Working on Screen: Representations of the Working Class in Canadian Cinema

Brendan F.R. Edwards is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History
at the University of Saskatchewan.

In dealing with the representation of working people in Canadian film,
the 13 essays that make up this collection touch on themes of history,
political activism, globalization, gender, regional representation, and
nationalism.

In their introduction, Khouri and Varga argue that studies of Canadian
film have too often marginalized representations of class, gender,
ethnicity, and race in film in an effort to define a nationalist agenda.
Contributors explore the institutional limits and absence of
working-class representations in Canadian film, the interrelation of
class with the social production of gender and sexuality, and the
complexities of identity and citizenship. In doing so, they challenge
assumptions of coherence and community articulated in Canada’s
national cinema.

Taking issue with the idea that Quebec cinema has always been more
explicitly political than English-Canadian cinema (and its related
notion of two distinct solitudes in Canadian cinema as a whole), André
Loiselle argues that the “two solitudes” characterization fails to
account for the use of common themes relating to class, international
influences, and dominant conditions of cinema production. Loiselle’s
close scrutiny of specific films demonstrates that assumptions about the
thematic tendencies of Quebec cinema depend entirely on a selective
canonization.

Other contributors discuss films such as Rude, Soul Survivor, Dirty
Laundry, The Hanging Garden, Gross Misconduct, Margaret’s Museum,
Valérie; NFB documentaries on Canadian labour unions; and the CBC
series Canada: A People’s History. All of the essays in this engaging
collection illuminate the editors’ central thesis that class serves as
a primary means of social organization and a structuring force in
everyday life.