I love Toronto. I'm proud to call myself a Torontorian, just look at the banner I have at the top: me and Toronto. It's where I was born and raised and it'll forever be where I call home.So on Monday's review of Kick-Ass, I mentioned how it bugged me seeing Toronto pose as New York City. It happens all the time and I'm sure we've all seen many movies with Toronto in disguise whether we were aware of it or not. Besides the cheesiness of it, it never really bothered me. But after watching Kick-Ass it seemed kind of embarrassing and I realized something new: Toronto is a whore.
Let me explain. Prostitutes are people who take money in exchange for sexual deeds to fulfill one's fantasies. In a way, isn't Toronto doing the exact same thing? We're really selling ourselves short. I feel as though our city is telling movie studios, "Hey! You there! Come on in! Film your movies here! Just pay your taxes and we'll be whatever you want us to be!". We're whoring ourselves out.
And really, we don't even do a good job of creating said fantasy. I was listening to the iFanboy podcast this weekend on their review of Kick-Ass. They all loved the movie, but they too thought using Toronto was pretty ridiculous. Especially in the aerial shots. I mean you can cut out prominent landmarks like the CN Tower or the Rogers Center, but you can't hide the skyline. I mean just look at the two skylines in the picture above. Toronto is no New York. It's not only the skyline, it's in the buildings too. When you walk around Manhattan you can't help but notice how much character there is in the look of the buildings. It's like each one has a specific identity. That's the flaw I find with downtown Toronto. The buildings are boring looking. Everything is vanilla and homogeneous. They lack the character that Manhattan has and you can't hide it when you're shooting a movie downtown.
That's all I have to say. It never used to bug me but when it's so blatant like this, I just can't ignore it. But I think our city is going to make strides in the future. My friend Keith was telling me about a movie called Chloe, an American movie that's based in Toronto and which identifies itself as Toronto. This summer, Scott Pilgrim VS the World is coming out and it's based in Toronto as well. I hope this trend continues. Come on Toronto, let's not be a fantasy anymore. Let's make Hollywood love us for who we are.
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