I moved to BC from California when I was seven and yet, fifteen years later, I still think of myself as an American. Like it or not, the flag-waving, pie-eating, fireworks-blasting, apple seed-spreading American identity that seems so garish and cloying to many of my Canadian friends was, at least, a template I could work off of.
For me, the trouble was that Canadian identity—at least on the surface—seemed to come down to a laundry list of the ways Canada was not the United States. Which obviously posed a problem: How could I be Canadian and American if being Canadian meant not being American?
When travelling with a friend in London, a man at a street stall for pocket watches (English major crack) asked our nationalities and I immediately responded, “She’s Canadian, I’m American.” My friend and I had a long conversation afterwards in which she wanted to know why I was still clinging on to my nationality after having spent most of my life in Canada. In truth, it has nothing to do with a notion of national superiority or a hatred of the Great White North, but rather an unshakable feeling that I was always outside of Canadian culture, never having seen Mr. Dressup for instance, and was stubbornly unwilling to sacrifice my Americanness—superficial as it was—to join the party. I tried compromises, calling myself a West-Coaster or an American Vancouverite, but it was a flimsy attempt to reconcile the issue. I sort of resigned myself to being a bit of an outsider, wincing at the “Americans are so stupid” lines thrown out by my friends, who would quickly make fumbling apologies when they remembered my duel status.
Then, on a lazy day roaming around Vancouver with a friend, we decided to be cultured individuals and see what indie films Tinseltown had to offer. It came down to MacGruber or The Trotsky. Surprisingly, we went with the latter.
It wasn’t that The Trotsky gave me a Canadian identity, but rather that it made me realize that I’d been deluding myself for years. I am Canadian, and sometimes a nationality comes down to the smallest things—like the beautiful and nuanced scene in which Jay Baruchel, perpetual teenager, mocked Ben Mulroney to his giant face and forehead. Any movie that can do that deserves to be heralded as an instant classic. And would an American get that joke? Hardly. Sure, they may have occasionally seen what my friend Leanne refers to as Mulroney’s plastic Ken hair, his spray-tanned hands gripping a microphone while awkwardly asking pretentious and dull questions in both English and French. But they would not have been fuelled with the pure, unfiltered resentment of a true Canuck, faced with the sheer onslaught of nepotism and smarm that is Ben Mulroney.
Even better, the Big Brother to the south never gets a mention in the movie, unlike Paul Gross’s extremely self-conscious and hokey western also released this year, Gunless. This is not a Canadian film that felt it had to give the middle finger to Uncle Sam in order to earn its credentials, nor is it self-consciously Canadian, making cracks about beavers or Mounties. Instead The Trotksy is the somewhat surreal story of a 12th grader who believes he is the reincarnation of Leon Trotsky and tries to unionize any group of people he comes into contact with. The movie’s tone is warm, funny and sweet, but it doesn’t fit easily into any of the genres that it plays with; The Trotsky wades somewhere in the realm of a coming-of-age political high school romance that never takes itself or its characters very seriously.
Many reviews try to argue that a lot of the subject matter and humour flies over the heads of its target audience – assuming, I guess, that this film is aimed at teenagers. But The Trotsky doesn’t really seem to have a target audience. After all, who pens a screenplay about a 17-year-old who thinks he’s the reincarnation of Leon Trotsky and honestly believes that their target audience is other teenagers? If the movie is aimed at University students and adults, then it’s right on target: well-placed jokes about Marxist criticism, publishing history and the francophone Quebecois should be right up the alley of any self-respecting Humanities major in the lower mainland.
But more importantly than that, it is simply refreshing to see genuine Canadian identity onscreen that at no point feels it has to be apologetic, defensive or littered with stereotypes in order to be acceptable.
The Sad Mag family is so excited to offer up a fresh issue of the magazine, launching Wednesday, August 4 at the Cobalt. Check out a sneak peek from the latest issue, written of theatre legend Yayoi Hirano by Michelle Reid.
