At this point can we just station old tymey criers on every streetcorner barking, “American media has acknowledged Rob Ford! American media has acknowledged Rob Ford!”
Sure, it was fun at first, seeing top brass Yankee wits like John Stewart and Stephen Colbert rip on our clown mayor (though, laughs-wise, give me the Taiwanese animations any day). It’s nice to have people share our embarrassments. It’s even nice to have people acknowledge us. At all. Saturday Night Live’s move into Ford parody, with Bobby Moynihan cramming a pillow under his shirt and pulling double chin faces in a commendably gross wig during a fake CBC new Toronto interview, would seem to offer the same sort of bilateral catharsis. But naw.
From Moynihan and Taran Killam – who played the CBC interviewer also: who? – phoning in hoser accents so thick it’d make Bob and Doug Mackenzie bashfully pull their toques over their faces, to its third-act turn into a satire of 60 Minutes (take that, dated news magazine program only watched by grandparents with two channels!), SNL’s little make-‘em-up skit tested the patience of those of us with a generous appetite for mean-spirited jokes at Ford’s expense.
The only joke that even passed as a joke, as opposed to “aboot whut I’m a Canadian dere eh?!” Second City hack shit, was the one about Ford being physically unable of taking a passable photo. It was even more funny when Vice pointed out like nine months ago.
Otherwise, it was basically the Canadian equivalent of Mark McKinney playing a strutting, loud-mouthed American buying crab shampoo on The Kids In The Hall. The difference is that sketch worked as a parody of American stereotypes, creating a few new ones in the process (i.e. all Americans are unembarrassed about having crabs). SNL’s thing just plucked out the broadest Canuck characterizations and plopped them up on screen. Does it matter that Rob Ford doesn’t sound like that? Naw. The “Canadian accent” alone will get a laugh! Didn’t they have a mountie hat they could fit Moynihan with?
It’s especially annoying because Rob Ford stands in such stark opposition to the various bullet points of What A Canadian Is that having to defer to them is not only a waste, but also incorrect. If anything, Rob Ford is an anomaly in Canada because of how American he seems: everything about him outsized and totally unembarrassed. More to the point, it’s a waste because Rob Ford is actually a totally weird, compelling, three-dimensional character. You can satirize him on his own terms.
Anyways, blah. America looked at us. Doesn’t it feel cool? We’re very special. Here’s the video in case you haven’t seen it, because even though it has like 0.5 laughs, you know you want to watch it anyway.
OK. Going back into my hate burrow until the next Rob Ford thing pisses me off. See you in eight seconds!
Opener – CBC News Toronto – Mayor Rob Ford… by IdolxMuzic
