Reclaiming Canadian Bodies: Visual Media and Representation ed. by Lynda Mannik, Karen McGarry (review)

Mannik and McGarry’s well-curated interdisciplinary anthology presents fresh and engaging perspectives around meanings of the visual as it relates to nationalisms and identity. Affect theory plays a central role in this anthology, as the editors explain in the introduction, in order to destabilise mainstream and established (and arguably unquestioned) ideas of what Canadian identity is, who it includes, how it is negotiated, and how it is embodied or performed at the individual, collective or institutional level. Each chapter applies this to a case study of visual media and representation revealing the impact of the visual on the emotional and ‘affective states’ of a person or group. By exploring the power of those representations and their influence on perceptions and embodiments of identity and nationalism in everyday life, the discourse of ‘Canadianness’ as construction is recognised and disseminated.

Each of the three thematic sections are titles with a play on the notion of embodiment, and linked together via short introduction by the editors; the contributors also refer to each other’s work throughout, strengthening the anthology with these new intersections and parallels. In the first section (‘Embodied Ideals’), Mitchison examines the relationship between the media, fashion, and the Canadian body beginning in the 1920s; Craig analyses representation(s) of women in Canadian beer commercials, and McGarry traces the arc of the intense nationalism felt by one group of figure-skating spectators at the 2002 Winter Olympics. In the second section (‘The Embodiment of “Others”’), Spence and Hogeveen compare and contrast the ways in which Otherness is or is not depicted in sports media through Wayne Gretzky, Ben Johnson and Georges St-Pierre, while Mannik provides an in-depth examination of the photographic representations of ‘boat people’ in Canadian media over the decades, and how this translates into how citizens perceived these newcomers, beginning with the SS Walnut in 1945 and ending with the Amelie in 1987. Finally, in the third and last section (‘Embodied Activism and Advocacy’) around people engaged with art and imagery for themselves, Gauthier profiles the Métis filmmaker Loretta Todd and her embodied cinema, in which her camera focused on the body and voice of those she interviewed, enhancing their storytelling, allowing the speakers to talk back; Richardson compares and contrasts street art in Clichy-en-Bois in Paris and Regent Park in Toronto; Connors Jackman explores community history and memory by revisiting the politics of the 2010 Pride parade in Toronto, and the contentious decision made by Pride Toronto to exclude pro-Palestinian group Queers against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA).

These essays reveal the complexity and contradictions of being Canadian. The book is timely in the context of the recent federal election in Canada, which ultimately was not about the economy as so many pundits predicted, but about Canadian values and identity. As this anthology demonstrates, affect theory and notions of embodiment will be valuable instruments in continuing to consider ways in which Canadian identities are constructed and understood, known and performed.