Using Jack Layton to attack the CBC

Too many political narratives in this country are depressingly predictable, their outcome written far in advance and their plodding plot played out to national shrugs.

The Jack Layton saga of 2011 was the neon-lit exception to the Canadian rule.

So, it’s disheartening that as production begins on a CBC biopic of the late NDP leader, everyone appears to be playing to type again.

In the message-control, marketing-driven world of Canadian politics of recent years, in which talking points pass for insight, partisanship trumps all and incumbents are swept back into power, Layton took the political world on a dizzying, unscripted ride.

He was the underdog, the man with the cane fighting a fatal disease, bringing his party from back of the pack to a historic breakthrough.

Then there was the dramatic press conference to announce his cancer had returned, his death one year ago this month, the state funeral, the chalk tributes at Nathan Phillips Square, the letter released on the eve of his death.

And now, Smilin’ Jack: The Jack Layton Story starring Rick Roberts and Sook-Yin Lee.

News of the joint production of CBC, Pier 21 Films and Eagle Vision put everyone in familiar roles.

Those on the right immediately started with the CBC bias mantra on social media and the production has again given voice to those seeking to privatize the national broadcaster.

“The taxpayer-funded production of a dramatized interpretation of a political figure’s life is clearly open to bias,’’ says Stephen Taylor of the National Citizens Coalition.

“If the bias leaned the other way, the problem would be the same.”

If CTV wanted to make the Layton film, Taylor says, that would be the choice of the network and its shareholders. But taxpayers cannot hold the CBC accountable for the decisions, the network makes, he says.

But not everyone is comfortable in their assigned roles.

Gregory Thomas of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation says his organization opposes taxpayers subsidizing all film and television production, including the CBC.

“But I’m not going to stand here and say that one TV show is better than another,’’ he says.

“If we get involved in this, then the next debate will be over some production about another politician someone doesn’t like.’’

Layton’s widow, Trinity—Spadina MP Olivia Chow has dismissed the controversy as uninformed chatter on the right and she may be correct.

But the real test will come as it airs in 2013, and the real danger here is that the bias argument puts us on the American path.

Already this election year, the much-anticipated release of Zero Dark Thirty, the story of the hunt for Osama bin Laden, has been pushed past November because Republicans alleged the filmmakers were given access to classified documents for a movie which would boost the electoral fortunes of Barack Obama.

Screenwriter Mark Boal and director Kathryn Bigelow were briefed by the White House, the Pentagon and CIA officials, but deny their film has political undertones.

Steven Spielberg has pushed back the release date of his film on Abraham Lincoln until after the election so it would not be politicized.

The movie is based on historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s tome, Team of Rivals, a reference to Lincoln’s cabinet as he moved to abolish slavery.

Obama cited the book many times during his 2008 campaign and it sparked a spate of commentary comparing him to Lincoln.

The most famous recent example of political pressure derailing a political bio south of the border was the conservative outrage over the treatment of Republican icon Ronald Reagan in the CBS 2003 production of The Reagans.

They railed about historical inaccuracies, a condescending script, even the fact that the star, James Brolin, was married to well-known liberal Barbra Streisand.

CBS relegated the film to a sparsely viewed premium cable outlet.

CBC has generally stuck to the two Canadian passions, politics and hockey, when it comes to producing documentaries.

The last CBC-Pier 21 collaboration brought us Don Cherry’s story, the saga of a man who is an acquired taste for many, but hardly a socialist icon.

The CBC has also done biopics of Tommy Douglas and Sir John A. Macdonald and has one in the works on Gordie Howe.

Before that, Trudeau aired to great reviews on CBC in 2002 but the public broadcaster could not be blamed for the 2010 dud, Brian Mulroney: The Opera.

There are not enough Canadian political heroes of any stripe and they should be celebrated, again, regardless of political persuasion.

But when arts and politics collide, both suffer.

Original Article
Source: the star
Author: Tim Harper