I don’t want to hear any more lectures from you. Not one.
I don’t want to hear how Americans are rubber-neckers for cultural trainwrecks. No more on how they obsess over scandal or can turn anything into a joke. No more about how unfeeling they can be.
If the Toronto Mayor Rob Ford mess has taught us anything, it is Canadians can be just as shallow as the neighbours to the south. Only difference, Canada has had fewer opportunities.
WINDERS
Quick, who won the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize? You see.
I don’t want to hear any more lectures from you, Canada.
In addition to making headlines around the globe, Ford has been a punchline for late-night monologues, as well as the subject of more than one Letterman Top 10 List. He has been a punching bag for new cultural bellwethers like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report, and lampooned on Saturday Night Live. In just a few short weeks, he has burned himself into pop culture consciousness – crossing over from politics to hold down a ‘sideshow freak’ status previously afforded to the likes of Silvio Berlusconi and Anthony Weiner.
I’ll admit to joining in from time to time. How can you not? It has been an amazingly bizarre tale, as surreal as it is sad.
It also doesn’t hurt that I, like so many, simply don’t like the man. From politics to personality, I think he’s a blueprint example of the erosion of political leadership in Canada and the United States. His faux populist, anti-intellectual mindset has me begging for another ice age. I hope he and his family disappear from public life, becoming a hard-to-recollect trivia question answer.
Those feelings aside, something happened this week; I started feeling sick about what I was watching.
Somewhere along the way we, as a Canadian society, crossed over from satire to schadenfreude.
We need today’s juicy tidbit to be that much better than yesterday’s. We’re junkies on the same level as Ford himself. We’re unable to keep the thirst for one more hit at bay, thus going to embarrassing lengths for that next fix.
No longer satisfied with following the unfolding story, we are actively rooting for the car to careen over the cliff.
You know that’s the direction we’re heading with Ford. Each subsequent interview and press conference lays bare a more and more troubled, mentally disturbed addict in deep denial. He is enabled by an equally troubled family with all the dysfunction of a Sam Shepherd play, and egged on by a maddening crowd with a thirst for blood.
Did you see the ‘regular’ people surrounding him at last weekend’s Toronto Argonauts game? Ford hammed it up for cameras, hugged and cheered, even sat next to a Hamilton fan holding a sign reading, “Our mayor’s better than yours.”
Thanks to social media, and the snarky hipster class it has empowered, shots of Ford went viral within moments, each with an accompanying quip about the man. How could they pass up the opportunity? These were not well-wishes, not fans or supporters of the man, but cultural rubber-neckers getting their ironic moment in before it all comes to an end.
This has become a Charlie Sheen moment for Canada.
How often have I been lectured about fighting the stigma of mental health from the federal government to the national media to my own employer? And this is how we apply those lessons.
We have become a nation of people poking a badly wounded animal with a stick just for fun. We no longer think about getting the man help, but instead, root for his demise in as public – and as televised – a fashion as possible.
That said, count me out from here on. Maybe let me know how it ends, but I think I already know.
And no more lectures from you. Not one.
