No More Jeopardy on CBC?!

I’ll take “Bullshit Moves in the Name of National Culture” for 1000 please.

According to this article in this morning’s Globe and Mail, new CBC English-language services head Kirstine Stewart is looking to axe Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune from the line-up and replace them with home-grown content.  Stewart believes that the rationale for keeping the popular American game shows on the air is invalid “now that… we can make shows like Dragons' Den or Battle of the Blades that are consistently making big numbers.”

I’m not even going to get into the fact that Alex Trebek is, um, Canadian, or the fact that somehow Coronation Street makes the cut.  Stewart claims that since CBC has become a better competitor with private networks in the past few years, it should no longer need to carry American content to attract viewers.  I’m all about Canadian content, but there are questions of feasibility too – the record-breaking programming over the past few years (Little Mosque, Being Erica, Battle of the Blades, Dragons’ Den, etc.) has aired later at night, in the 8 or 9 p.m. timeslot.  Call me cynical, but I think CBC is unlikely to produce a hit that can compete with the long-established Jeopardy! in the awkward 7:30 p.m. timeslot.

And if CBC is suddenly so willing to put principles before ratings, why is Don Cherry still on the air?

Image courtesy of Jeopardy!

Baby, It's Cold Outside...

Here in Toronto, the forecast calls for a windchill of -10 and 5 centimetres of snow tomorrow.  Fortunately, culture is an all-season sport!  Stop by the library, video store, and your favourite vendor of snacks this afternoon, so you can spend the weekend holed up in your cozy home.

READ: Books about pop culture can be thinly veiled publicity stunts, or they can be smart exercises in cultural studies.  Stick with the latter.  I just finished Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. by Sam Wasson.  You get to indulge your appetite for Audrey Hepburn, Edith Head and Givenchy, but still feel smart while you brush up on Truman Capote, the sexual revolution, and the history of film production.  It's the thinking woman's chick lit.  As for me, I'll be reading the Jay-Z memoir Decoded.

WATCH: Here's hoping I'm not the only person left who still rents DVDs.  The Social Network is out this week, so if you missed it in theatres, now's your chance to weigh in on the Oscar hype and watch Jesse Eisenberg and Justin Timberlake play complete assholes.  If you caught it the first time around, check out Mao's Last Dancer, "the other ballet movie of 2010."  Realistically, I'll probably be watching Black Swan for the third time - my coworker picked up a bootleg copy for me.

LISTEN: Cold weather calls for something mellow, introspective, and hey, why not Canadian?  Check out Freedom or Death here.  I'm planning to catch up on radio shows I missed during the week due to my radio-unfriendly workplace.  Paul Giametti was on Q on Monday to gab about Barney's Version - you can listen in here (January 10).  And if you take my advice to read Decoded this weekend, obviously you will need to listen to the Black Album on repeat.

Stay warm!

Art and Law: The Bronson Controversy

This story has been in the news for about a month now, but took a legal twist this week – Canadian artist AA Bronson has retained counsel to pressure the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery to return his portrait Felix to the National Gallery of Canada, in response to the NPG’s significant alteration of another artist’s video installation on “moral” grounds.  You can brush up on the details of the controversy in Toronto Life and the Globe and Mail.  In the meantime, it raises an interesting question – how much control can Canadian visual artists exert over their works through the law?

Answer: not much.  Visual artists in Canada have legal counsel at their disposal through the non-profit organization CARFAC (Canadian Artists’ Representation/Le Front des artistes canadiens).  CARFAC’s mandate is to “defend artists’ economic and legal rights and educate the public on fair dealing with artists.”  CARFAC’s history has been one of protecting copyright and ensuring fair payment for living artists, but it has not historically been a strong advocate for artists’ ability to have their works displayed in context.  No wonder – there is little provision under Canadian law for this, and artists take a risk when selling their works that they won’t be used as intended.

What’s the solution?  It’s difficult to see how any legal provision could be taken to uphold contextual rights in visual art that wouldn’t seriously infringe on an exhibitor’s freedom of expression.  My armchair musing?  Artists need to negotiate control over the display of their works at the time of purchase, and they can only do this if they are in a sufficiently strong economic position.  Control will always come at a price, but hopefully, continued advocacy for fair payment should make the cost of control less prohibitive for artists.

I unequivocally agree that Bronson’s portrait of his partner’s corpse, shortly after his death from AIDS, is compromised by being displayed with a video installation that has been heavily edited to remove allusions to HIV/AIDS that are deemed “un-Christian.”  I think it is reprehensible that the NPG is motivated more by the religious right than by artists’ intent.  With no evidence of a purchase agreement friendly to Bronson’s wishes, though, I think he and his legal team are unlikely to be successful. 

Canadians in the (Arts and Lit) News

It’s a good week for Canadian artists across the board!  Let’s see which Canucks are getting press south of the border.

 Toxic Event, Chemical Cloud Screenprint by Seripop

Who: Montreal design duo Seripop (Yannick Desranleau and Chloe Lum)

What: Experimental visual art, specializing in screen-prints

Where: New York – heavy art bimonthly Print’s February Issue

Check it out here.

Who: Toronto Public Library’s Human Library project

What: Pilot program involving “checking out” a volunteer with an interesting life for a chat

Where: The New Yorker’s Book Bench blog

Learn more here. 

Who: Alice Munro

What: Duh

Where: Huffington Post’s list of “Most Important Contemporary Fiction Writers” – chosen by two of the thirteen authors interviewed, and the only writer to be chosen twice

See the whole list here.

Image courtesy of Seripop.