called English. The natives peoples of Canada (no matter where in Canada they live){{verify}} and also the far north of the U.S.A. are more generally known as the First Nations. Since All The Tropes does not have [[N-Word Privileges|E-Word Privileges]], we are not using any of these names in our Trope name. However, we cannot change other works' names to match.
 
{{examples}}
== [[Film]] ==
 
* The first major documentary film, ''[[Nanook Ofof Thethe North]]'', helped perpetuate a lot of these stereotypes, as exact realism was not a major concern for documentarians in those days.
== Film ==
* The first major documentary film, ''[[Nanook Of The North]]'', helped perpetuate a lot of these stereotypes, as exact realism was not a major concern for documentarians in those days.
** For instance, Flaherty asked the local Inuits to hunt down a walrus with harpoons instead of the guns that they ordinarily used.
* Rob Reiner's ''[[North]]'' abuses this trope horribly, giving the film's title two meanings.
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* ''[[Big Miracle]]'' is better than most considering it's based on a true story and depicts the Natives realistically having to deal with the political implications of the whale rescue.
 
== [[Music]] ==
* Frank Zappa's "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow" tells the story of an eskimonative boy named Nanook, his favorite baby seal and a fur trapper.
* Zigzagged with the album ''Eskimo'' by [[The Residents]].
* "Quinn the Eskimo" ("The Mighty Quinn") by [[Bob Dylan]]
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* "I'm the only gay eskimo" by Corky and the Juice Pigs
 
== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==
* [[The Far Side|Gary Larson]] made a lot of gags based on this trope.
 
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* Holoska from ''[[Sonic Unleashed]]'', the northern polar ice cap of Sonic's world and its own country.
 
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* Riff and Torg from ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' seem to believe the entire state of Alaska is like this when [http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=030817 Riff moves there].
{{quote|'''Torg:''' Snowshoes?
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'''Torg:''' Dogsled operational manual?
'''Riff:''' Check.
'''Torg:''' Polar bear repellantrepellent? Igloo-building kit? [[Polar Bears and Penguins|Penguin-bait, with included penguin cook-book?]]
'''Riff:''' Check, check, and checkity-check.
'''Torg:''' Send me back some walrus blubber?
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* Possibly lampshaded in [[Friendly Hostility]] when Fox visits Fatima in Alaska.
 
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* [[Cartoon Network]]'s ''[[What a Cartoon!]]'' featured an episode called "Pizza Boy," where the title character has to deliver a pizza in "[[Thirty Minutes or It's Free|five minutes]]" to Eskimosnatives at the North Pole, who ordered pizza because they were sick of whale blubber.
** The joke was based on a true story. In the early 1990s a McDonald's franchise was opened in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, the first one in northern [[Canada]]. Within a few months it became trendy for Inuit living in the far north to have McDonald's ship pizza and burger orders up via air cargo on the weekly transport. Even after the national office discontinued the McPizza, the Yellowknife franchise still carried them because the demand was so high. In 2000 the franchise earned more profit per square foot than any other franchise in Canada, and 20% of their income was from pizza.
* ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'', and [[Sequel Series]] ''[[The Legend of Korra]],'' with their shared [[Far East]] fantasy setting, have the Southern and Northern [[Elemental Nation|Water Tribes]], [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture]]s that draw primarily from Inuit culture with a smattering of [[Culture Chop Suey|other influences]]. Its presentation combines stereotypical elements ([[Polar Bears and Penguins]] via [[Mix-and-Match Critters]] yields Polar-Bear Dogs and four-winged Penguin Otters, as well as Tiger-Seals, Koala Seals and Sea Ravens) with paradoxical attention to cultural influences in costume and setting design (They live in tents, have outfits other than parkas, unique and varied [[Braids, Beads, and Buckskins|beaded hairstyles]] and so on.)
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[[Category:Hollywood Atlas]]
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[[Category:Hollywood Atlas]]
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