Posterchild is pulling open the curtains of his costume and baring his soul.

Turns out there is a CN tower in there.

Huh.

When my closest encounters with Toronto were driving through it, I hated Toronto- along with the rest of Canada (Including Torontonians themselves, who were ranked 3rd in a recent survey of “Toronto Hating”- just after Montreal and Vancouver.)

But now that I’ve lived and worked here for some time, I’m finding, more and more, that I love the city!

It’s got allot to offer, I think it can offer as much as Montreal or Vancouver, but unlike Montreal (which knows it is the sexiest, most artistic city in Canada) or Vancouver (which knows itself to be the greenest, hippest city in Canada.) Toronto offers what it’s got in an insecure and unpretentious way. Almost apologetically, even. How can it not be, when everyone has been telling us that we’re shit for so long that we’ve come to embrace the idea ourselves? “Sorry this isn’t Montreal, but maybe check out our music scene anyway?” “Sorry this isn’t Vancouver, but we actually are the center of theater and film in Canada?” Toronto is famous for negatively comparing itself to other cities- “TORONTO- Not as good as New York, but… Not Bad?”

Toronto the Good, Toronto the Ugly. The T.O.

Hogtown.

My Town. For now anyway.

Ugly or pretty, it’s still my city.

Make up your mind and get in or get out.

Ugly or pretty, it’s still my city.

Say what you will, but get in or get out.

Anyway, It’s interesting. Maybe the Bay Street power moguls are the ones giving us a bad name? Or maybe It’s something deeper.

Filmmaker Albert Nerenberg explores this ubiquitous loathing in a new documentary that just screened here at HOT DOCS: Let’s All Hate Toronto.


I wish I had a chance to see it.

From the Calgary Herald:


“Canadians are always searching for that one thing that unites the country,” says Toronto filmmaker Albert Nerenberg. “And it seems the one thing they can all agree on is that they hate Toronto.”

“I think I probably picked up the idea in Montreal, where Toronto-hating is practically a religion,” says Nerenberg … But I was surprised by how universal that sentiment is. And I think the word ‘hate’ is a bit exaggerated, people mostly resent, envy, and are bothered by Toronto. And shockingly, one of the centres of that feeling is in Toronto itself, where Torontonians hate Toronto. It’s a new thing, a sort of self-loathing, a resentment of the fact that they have to live and work there.”

Nerenberg has discovered that Albertans sure do hate Toronto, but not as much as Quebecers do. And francophone Quebecers sure hate Toronto, but not as much as the English-speaking ones do.

“Anglo-Quebecers, Montrealers specifically, are the traditional Toronto-haters,” he says. “Children there are breast-fed on such an idea. Meanwhile, Albertans have come by it more recently.”