Why Dean Brody’s "Canadian Girls" Makes Me Want To Fight A Bear
Canadians love when Canadiana hits mainstream listenership. Like kids who only have one Adam Sandler song for Hanukah, Canadians only have a handful of songs that explicitly state Canadian pride and we hold onto them for dear life. So when Dean Brody released Canadian Girls in 2012, our country loving hearts slurped it up like the last drop of maple syrup at a Molson Canadian pancake kegger. Stephen Cooke of the Halifax Chronicle-Herald called the song, "a honky-tonk rebuttal to the Beach Boys' ode to women from The Golden State." The chorus boasts a warm country twang that will mull around your head for hours after the song is over.
But every time the song pops up on my broken car radio, I am puzzled, baffled even. Why does this song drive me absolutely up the wall? Do I love it or hate it? Do I want to denounce Dean Brody for sexist generalizations or do I want to don a “sexy toque” and dance around wearing a red flannel and no pants? This song is filled with moral quandaries for my country loving, feminist fighting soul. Here is why Canadian Girls makes me want to fight a bear.
Dean Brody - Canadian Girls - Open Road Recordings (2012)
The song begins with a vague description of the Canadian girl. I mean really it’s woman, but…anyways:
She grew up watching hockey / With her daddy on Saturday nights / He taught her how to tie her skates / Her brothers taught her how to fight
Ah, some classic Canadian sexism: goes down as smooth as a Double Double from Timmies that you didn’t order but are now inexplicably drinking. The ideal Canadian girl is one that has been taught and influenced by men in her life. Moms? Gross, they’re probably going to make you clean your room instead of punch a bartender in the face. Sisters? Call me when you’re done SHOPPPPING. We want our Canadian girls brewed by men, for men.
The next verses are a bizarre list of qualifications. Even with all her brute manliness, the Canadian girl must wear heels with her flannel, because I’ll be damned if her femininity is lost in the hockey-fueled coffee-brewing smog of a 6AM ice rink. She must watch Degrassi but never admit to it. Why I wonder? These Canadian girls must have secret sacrificial shrines to Jimmy and Mia that must be kept secret lest the church elders find out.
The song carries on, giving a little salute to our military and Moosehead Beer in the process, as if Dean Brody’s agent made a list of key words that would pander to our equivalent of ‘Merica lovin’ machismo. Dean tells us that Canadian girls are not like other girls around the world, they’re different, which is the socially acceptable way of saying most women are superficial, but these hockey toting hotties are not because they like my stuff. These girls are most ideally “proud but sometimes quiet” (good god we don’t have time for me to deconstruct how problematic that line was).
Yet, as I watch Dean Brody’s music video, it surprisingly features a group of diverse women dancing to his Canadian drawl. There are various spotlights on real women around Canada in a multitude of high powered jobs - entrepreneurs, mechanics, machinists (they used the same woman twice here, watch out), recycling techs, acrobatic artists . . . multiple acrobatics artists . . . like four acrobatics artists . . . is this on purpose? WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO TELL US DEAN?
Dean Brody’s Canadian Girls mystifies me more than ever before. Some critics have called the song empowering, some call it bland white bread. I suppose I will continue on with my existing relationship with the song: when it comes on the radio, I’ll tell myself I’ll only listen to the first verse, and then when I finish tapping my fingers to the final chorus, I’ll roll down my window and scream, “Curse You, Dean Brody!”.
