Recorded 1999 Length 1:35 | Genre Show tune, comedy Label Atlantic Records | |
Released June 15, 1999 (1999-06-15) Writer(s) Trey Parker and Marc Shaiman | ||
"Blame Canada" is a song from the 1999 film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, written by Trey Parker & Marc Shaiman. In the song, the parents of the fictional South Park, led by Sheila Broflovski (Mary Kay Bergman), decided to blame Canada for the trouble their children have been getting into since watching the Canadian-made movie Terrance and Phillip: Asses of Fire and imitating what they saw and heard in the movie. The parents refuse to accept that, by not preventing their children from watching Terrance and Phillip in the first place, they are, themselves, to blame for their children's misbehavior. "Blame Canada" satirizes scapegoating and parents that do not control "their children's consumption of popular culture". In the 2014 game South Park: The Stick of Truth, the song was made 8-Bit.
Reception
The song was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song (1999). This created controversy because all nominated songs are traditionally performed during the Oscar broadcast, but the song contained the word fuck, which the FCC prohibits using in prime time broadcasts. At the 72nd Academy Awards, comedian Robin Williams performed the song with a chorus that gasped when the word was to be sung (Williams turned around at the crucial moment and did not actually sing it). He included digs at Margaret Trudeau and Bryan Adams, partially taken from lyrics of Sheila Broflovski's reprise of the song in "La Resistance". He referenced Celine Dion as well. Mary Kay Bergman, the voice actress who sang the female parts in the song, committed suicide months before the performance, forcing the organizers to search for a replacement for her and Trey Parker, who did the male voices. Williams introduced the song by speaking with duct tape over his mouth so that his speech resembled that of Kenny McCormick, then tearing it off and finally saying Stan Marsh's trademark line, "Oh my god! They killed Kenny!"
There was also some concern about the fact the song referred to well-known Canadian singer Anne Murray as a "bitch", but Murray indicated that she was not offended by the tongue-in-cheek lyric (Murray was invited to sing the song herself on the Oscar telecast but had to decline due to a prior commitment). When asked, the Canadian Consul General (and former Prime Minister) Kim Campbell said that she was not offended by the song since it was clearly a silly satirical piece and not intended to insult her country. This is made clear in the final line of the song:
We must blame them and cause a fuss
Before somebody thinks of blaming us!
Coincidentally, the Canadian Oscar telecast in which Robin Williams sang the song included the premiere of the "I Am Canadian" rant advertisement, which counters many perceived Canadian stereotypes.
The Academy Award was instead awarded to Phil Collins' song "You'll Be in My Heart," which was parodied on an episode of South Park released the following year, "Timmy 2000", as "You'll Be in Me". In the episode, Collins, who acts as the episode's antagonist, was always seen holding his Oscar statuette. At the end of the episode, it gets painfully stuck up his rectum.