Who am I? You ask your reflection, who stares blankly back at you from the puddle by the curb. Your head spins with conflicting ideas that you have been bombarded with and your confusion is compounded by the case of Molson Canadians that you drank. If you think that you are alone in this philosophical struggle, you can pass out soundly to the fact that many others ponder the same existential question. It is a universal issue that knows no national boundaries, yet still many people will attempt to identify with some sort of national image, often exemplified as stereotypes. But seek and ye shall find: Kneel before your television and absorb Molsons ongoing ad campaign to disprove these stereotypes. Let it compel you to question the labels that are put on Canadians, and in turn, to consider the labels that are put on your beer.
Its Hockey Night in Canada, and your beloved Flames just cant seem to get the puck in the net. At the commercial break, you see an ad that catches your attention: a culturally diverse group of ageless Canadians are addressing certain Canadian stereotypes in contrast with contradicting clips. It opens with a red and white colored shot of an Asian girl who primly declares, Canadians are polite. It then cuts to clips of big hits from lacrosse and hockey players not behaving very politely at all. To this the token white guy questions, Polite? The pattern repeats itself, with a growing sense of disbelief and humour from the multicultural panel of actors: Canadians are humble. The gyrating, obese hockey fan with GO CANADA painted on his stomach and the guy flagrantly flaunting a Canadian flag wrapped around his shoulders would seem to disagree.
They say were reserved. The token black guy finds this hilarious, and we are shown shirtless bungee jumpers, rowdy crowd scenes at concerts, more obscure winter sports such as tubing and boardercross, and a fancy-free young fellow frolicking in a mound of maple leaves. The Asian tightens her shirt again and laughs openly with more shots of extreme snowboarding and Olympic powerlifting. Canadians are passive? Now they are openly questioning these stereotypes while Phil Esposito in the Summit Series demonstrates by calling on a fight that we can be aggressive too! The token white guy dramatically reacts to all of this with an over-emphasized, I dont think so! This is followed by more shots of Canada Day festivities complete with flags and friends. You are now shown the trademark I AM CANADIAN logo at the end to summarize the message in a brand. Ironically, the song that plays throughout the commercial, Hey! Ho! Lets Go! is performed by The Ramones, an American band from New York. You feel an empty sense of longing, and a thirst for a cold pint of lager.
Websters Dictionary defines a stereotype as a standardized mental picture that is held in common by members of a group and that represents an oversimplified opinion, prejudiced attitude, or uncritical judgment. While these judgments are often accurate and based on reality, this definition suggests that stereotypes can lead to a distorted viewpoint. The ads attempt to disprove these stereotypes only enforces the unmentioned stereotype that Canadians are self-righteous. Since when are politeness, humbleness, reservation, and passivity unadmirable traits anyway? It is true that there is a time and a place for everything; however, the implication here is that we can also be rude, arrogant, outgoing, and aggressive. It is ultimately an attempt to question our national identity, a theme of much contention, usually defined as: not American.
Halls model of encoding and decoding forms an insightful framework which helps us to further understand the inherent Canadian-ness of this message by applying such factors as social context, economic issues, institutional context and the values of both producer and consumer. To begin, the common social field of referents that this message operates within is comprised of the stereotypes that people from all over the world hold about Canadians and their actual nature. In addition to this, economic factors such as the market for beer drinkers are applied, as while superficially the ad appears to be questioning what makes us Canadian, we must not forget that Molson is of course selling a product, and appealing to a demographic that can relate to the message. It is of interest to note that Molson Inc., a Canadian company, merged with Adolph Coors Co., an American company, to create Molson Coors Brewing Company, the fifth-largest brewer in the world, with head offices in both Montreal and Denver. Following the general rule that the company whose name is placed first is the one that bought the other, it is still essentially a Canadian company. This publicly-traded multinational corporate business influence has implications to the Canadian-ness that is promoted, since while it is striving for uniqueness from American-ness, both national identities are an integral part of each others individuality.
Continuing with Halls formula, the element of institutional context is directed here towards all people who value that uniqueness and individuality. The professional values and opinions of Molson and their promoters are expressed to entice viewers to think similarly, or at least to question existing notions of Canadian identity. The ad implies that to drink Molson Canadian beer is to challenge the norm; but of course there is a paradox involved when a group of people conform to the same ideology to be unique. Operating with these factors in mind, the message is encoded within the medium of television, or in this case Youtube, which combines image and sound to address the audience more personally than, say, a billboard. Finally, the message is decoded and consumed by a diverse audience that will make their own meaning, drawn from the larger social experiences that we all share.
The processes of representation and signification create the framework through which the viewer carries out the ongoing practice of meaning making. The ad represents certain ideas about what it means to be Canadian by presenting suggestive thought-provoking images and signs to be interpreted through the use of signifiers and the signified. The signifier of the vintage clip of Esposito calling on the Russians is added to the implicit signified concept of patriotism to create a meaning of national pride and identity. This sign is repeated throughout the ad, mostly using clips of sports, which are a means to prove superiority over someone else by the declaration of a winner and a loser.
We can also use intertextuality to create meaning by comparing this commercial to others by Molson, such as the ad on the moon in which a Canadian astronaut shoots a puck into an American astronauts facemask then are shown together drinking beers in lawnchairs. Seeing this other text helps us to understand the recurring message about Canadian identity, in this case by AMOGing (proving alpha male of the group status) the American. Of course this is my personal connotative interpretation of this denotative scene; the polysemic nature intrinsic of these commercials allows viewers the freedom to create meaning in their own way.
The ad campaigns prevalent image of supremacy, like Esposito challenging the Russians, encourages the viewer to stand up for what he or she believes in and refuse to be dominated. This also relates to the main theme of national identity as Molsons ads are designed to be counter-hegemonic to the dominant American ideology that is entrenched in so much of the American media that English-speaking Canadians consume. Molsons ideology of questioning and even rebelling against labels and stereotypes endeavors to strengthen an image of Canadian individuality, but in doing so, further confuses the audience, as they scratch their head and ask themselves, If Im not this, and Im not that, then who am I? This could possibly be an intended reaction, as a confused public is easily controlled and can be manipulated to make certain decisions, such as purchasing a case of Molson beer.
To assess the prevalence of Molsons national identity ideology, we can perform a content analysis by quantitatively measuring occurrences of patriotism through the use of maple leaves. There are 20 shots of the maple leaf: 16 maple leaves on proudly waving flags, 2 maple leaves on Canadian jerseys, 1 pile of actual maple leaves, and 1 maple leaf on the Canadian bottle cap. In the 30-second ad this makes 0.6 maple leaves shown per second, fairly ubiquitous.
Altogether, this ad blatantly strives to redefine that abstract notion of Canadian-ness by demonstrating what is and what is not Canadian and I believe that, in doing so, it promotes a negative image. Obviously each and every Canadian can be any of these traits, so there is no need in trying to prove that we can be as crazy, raunchy, rebellious, and wild as other folks. We don’t have to prove such an insignificant thing and attempting to do so only makes us appear insecure. While I am sure there will many people that agree with me that the ad is an embarrassment to our cultural identity, there will also be those self-righteous Canadians trying desperately to identify themselves with some sort of image. I think that what makes us Canadian is not what labels we have, or what beer we drink, or even how we behave. It is subjective and internal to all people that consider themselves Canadian. It is the feeling that we have and the way in which we perceive the world, unique to each Canadian. Canadian-ness cannot be easily classified, or labeled, or even described; thats a fact we should be proud of.
So you lift your head up a bit higher, and you straighten your posture, confident with the freshly acquired realization that you just are who you are, as simple as that. You slide a sheet of paper into your typewriter and begin to type with purpose, speaking on behalf of all Canadians.
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Dear Molson Canadian,
We accept the fact that youre selling beers to consumers through promotion of a national identity. But we think youre crazy to make a commercial telling us who you think we are. What do you care? You see us as you want to see us in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us can be polite or rude and humble or arrogant and reserved or outgoing and passive or aggressive.
Does that answer your question?
Sincerely yours,
The Canadian Club
———
J. Eric Berg
Mass Communications in Canada
Dr. Kathryn Pallister
October 25, 2007
