Canadian
theatre 
Image Gallery South Park's Canadian Hamlet
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| Philip as Hamlet |
Matt Stone and Trey Parker
From Episode 505, "Terrance and Phillip: Behind the Blow"
Original Air Date: 07/18/2001
In "Terrance and Phillip: Behind the Blow," the kids from South Park travel to see Philip (who is Canadian) perform Hamlet (5.2) at the "Canadian Shakespeare Festival"––clearly a reference to the Stratford Festival in Canada, the world's largest Festival devoted to the works of Shakespeare. The scene is performed at high-speed in South Park's invented Canadian accent with added coloquialisms: for example "O, I could tell you, buddy, but let it be. Horatio, I am dead. Thou liv'st, guy (5.2.279-81)." The scene is a hilarious take on Stratford that notes the cultural and institutional centrality of Shakespeare in Canada. It also recognizes (perhaps accidentally) the fact that many Canadian actors who achieve fame in the United States have done Shakespeare or worked at Stratford, such as Wayne and Shuster (like Wayne and Shuster, Terrance and Philip got their American break on The Ed Sullivan Show), or William Shatner and Christopher Plummer (please see our page on Canadian Shakespeareans in Space). The episode may also allude to Keanu Reeve's well-publicized performance as Hamlet in Winnipeg in 1995.
The episode is telling in what it says about Americans' perception of Canadian culture insofar as it gets translated and adapted into an American mass/popular cultural context. Curiously, the episode marks an infrequent reference to and recognition of Canadian culture from a major American television show. As such, even as the episode stages a subversive and parodic adaptation of Shakespeare and/in Canada (that is an Americanized idea of a Canadianized Hamlet), it brings Canada to the fore for a mass market audience.
Video Clip: South Park's Canadian Hamlet
To see the full show online go to South Park Studios and follow the links through to Episode 5, Season 5.
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