Not my Whistler

Have you watched the new CTV series Whistler? Like the village of its namesake, the television show is gaining quite a reputation.

On August 2nd, Canadian snowboarding legend and sometime stoner Ross Rebagliati announced a lawsuit against the show. One might expect Ross to sue the show for sucking, but instead, his personal defamation suit alleges that the show’s producers modeled an immoral and reprehensible character on him.

Rebagliati claims that Beck McKaye, a fictional Olympic gold-medalist snowboarder, is too similar to him, and that this association harms his reputation. He is worried that the show will affect his ability to secure future sponsorships. Maybe. More on this debacle in a moment, but first I want to talk about Whistler – the place and the show.

I was in Whistler Village when the series made its television debut. In fact, I was drinking Pilsners with a handful of Ontario and Aussie ex-pats on Whistler beach the night after the show first aired.

I’ve never lived near Whistler, but I have visited the place more times than I care to remember. I have several life-long friends who call Whistler home. All of them have been there for more than half a decade, and they have all lived through the famed ski resort’s transformation into a playground for the wealthy, stoned, or Australian (sometimes all three).

Arguably, it was Ross Rebagliati who first put Whistler Village on the map. A long-time resident, Rebagliati won Olympic gold at the 1998 winter games in Nagano for snowboarding.

Shortly afterwards Ross suffered his first character impeachment when he tested positive for drug use. Routine Olympic blood tests had found traces of marijuana. His medal was taken away, but was later returned because marijuana was not considered a performance enhancing drug by Olympic standards.

Whistler Village has been a Canadian cultural icon ever since. The village and its adjacent mountains (Whistler and Blackcomb) are synonymous with an über-chic lifestyle made popular by tales of wilderness, extreme sports and mild hedonism. Whistler represents everything that most people will never find in the big cities of North America.

For my generation, it remains the definitive anti-urban port-of-call. Chances are if you are under 30 and love snowboarding, you have considered moving to Whistler at some point in your life. I am still visiting friends who followed through.

The attraction has not gone unnoticed at CTV. Whistler is reported to be one of the most expensive all-Canadian TV productions to date, at a cost of $1.4 million per episode. Some could argue that as far as trend-spotting goes, the series is long overdue.

Canadian media magazine Playback describes the production and plotline in an online article posted back in January:

Created by executive producer Kelly Senecal, the series is an ensemble piece with the murder of a champion snowboarder at its center. His family and friends deal with the death and its mysterious circumstances, while seeing to their own interpersonal issues.

According to Senecal, the show being made is a far cry from the one first suggested to him by the network and production partners.

“They had some sort of initial concept about five stoner snowboarders living in a cabin or something, but that got tossed and I started from scratch,” he says. “The only thing that stayed was the setting.”

[…]

Whistler comes in for CTV on the heels of its cancelled newsroom drama The Eleventh Hour, perhaps signalling a new trend whereby although the setting may be Hoserland, but the content is not, as Senecal calls it, “on-the-nose Canadian.” While Eleventh Hour was on the side of the angels, dealing in topical Canadian issues, Whistler is looking for mass appeal in sinful intrigue and the class divide of a resort town.

Murder mystery? Interpersonal issues? Sinful intrigue? Class divide?

Personally, I would have preferred the five stoner snowboarders in a cabin, like Friends with snowboards and bongs. I have seen the show and trust me, most other people would prefer this version too.

Whistler (the place) certainly has intrigue and issues, but they aren’t anything close to what the show portrays. Truth be told, this show doesn’t borrow any substance from Whistler Village. It could take place anywhere in the world. For starters, there are nowhere near enough Australians in the cast.

So, why is the patron saint of Whistler Village all worked-up?

Some accuse Ross Rebagliati of a callous cash-grab. Others think his anger is justified. Either way, you can’t really blame the guy for speaking out. His image is so intrinsically linked to the village. He made Whistler internationally famous. If a television show wants to subvert the story line of Whistler Village and its inhabitants, no one (and I mean no one) has more street credibility to cry foul than Ross Rebagliati.

Personally, I hope he wins his lawsuit. I hope it forces the end of this TV show – this pretentious piece of tax-subsidized, over-produced, under-thought, banal pap. I don’t know anyone in Whistler who would disagree with me. They all told me so last month.

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This post was written by alevo.

[tags]television, Whistler, snowboarding, Olympics, Canada[/tags]