Spine 376: 49th Parallel

Powell and Pressburger decided to make a movie that would convince America to enter WW2. Powell and Pressburger made a movie that feels like the Tourist Board of Canada advertising to Nazis: “Canada is beautiful and you can kill dozens of us for months before you face any consequences.” Of course it is also a movie about the unity of the Commonwealth, not just Canada with the UK, but also the Inuit and other Indigenous Peoples, French Canadians, and Hutterites are all in this together, even if there is slight acknowledgement that Canada on the whole isn’t trusting at least the Hutterites. A note of apology, Pat and Adam talk about the film in the film’s terms and therefore quote the films use of “Eskimo”, but also we continue to use that term when talking about the scene in question. Eskimo is mainly seen as pejorative now and we both should know better. The scene itself is meant to be a rejection of prejudice, which makes our use all the more egregious.