To the editor:

I admit it: I am a movie and TV watcher. Although I like to think I am selective about my viewing habits, the truth is I have rather eclectic tastes. I watch all manner of movies. Some nights it’s sitcoms and cops shows and other nights it’s the more intellectual Discovery, and nature channels.

And yes, I even rarely watch CNN, but only for a few minutes at a time. (The mind numbing repetition and overtly “USA is the only place on earth” themes eat away at me in very short time.)

In all my viewings I watch for trends in marketing/advertising themes, story lines and a general buzz about what is current in the minds of the several hundred million people who live just south of our unguarded border.

Today, my ongoing research brings some very good news. Canada, and in particular British Columbia, and more in particular Vancouver, are finally being referred to without explanation or apology, or effacing humour.

It wasn’t that long ago that The Simpsons, Farenheit 911, and top rated shows would only refer to us in mildly derogatory terms. We said “Eh?” at the end of every sentence; we lived only for beer and hockey; our currency was worth much less than “real dollars;” we were excruciatingly polite and our streets were embarrassingly clean.

When there was any reference to a Canadian city or location, that usually came with a hint of “the far north”—dog sleds, igloos or Mounties with too square jaws and those impractically shaped hats.

But that has changed. Today, we as people and our country as a location, are referred to entirely unremarkably. And that “unremarkableness” is an incredible compliment.

Just last night on the two top-rated US shows, there were references to Vancouver, characters who were Canadian businessmen, one caught a flight out of Toronto and another owned a ski chalet in British Columbia. No jokes attached. No explanation to the audience as to where these places are. The underlying assumption being that even the “generally ignorant, entirely self-absorbed, US masses” (Marshal McLuhan) now know who we are, where we are, and no longer require lines in the script to explain that to viewers.

Hurray: We have “arrived”! We hold the glorious position of being unremarkable and indistinguishable from US people and locations.

Perhaps this has something to do with the large numbers of Canadians in the U.S. entertainment industry. Perhaps it has something to do with the Olympics coming back to Canada again this winter. Perhaps it has something to do with our strong dollar. Or perhaps, (and this one would hurt to admit) our neighbours (neighbors) to the south are maturing?

Howard Rensler,

Kelowna