off with her head

For years, now, non-Imperialist Canadians have been talking about shaking up our monetary artwork by using genuine Canadian figure heads - people who have actually contributed to the development of this weird and wonderful landscape - instead of the dowdy and not-so-Canadian queen.

For a fleeting moment, just this morning, I thought they got somewhere. There, on the new $20 bill, I would have sworn I saw Yoda. Yoda! Cool, I thought, Yoda's the new face of the $20 bill. How . . . Canadian?? Except, of course, he's not really Canadian. And why's he got his hair all coiffed and primped like that? Then it hit me: Yoda, it is not. Queen Elizabeth, it is.

I'll bet she's not amused. I know I wouldn't be, all done up and looking like a 900 year-old swamp-dweller. "Off with my head," I'd demand, before putting the artist in stocks and feeding him tiger prawns from the new Joey Tomatoes. "There," I'd taunt. "How do you like being green?! Doesn't feel so good, now, does it?"

It's not that I think that royalty should be placed upon a pedestal. But if you're going to make a statement about not wanting to fall under the scepter of an old woman who thinks that dropping a puck on centre ice once during her reign makes her an honourary hoser, replace her with someone who matters - Bob and Doug Mackenzie, for example, or Red Green, or Bubbles. Don't portray her as a fictional character from the planet Dagobah. Passive aggressiveness accomplishes little. I know. I'm passive aggressive, and it doesn't work.

What did amuse me was the way the CBC on line reported the change as a "facelift"
http://sympatico.msn.cbc.ca/story/business/national/2004/08/25/newtwentybill_040825.html In the portrait, she needs a facelift.

Apparently, artist Bill Reid, an internationally known sculptor, carver and jeweler often credited with the revival of Northwest Coast Native art, has his work featured on the back (no word on whether or not he's also responsible for the front). I haven't seen that side of the bill, yet, and probably won't until it's released Sept. 29, and so can only hope it's got a little more eye appeal. After all, the value of a bill runs deeper than just what you can buy with it. It speaks to a culture. What is this bill saying? The Force is with us??

Anyway, I think it only appropriate to give the last word to the green one (Yoda, not Liz): "Sick have I become. Old and weak. When 900 years old you reach, look as good you will not. Hmm?"