Feature: GTA V Comments (Part III) - Canadian

Okay, think of Canada.

What was the first stereotypical image that jumped into your head? Did it include bacon, hockey, maple syrup, moose, Mounties, poutine, donuts? A beaver galloping through the Rocky Mountains? Some kind of weird amalgam of all of those things on a poster shaped like a toque being sold by Bob and Doug McKenzie on kijiji?

I'll bet the character below never entered your thoughts:

Trevor Phillips, Lord of Chaos

All those Canadian stereotypes that one can possibly come up with, Trevor Phillips is the inverse of all of them.

Constable Benton Fraser &
Diefenbaker

Paul Gross' Mountie character from the television show "Due South" (Constable Benton Fraser) is patient, kind, quiet, and looks great in his red serge. He was never above matching violence with violence, but a lot of the time he'd use teamwork (with his American partner or his dog or Sgt. Buck Frobisher played by Leslie Nielsen) and some careful thinking to solve a crime or right a wrong. Trevor on the other hand...

Trevor is an unhinged maniac most of the time. He moves from behaviour bordering on friendly to smashing someone's skull in the same way a regular person would flip a light switch. Left to his own devices, Trevor -- a lot of people call him "T" -- is chaos incarnate.

One of the features of GTA V is the ability to switch between three characters. The interesting thing is that while playing as one character the other two carry on with their own little digital agendas. So, you're never quite sure where the "destination" character is or what they'll be doing when you assume control of them. Sometimes a character can be on the other side of the world, driving down the highway, or they could be four blocks over finishing a coffee. When switching to Trevor, I tend to hold my breath.

Exhibit "A"

I've dropped into scenes with Trevor where he was just ejected from a casino; waking up in a dumpster; and getting kicked out of a women's clothing store, complaining that he should be able to try on the clothes before he buys them. So far -- and I'm closing in on the end of the game -- most of the worst stuff he does is "on camera" and doesn't happen off-screen but I still get this sinking feeling that I'll drop in on him as he's butchering a bunch of senior citizens or some other terrible thing.

Not strawberry

jam.

This is so counter to the Canadian stereotype that the first time Trevor lets it slip that he's from the Great White North, I figured he was just being erratic or trying to make a joke. But Trevor's country of origin is mentioned enough times that I just accepted it as fact (and the official backstory for Trevor confirms it) and filled in his backstory a little more. Taking into account Trevor's current living arrangement, which has the feel of a desert version of the fictional Sunnyvale Trailer Park where "Trailer Park Boys" takes place, I started to imagine that Trevor in GTA V was the older, warped version of Trevor from Sunnyvale. (That Trevor, who was often derided as useless and treated like dirt, vanished under mysterious circumstances between Season 6 and 7.) But even that didn't make me feel any better about GTA V's Trevor as a "representative" of Canada, even though it explained his filthy language.

In school, we were taught that Canada has a worldwide reputation for being peacekeepers and referees, characterizations that were earned not through a show of force but by negotiation and compromise or just stepping between two (or more) factions and saying, "Let's all take a step back, eh?"

Take for instance Lester B. Pearson, Canada's 14th Prime Minister. In 1957, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in "solving" the Suez Crisis by creating the "United Nations Emergency Force" (well before The Avengers formed in 1963), which laid the foundation for the United Nations Security Council. Or what about Ken Taylor and John Sheardown and their involvement in the "Canadian Caper"? In that instance, a couple of Canadian diplomats played a huge role in getting American diplomats out of Iran during the 1979 hostage crisis. (Watch "Argo" to get the gist of what happened.)

Trevor causes a stampede at the beach by just being a greasy, Grade A crazy shitbird.

And, geez, just think about Canadian expats and innovators that Canadians hold near and dear to their hearts. Would any of them assume control of strip club by murdering the owner and storing the body in a fridge? Would Alex Trebek do that? What about Paul Shaffer, William Shatner, Pamela Anderson, Will Arnett, Joe Shuster, James Naismith, Mike Myers, or Norman Bethune? Probably not. But maybe Rick Moranis, Rick Hansen, Seth Rogan, Terry Fox, Randy Bachman, Norm Macdonald, Lincoln Alexander, Shannon Tweed, or Rick Mercer would do it under the right circumstances?

92% of Canadians have the

ability to levitate thanks to

Doug Henning.

No! No, they wouldn't.

What about Steven Ogg, the Calgary, Alberta actor that plays Trevor? I don't think he would.

Canadian stereotypes exist for a reason! In a lot of cases, they're absolutely true. Trevor exhibits none of the stereotypical traits. Amoung other things, he's not kind, considerate, patient or polite. In fact, in one "Rampage" mission he guns down an onslaught of US military men because they make fun of his accent and the whole "aboot" thing. While it was a bit of a warped power fantasy to lay waste to people making fun of Canadian "accents" -- my God, no one up here actually hears an accent, unless the person talking is from Newfoundland -- I've never felt the need to take up arms as a result of sniggering comments aboot how I pronounce certain words.

Trevor is an abomination as a Canadian. He's a monster and everything he touches turns to shit.

His house is layered in nine different kinds of squalor and when he extends his presence to Los Santos he covers everything in filth, debris, and corruption. He not only brings chaos, he also guts cleanliness and eviscerates order and spreads the innards over everything he sees and he's completely okay with it.

No Canadian would ever do this. Well, if they were sober.

GTA V is one of a handful of games that has succeeded in actually offending me on an ongoing basis. Not for sexual or violent content but because Trevor, as a Canadian character, pushes against the grain of the Canadian stereotype. Pushes with a chainsaw.

I would have been far less offended had Rockstar embraced and reinforced the Canadian stereotype with Trevor. Granted, it would have radically change GTA V, but I would have preferred this to psychopath we get as Trevor, who's not loveable and isn't even a character to which I might be able to relate.

Trevor Phillips is the Canadian stereotype upended and I don't like it. Most of the time, stereotype are terrible things, but I like the Canadian one. Trevor's an awful human being. He's also an awful Canadian...

... well, he gets the drinking part right. But nothing else.

- Aaron Simmer
Follow @EmpireArmchair

The gritty reboot of the Village People was so awful it wasn't even covered by the press.

In the Vancouver area they've really started to crack down on illegal dentistry

but Trevor obviously doesn't care.