Looking back on the Canadian feature film scene this year, one recurring image pops to mind: raw dirty sex. That is, sex behind a dumpster, shot so as not to expose the voluptuous nymphet on the bottom, but rather to highlight the less than graceful pumping of one white, jiggly, male ass on top, in Last Wedding.

Or better, sex featuring a not-so-buff, middle-aged married man, whose not-so pornographic member is gratuitously exposed after giving his all to a pretty young prostitute whose backside cellulite is only accentuated by the cold, blue lighting that marks the period in Century Hotel.

For all those who looked forward to seeing the fabulous Wendy Crewson bare it all in Suddenly Naked, you’d have had to stomach the grisly, albeit titillating, scenes of a stunning cougar and a six-foot-six grunge pup doing it on a mattress you imagine is encrusted with last month’s Kraft dinner.

And for something a little more sweet, a little less raw, but perhaps a little more dirty, Lea Pool serves up two hot, private-school lesbians doing the nasty while innocent new-girl-on-campus feigns sleep in the bed next to them in Lost and Delirious, an admittedly loose adaptation of Susan Swan’s The Wives of Bath, but a most accurate incarnation of the most generic male fantasy – no wonder the film sold in more than 30 countries.

But as memorable as these films are for their sexual pronunciation, and in some cases their scripts, performances and production values, none was selected for best film consideration at this year’s Genie Awards (See Genie Report, p. G-1). Last Wedding, which opened the 2001 Toronto International Film Festival to critical acclaim, was released theatrically prior to jury selection and named through a Playback Web survey the best Canadian film of 2001, is perhaps the biggest upset with six nominations, excluding the top honor. In multiple noms, the relationships-gone-bad film beat out top contenders Eisenstein (5), Treed Murray (5) and Un crabe dans la tete (4).

But enough about sex and top honors.

What’s truly top of mind these days is women. That is, the close to 60 female broadcast professionals who have lost their jobs to Corus Entertainment’s corporate restructuring.

Or better, broadcasting doyenne Trina McQueen deciding to call it quits less than a year after being named CTV’s president and COO (see story, p. 5), and only months after premium television mastermind Lisa de Wilde walked the plank.

While these events are unrelated, together they beg the question: are we returning to the broadcasting dark ages when the ‘boys club’ had a stranglehold on the industry’s senior rank positions?

‘When I sit back and think about the broadcast landscape, I hope and trust we’re not stepping back 10 years,’ says WTN outgoing president Elaine Ali, who was recently replaced by Toronto-based Tampax guru Wendy Herman (see story, p. 2).

McQueen assures that there have been ‘immense and exciting changes for women in the industry’ over the course of her 35-year career. Although, she says, ‘that doesn’t mean it’s secure [for women]. There still is some difficulty.’

The truth is, for all the white, jiggly, male asses controlling the show, the Canadian film and television industry boasts a fervent body of female toppers.

But no matter who’s on top, we’d all still agree, sex sells!

SAMANTHA YAFFE, Editor