Not tied to any particular event or anniversary, but because I’m feeling a bit nostalgic, and I’m a sucker for emotionally compelling Canadian history. And I find us Canadians so darn cheek-pinching, moose-hugging, maple candy cute when we tap into our nationalism.
So start your week off right with a Canadian Heritage Minute (it’s like oatmeal for the mind):
Emily Murphy: Women as persons under the law.
And then (related?) the bonus round — on the success of the beaver in Canada:
(More Hinterland Who’s Who, here.)
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10 comments
god I love kate nelligan in that emily murphy thing! suuuch a diva! when i was a 9 year old diva-lovin feminist lookin for community, that heritage moment made me feel a lil better about life...
Posted by Sheetal
May 5, 2008, 10:38 AM
I have to add in my contempt for so-called "Canadian Heritage" and nationalism. Emily Murphy was a definite racist and as a First Nations woman, I don't exactly see the most truthful or even existant depiction of our culture in any mainstream lens of "Canadian history".
This is not to say that Emily did not help put forward meaningful advances for women in Canada, however she simultaneously degraded people of colour. And not just any kind of degradation, we're talking the publication of her book "The Black Candle" which is full of her xenophobic prejudices, her vocal association with Anglo-Saxon "cleansing" groups, and the passing of the Indian and Residential School Act with her on the bench.
That's not true feminism to me and I don't understand why we put her and the famous five up on a pedastool without fully stating what they were really all about.
Posted by Jessica
May 5, 2008, 11:41 AM
Sheetal -- you're absolutely right. She is quite diva-riffic in this clip.
Jessica -- you raise some fair points. However, I think this production is intended to show an uncontroversially positive step forward in Canadian history, and to give credit to a woman who was instrumental in making it happen.
There's almost no one, including the famous five, who I would put unquestioningly on a pedestal. People are complicated and tainted and embedded in their time. We're capable of doing great and horrific things within the same lifetime. While I think you're right that it's vital we don't gloss over the complete story, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't give credit for the significant positive achievements.
I feel that Canada went through a long stretch where we didn't discuss our history at all -- at least not in public media. The Historica minutes were a good start in getting the discussion going again.
Posted by Catherine
May 5, 2008, 1:21 PM
So I guess it's a good thing that others were and have lobbied against Emily Murphy's politics and her blatant racism because if she had it her way, my recognition as a "person" wouldn't apply today. Or all other women of colour for that matter.
And I whole-heartedly disagree about what has been disseminating in the general context of Canadian history. I've had ENOUGH of "well let's just get it out there even if it's racist, classist, sexist, or otherwise oppressive, at least it's out there". NO! It's not okay to lie, cheat, and ignore the actual truth for the better of......well WHO really?!
Posted by Jessica
May 5, 2008, 1:48 PM
That's not my position, or what I said.
Posted by Catherine
May 5, 2008, 2:41 PM
1/2
It's totally important to be critical of which stories we're telling and for what purpose (i.e. violent, silencing, colonial-nationalism ... shudder), so I really appreciate that you posted that critical counter-memory Jessica.
I also have to say--maybe to complicate things a bit-- that when I was a kid, I found that clip comforting and inspiring.
for me, kate nelligan played a fictional "Emily Murphy"-- divorced for me in my context from any understanding of a real Emily Murphy..(although I don't think a "real Emily Murphy" can exist outside of the "her" we create within language and stories... and whether it's ever strategically useful to "remember" particular people in particular ways is a discussion to be had for sure, especially because in "remembering" any folk in any progressive movement, we run a high risk of becoming complicit in misogynist/racist/homophobic/abilist/classist oppression, but can strategic gains be made? and on whose silencing, whose erasure?).
Posted by Sheetal
May 5, 2008, 3:03 PM
2/3
anyway this "Emily Murphy," for me, fit into a simple, uncomplicated (because I didnt have counternarratives at the time about "nation" or "racist white women" etc.), narrative of "women fought for and won rights"... "Emily Murphy" was, to me, this hot grown up lady who fought "The Man" and won "rights" (at the time her whiteness and bougie-ness didn't register the way they do now)...
of course no longer 9 years old, I'm more familiar with the (racist/classist) work of folk like the Famous Five... and understand that there's a great deal of strategic forgetting that takes place in putting forward national historical narratives that continue to build the continuously colonizing nation (here, canada) ... in this case, the "heritage moment" series..
but this clip also exists as a "moment" for me, a moment in my "self-heritage" that I'd like to claim... I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't inspired on my path towards anti-oppression work by whatever that clip represented to me at the time... and so I do watch that clip with a sense of nostalgia, alongside critical awareness -- I love divas, and my intense feeling for that particular "Emily Murphy" (with that assuring, knowing smirk on her face... like she and i shared a secret knowlege and power) has played an important part in my "coming out" as a feminist gal.... whenever she would come onto my screen, I'd have this 30 second feminist space, a space of sisterhood, female desire, and even a sort of validation for my young understanding of an unjust world ... I think I would see myself in some ways. I remember repeating that monologue on my own to a mirror, and getting **something** important out of it... (unless i'm just a tragic case of a brown girl overcome by white-identification... but I don't think that would be a fair assessment... again, I think it's complicated )..
Posted by Sheetal
May 5, 2008, 3:04 PM
3/3
so let's remember lest we take this "heritage moment" without a whole sea full of salt-- it's way past 1929, and most women (and most men) in canada haven't really achieved "personhood" in this nation -- a nation that has to continuously (and in very active, material ways such as residential schooling) forget/erase its colonial past present and future... and don't forget our abysmal treatment of people who are seeking refuge in Canada or people who the systems consider "illegal" -- i mean, let's not forget we're complicit in different ways in this... and narratives like those put forward by "heritage moments" *can* and often *do* support maintaining these structures...
but ... that representation of something called "Emily Murphy" also played a role in my process of coming to engage with this complicated thing called "feminism"-- which has led me to work against systems of The Man, and learn so much more about what "anti-oppression" means, and really try to develop a personal feminist way that attempts to recognize privilege and continue learning and growing and working towards the freedom of all.... and I think I'm at a place now where I can take those feelings inspired by "Emily Murphy" from the commercial and ground it in more nuanced, politicized, engaged, work.... so maybe it ain't all good, and maybe it ain't all bad...
ahhh sorry for the long post, just trying to work through thoughts
Posted by Sheetal
May 5, 2008, 3:04 PM
It's great to have your perspective on this Sheetal, thanks for sharing it (long working-it-through posts are always welcome).
Posted by Catherine
May 5, 2008, 3:12 PM
Even "decent" people are a product of their time - I understand why they believed what they did - i don't condemm
Posted by Michelle
May 12, 2008, 11:55 AM
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