New CBC documentary: Let's All Hate Toronto

[ahrvojic]

Article

Filmmaker puts life at risk hosting Toronto Appreciation day in Montreal

Jonathan Montpetit, Canadian Press
Published: Saturday, July 22, 2006

MONTREAL (CP) - Hosting a Toronto Appreciation Day in Montreal might be considered a dangerous endeavour, as the city is often thought of as the hub of Hogtown hatred.

But filmmaker Albert Nerenberg was happy with how his event transpired Saturday, even if a man dubbed Mr. Toronto tackled a musician singing a song called Goodbye Toronto, Bonjour Montreal.

Nerenberg, whose previous documentaries include Stupidity and Escape to Canada, is scouring the country for material for a new CBC documentary, Let's All Hate Toronto.

The film follows Toronto blogger Robert Spence, or Mr. Toronto, as he tries to persuade Canadians of all stripes to embrace Toronto's self-proclaimed status as the financial and cultural heart of Canada.

"Toronto is a place of people," Spence told a crowd of puzzled and occasionally irate onlookers. "It's not just some two-dimensional bank that runs Canada."

Nerenberg said making the documentary has been an educational experience.

"What we've discovered in this film is that probably, more than anything else in Canada, what unifies Canadians from coast to coast is their resentment and bitterness towards Toronto."

While stoking the rivalry between Montreal and Toronto is a favourite pastime for denizens of both cities, differentiating between the two breeds can sometimes be difficult.

Thousands of anglophones left Montreal after the Parti Quebecois was first elected in 1976, while others, fed up with divisive politics and seeking financial stability, packed up and headed down the 401 after the 1995 sovereignty referendum.

Nerenberg, a former columnist for the Montreal Gazette and alt-weekly The Hour, himself left the city in the mid-'90s.

He admits the film is a tongue-in-cheek look at a popular bogeyman, but Nerenberg insists that, because the notion is so widespread, there are important clues about the state of the nation in all this Toronto-bashing.

"It's Canada reaching a certain maturity," he said. "You have all these great cities busting loose and they're tired of living under Toronto's traditional mediocrity."

The highlight of the Montreal instalment of the Toronto Appreciation tour was local comedy troupe Dancing Cock Brothers singing a catchy ode to Montreal.

Written by a self-described "recovering Torontonian," the song includes the following line:

"We have MuchMusic, Bravo and Citytv - But nobody knows how to play good hockey."

It was too much for Spence, who playfully tackled one of the members of the group.

He said the 15-city tour has been hard on his emotional and physical well-being.

"People are saying things to me that are, frankly, just hurtful," Spence said. "They're basing it on some outdated stereotype of a city they should be proud of.

"I live in Toronto, and I'm a nice guy."

The last stop on the tour will be Toronto, P.E.I, which one onlooker pointed out must be even worse than living in Toronto, Ont.

"Not only do you live in Toronto, you have to deal with living in a second-rate Toronto."

CBC is slated to broadcast Let's All Hate Toronto next year.

 

[wyliepoon]

Does the hating of Toronto constitute hate crime?

I can imagine the day that CBC airs this documentary. Across the country there will be people gathered in front of TV sets for an Orwellian 1984 "hate session". People will seeth in anger whenever an image of the CN Tower or the Toronto Maple Leafs flash on the screen.

 

[EnviroTO]

CBC is slated to broadcast Let's All Hate Toronto next year.

Typical Toronto based socialist garbage broadcaster making me wait until next year. One more reason to hate Toronto. :lol Just kidding of course... trying to speak from an Albertan point of view.

 

[ahrvojic]

The Star: Article

Why does rest of country hate Toronto so much?
Film director crosses country to find the answer But Calgary may be taking over as
`most hated' spot
Jul. 27, 2006. 01:00 AM
THULASI SRIKANTHAN
STAFF REPORTER

One in a series of stories about the unique occupations and

preoccupations of people in Greater Toronto.

Rob Spence is Mr. Toronto.

It's not because he won a beauty or a bodybuilding contest — though he would have liked to — but rather because he decided it's his calling.

Since taking on the role, he has been jet-setting across the country, trying to figure out why the rest of Canada hates this glorious city of ours.

He has battled insults from annoyed proud Westerners who have sworn at him and threatened him with death for his hijinks — including holding "Toronto Appreciation Days," complete with oversized banners and speeches, in the middle of Edmonton Oilers playoff games.

Some, he said, felt that was crossing the line.

He's also appeared on numerous radio shows and given several unrequested speeches, leading him to endure mockery. But he can't get offended.

"I have a lot of patience and understanding about negative attitudes because that's how Mr. Toronto should be."

It's all part of a satirical CBC documentary he is co-directing with Albert Neremberg, founder of Trailervision and director of the movie Stupidity.

"It's not an alter-ego — I am Mr. Toronto," says Spence, who is decked out in his "I (love) Toronto" T-shirt.

The documentary was inspired by Jack McLaren's 1956 book, Let's All Hate Toronto. In it, McLaren recounts his travels from coast to coast to find out what Canadians think of Toronto. Though he concludes Canadians hate Toronto, he didn't pinpoint why.

Since May 24, that has been Spence's mission.

In Vancouver, Spence and the gang held a Toronto appreciation day during an immigration and human rights demonstration at Robson Square.

"They had the gall to say Toronto appreciation day was frivolous and tried to have us arrested."

`It seems the one thing that keeps Canada united is hating Toronto'

Rob Spence, film documentarian

In Edmonton, he walked onto the city's famous Whyte Ave., full of bars and young people, in his Toronto Maple Leafs jersey during the playoffs. To add insult to injury, he had Gretzky's name embroidered on the back.

"I got a lot of `You are going to die,'" he said. "A lot of dire warnings of what would happen to Mr. Toronto."

It didn't help matters when he added that Gretzky always wanted to be a Leaf but he got stuck in Edmonton.

"I just wanted to bring back that magical ability to believe to Edmonton."

But his trip has opened his eyes to a lot of things, he says.

"There is a common perception among Canadians — `Oh yeah, Toronto — they think they are New York but they are not.'"

Other perceptions include that Toronto has all the money or that the people in Toronto are cold and unfriendly.

"It seems the one thing that keeps Canada united is hating Toronto," he said. "I think that's just because Canadians have a natural tendency to hate those who they think are too big for their boots."

As Spence went from city to city, he discovered that the central force behind Canadian culture is people making fun of each other and ridiculing Toronto.

But he also says he has discovered the new Toronto — Calgary.

"I found out it wasn't a Toronto shirt that would get me killed on Whyte Ave., but a Calgary Flames shirt."

"Calgary may have inherited `Canada's most hated' hat," he said. "They are called the `Calgreedians.'"

This type of study of the Canadian cultural and political landscape is not foreign to Spence, who studied political science at University of Ottawa before moving to Toronto six years ago. Before then, it seems he lived everywhere but this city whose praises he exudes.

And ironically, Spence was born in the flatlands of Winnipeg and grew up in Haileybury, Ont.

"I heard of Toronto in the same way Dorothy heard about Emerald City," he says with a smirk as he sits in a downtown café for the interview.

In any case, this is the city he plans to stay in for the next while, he says, for like many other things, the movie industry is strongest here.

The documentary will air on CBC this winter.

 

[screenplaying]

I caught an article about this documentary over at CNN. One week away...

edition.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Movies/04/13/hate.toronto.reut/index.html

"There is something different (about hating Toronto). People are more passionate about it," filmmaker and co-director Albert Nerenberg said in an interview.

"People have a grudging respect for New York outside of the city, and have a grudging respect for London. But people outside of Toronto don't have that for Toronto, they really don't."

 

[ganjavih]

Toronto: Love it? Hate it?

R.M. VAUGHAN

From Saturday's Globe and Mail

If, as the makers of a new documentary claim, everybody hates Toronto, why does everybody live here? I mean, everybody who matters?

Let's All Hate Toronto, premiering next week at — where else? — Toronto's internationally acclaimed Hot Docs documentary film festival, tries to uncover the reasons for the rabid hatred that TROC (The Remaindered of Canada) feels for Toronto, the nation's cultural and commercial capital.

Directed by transplanted Montrealer (transplanted to — where else? — Toronto) Albert Nerenberg, the film shows what happened when Mr. Nerenberg and a pal posing as “Mr. Toronto†drove across the country setting up fake “Toronto Appreciation Day†booths. The results are not pretty — for the also-ran cities. People kick the signs down, attack Mr. Toronto verbally and physically, and make really ugly anger faces into the camera. What a load of jealous, whiny, unresolved-childhood-issues-carrying ingrates.

People in Montreal appear mostly bemused by Mr. Toronto's antics, probably because bemused is their default reaction to everything.

Montrealers are too lazy to lift an eyebrow. Mount Royal could suddenly turn into a smoking tower of bubbling lava and the nicotined boulevardiers of St. Laurent would only shrug, blame the federal government, and get back to the vital work of sneering over their federally subsidized pints of Maudite. A life without aspirations must be such a comfort.

Vancouverites, people who spend a suspiciously Macbeth-ish amount of time protesting their calm, forgiving natures, turn positively apoplectic at the very sight of the word Toronto. I suspect this is largely because Vancouver is where failed Torontonians go to die. They have good reason to be bitter, stuck as they are, huddled and wet under the ass end of a mountain, forgotten and lonely, with only the faint hope of a devastating avalanche to get them through the night.

Other cities weigh in on the Toronto issue as the film chuckles along, but they are places too small and of too little consequence to mention. You know the cities I mean — the kind that people get away from.

When I first moved to Toronto in the early nineties, from no less a sludgehole than Saint John, N.B., which bears the questionable distinction of not being “the cute St. John's†(i.e., the one in Newfoundland), I was instantly entranced.

I remain so today, because all the bad things the rest of the country says about Toronto are so wonderfully, refreshingly true: It's trashy, dirty, dangerous, rude and full of itself. In other words, it's a big city. If Toronto suddenly turned quaint, clean, secure, polite and ingratiating, it would be Victoria, or Fredericton, and the last thing this country needs is another scone-hoarding mini-Rhodesia wrapped in a dusty doily. One per coast, please.

Toronto is big and, like all big things, except Saskatchewan, complicated. When you go big, you accept a certain amount of mess, and expect to leave a trail.

So, yes, Toronto has homeless people, street preachers, beggars and streetwalkers sporting thigh-high boots, just like in the movies. Movies about cities.

Yes, Toronto has lots of people from lots of different places who don't always understand or like each other. Some of us find the confusion entertaining, a live screwball comedy with a multiracial cast. Another benefit is the happy truth that a great number of Torontonians, coming from elsewhere, are, blessedly, folks who have never heard of Nickelback, sung that god-awful Barrett's Privateers song in a fake Irish pub, found curling anything but weird, or revered the stale stylings of Michael Bublé. They bring their own bad art to town, and are happy to share.

And, yes, Toronto has snooty restaurants manned by crabby underwear models — if by snooty one means that every entrée is not served on white toast and slathered in canned gravy (unless you ask, and pay extra).

But best of all, Toronto does not care about you, about what you do, about where you're going or what you're wearing. In Toronto, nobody is watching from behind their kitchen window curtains, nobody knows your parents, grandparents and dentist, nobody remembers where you went to school or how bad your hair was in Grade 11, and nobody is cluck-clucking about your divorce, weight gain, poor investment strategy or binge drinking. Until they get to know you.

You are alone here, anonymous. You have no history, owe no social debts, sing no little-town blues. For as long as you like, you can be one of the crowd — because we actually have crowds.

To anybody who has ever lived in a small Canadian town, one of those finger-wagging gossips' warrens run by the United Church and unburdened by genetic diversity or stylish clothing, the averted gaze of the preoccupied, uncaring Toronto subway rider buried in his BlackBerry is a benediction.

What, then, is the problem with TROC (The Refuse of Canada)? The simple response is that they're just jealous, but jealousy is often a symptom of deeper unresolved issues.

Post-colonial studies teaches us that citizens of colonies (or, in Canada's case, former colonies) suffer from a psychological condition that causes them to constantly perceive themselves as being outside the centre, as living on the margins.

Subsequently, the actual centres of colonized countries (in our case, Toronto) are resented via displacement, because hating the colonizer is too big a dilemma to face, and we're conflicted in our emotions about our former masters. It's a bit like being mad at your boss for no good reason because you're really mad at Mommy and Daddy. Toronto is the scapegoat for the nation's buried resentment of London, Paris or Washington (pick your colonizer).

Fair enough, and almost forgivable — Vancouver and Montreal and Halifax can't help it because they're mentally ill. If the nation can only cope with its inadequacies by projecting its disappointments onto me and my city, I'm willing to play therapist. But I want compensation.

At Toronto rates, please. Wellness, like success, ain't cheap.

I learned that here.

 

[Bogtrotter]

I can't imagine watching for an hour and a half people bitching about TO.

 

[yyzer]

The G & M article is hilarious, and so true.

Canada as a nation is deeply insecure - when folks from other parts of the country bash Toronto, it is only because the City of Toronto, being confident, powerful, and successful, reflects that contrast back to them.

When a Vancouverite, say, puts down Toronto, it's just another way of them decrying their own mediocrity.

It's a Canadian thing - you wouldn't see Americans doing the same with New York - because Americans are inherently more secure in themselves than we are. When Americans poke fun at New York, it is with grudging respect and affection.

 

[ganjavih]

When Americans poke fun at New York, it is with grudging respect and affection.

Except for certain Southerners. I've met a few who truly hate New York and everything about the NE.

 

[Mystery Man TO]

That R.M. Vaughan article made my morning ... too many good quotes to mention

 

[adma]

Hey, hate is fun

Ah, 90s retro...

 

[afransen TO]

"Fair enough, and almost forgivable — Vancouver and Montreal and Halifax can't help it because they're mentally ill."

I liked this, most.

 

[Darkstar416]

The comments following the article on the G&M site are the same typical Rest-of-Canada responses the article was making fun of! Which goes to show, when it comes to Toronto there's no swaying people, they just trot out the same unfounded accusations of crime, dirt, self-centred, wannabe U.S. city crap we hear time and time and time again.

 

[Erik Tea]

Toronto's allegedly dangerous status has always mystified me. Are we even among the top 10 Canadian cities for homicide rates? Winnipeg is often our front runner, and cities in Saskatoon and Alberta regularly have higher homicide rates than Toronto. Of course statistics can be skewed, and I suspect that B.C. town with the pig farmer is probably Canada's most statistically homicidal town (and Shedden, a 'burg where a bunch of bikers' bodies were found, is presumably Ontario's statistically most dangerous town for 2006), but I believe my point that Toronto is not dangerous, not even by our (safe) Canadian standards, still applies.

Montreal, on the other hand, is Canada's top recipient of federal largesse when it comes to funding arts and cultural events. I wish they weren't so smug about that, as if Torontonians who have to pay rent without a grant are all too busy flipping real estate on our Blackberries to just have fun at some art or music festival. I like Montreal, I'm from NDG, and I too was raised with the same misplaced ideas about Toronto... I think many Montrealers grew up hearing this from people who visited Toronto in the seventies and were surprised by how hard it was to get a drink after dark.

Calgary? Is anyone else amused by the semi-regular National Post stories about Calgary now being a cosmopolitan metropolis that will leave Toronto and every other Canadian city in the dust? Whenever I take a closer look at such an article, all it mentions is an explosion in high end retail, and maybe some new sushi restaurant. Anyhow, Alberta was happy to receive transfer payments for some 70 years since joining Confederation. As soon as they stopped using Ontario (and, for many decades, Quebec) tax dollars to subsidize their existence, they started moaning about sending any money to Ottawa.

 

[SD2]

The comments following the article on the G&M site are the same typical Rest-of-Canada responses the article was making fun of! Which goes to show, when it comes to Toronto there's no swaying people, they just trot out the same unfounded accusations of crime, dirt, self-centred, wannabe U.S. city crap we hear time and time and time again.

I think the difference is that most of us realize that it's not a serious piece.

A lot of the ROC articles and comments you get are.