"Welcome to Civilization": Colonialism, the Gothic, and Canada's Self-protective Irony in the Ginger Snaps Werewolf Trilogy

In this essay the author takes a closer look at the Ginger Snaps werewolf trilogy, examining the films' construction of colonial history and this history's continuing influence in Canada. The films use a combination of irony and the gothic to critique colonialism, but they do so in a way that places them within larger patterns of English-Canadian culture where the nation is only moderately criticized by such creative strategies. Ultimately, the films uphold racial hierarchies, maintain an essentialized idea of the nation itself, and occasionally appear to laud its power, even when the nation might initially or in some ways appear to be under figurative attack.