I once took a German class taught by a sensitive and very literal Russian expat who, when hearing a few students joke that Poland didn’t exist (because Poland’s knack for rolling over at any sign of foreign aggression meant it might as well not exist), responded with such trembling trepidation, “But…there is such a country.” This unsure politeness in defense of an oft-beleaguered country runs throughout Robert Cohen’s Being Canadian, a documentary that attempts to define Canadian-ness, as if the country’s existence needed justification (mostly to Americans).
Canada is less a victim of its own geopolitical position and military limitations and more saddled with an identity that exists purely in stereotypes. Since moving from Calgary to L.A. two decades ago to become a comedy writer, Cohen has heard plenty of “eh”s, “aboot”s and maple syrup jokes. The stereotypes are frustrating, but Cohen admits that he himself cannot pinpoint “what it means to be Canadian.” His solution: to interview every famous Canadian working in Hollywood and take a road trip across Canada. It’s a journey of self-discovery, if you will.
The result is amusing but never goes in depth enough to lift itself above those very Canadian stereotypes it is trying to debunk. Being Canadian is essentially an hour and a half of one-liners and quips. Canadians such as Michael J. Fox, Catherine O’Hara, Dan Aykroyd, Alanis Morisette, Rush and Martin Short attempt to self-analyze and uncover the mysteries of the Canadian psyche, only to come up with stock phrases like “Crippled with niceness” and “Slaves to our courtesy.” Cohen’s own contribution, however, takes the cake: “Canada was built on an ancient Indian burial ground, and instead of poltergeists, we have apologies that are haunting us.”
The difficulty that gnaws at Canada’s psyche is one of distinguishing themselves from the rest, especially when their neighbors have such a dominant personality and an ingrained nationalistic pride based on an existence achieved through war. When Mike Myers refers to Canada as “the first country to ever have an unarmed evolution into existence” or when Morisette talks about Canada’s existential crisis, they are tapping into the lingering “guilt” weighing on a country that didn’t have to fight to become independent. That they were surreptitiously relinquished from the Commonwealth seems to make Canada at once unwanted and insignificant. It’s no wonder Aykroyd emphasizes national low self-esteem.
To his own detriment, Cohen uses simplistic and repetitive title card questions to structure the documentary. “Why are Canadians so nice?” “What’s the deal with Canada’s inferiority complex?” “How do Canadians deal with all that cold?” That, combined with the stop-and-start road trip frame, illustrates a superficial approach to the subject matter on Cohen’s part. The confusion over “Canadian-ness” simply provides the platform for Cohen to make a light documentary wherein he and dozens of Canada’s finest swap anecdotes and one-liners about the Great White North, and their jokes are just as full of stereotypes as any American’s jab at Canucks. The existential underpinning seems to be the only justification for making this a documentary instead of a stand-up routine or podcast.
It probably eats away at Canada’s soul that Vancouver can stand in for literally any other major city in the world and does so constantly in TV and film. That factoid only helps feed the notion that Canada is a bland country devoid of personality. And if Being Canadian fails to answer its central question, it at least proves that Canada is a nation with character – one that adheres to stereotypes more often than it would like, but certainly a culture in its own right.