On Canada's second-rate arts community's concern about their fourth-rate colleague's detention in Egypt

A number of the mediocrities who comprise the bulk of Canada's film and arts community are publicly bemoaning the fate of York University Film Professor John Greyson, who is currently imprisoned in Egypt on charges of aiding the Muslim Brotherhood.

The journalist and film critic Rick McGinnis noted that, "only in English Canada, where we made an industry out of making unwatchable films, would someone like Greyson have the temerity to call himself a filmmaker - and said industry respond in the affirmative."

It's unlikely that many of the people declaring their support for a fellow "filmmaker" could even name one of the horrendously bad excuses for movies that Greyson created, let alone has actually seen one. But there is a good reason that the Canadian film industry's posturing, ill-informed dilettantes who dabble in activism want Greyson back.

I know one director who told me, referring to one of the foremost of Greyson's supporters, "I would rather have hot needles shoved into my eyes than have to watch another Atom Egoyan movie." That critique may be a touch hyperbolic. Having three or four fingernails slowly ripped out would certainly be a more enjoyable use of time than watching another of Egoyan's tedious, plotless exercises in self-indulgence, but the particular torture he mentioned seems excessive. Still, his main point is valid.

In a nutshell, it helps to have inept hacks like Greyson make asinine, interminably tiresome garbage in the guise of "film making" so that the awful, excruciatingly boring movies of someone like an Atom Egoyan or Sarah Polley don't look quite so bad by comparison.

Unless one of the names of either Robert Lantos, Don Carmody, or Martin Katz are on a Canadian film, it is almost assured to be an agonizingly painful experience.

John Greyson may be a pleasant enough person on the self-congratulatory cocktail circuit among the leeches who drain arts grants from Canadian taxpayers to make complete crap that no one wants to see. But the reprehensible goals behind Greyson's so-called activism suggest he is a terrible human being.

Greyson is a Gay man who has devoted immeasurable energy into trying to deligitimize the only country in the middle east that would not persecute him for his sexual orientation. As a prominent part of the vapid, hysterical, anti-Capitalist cretins calling themselves "Queers Against Israeli Apartheid" he has lent tacit support to the misogynistic, homophobic Muslim Brotherhood group Hamas. His aim has been to try to undermine a democratic country that is attempting to defend itself from Islamist fanatics with genocidal aspirations towards Israel.  Greyson has encouraged a boycott of Israel that immediately brings to mind the Nazi-era  boycotts of Jews.

It is ironic that in his pathological detestation of Israel and his efforts to befriend the miscreants in Gaza who would like to destroy the Jewish State, Greyson evidently overlooked that there are people in Egypt who detest the Muslim Brotherhood even more than the Israelis. Now, after years of propagandizing a lie about the oppressiveness of Israel, Greyson is being treated to a mild sample of what "justice" looks like in the Middle East outside of the democratic state he is so intent on demonizing.

This episode explains much of the cowardly hostility towards Israel of which people like Greyson make such a show. They know that despite their lies and propaganda, Israel will always treat them fairly and humanely, and so there is no real risk in their publicity stunts like trying to run through an Israeli naval blockade.

Of course, these ironies will undoubtedly be lost on the many fatuous, untalented blowhards in Canada who define themselves as "artists."

It's unlikely John Greyson had either the courage or the wherewithal to actually engage in the terrorist crimes of which he stands accused in Egypt. Perhaps the Egyptian government just decided to do film fans a favor by locking Greyson in a hole. But whatever the reason for his current predicament, the pompous York professor is likely to be back in Canada soon and feted by the vapid members of the  "arts community" as a "hero."

Nothing could be less true. Greyson is no more a "hero" than he is a "talented filmmaker."

Prepare for the shrill cry of Toronto's Arts Leeches

If you were a carpenter and you weren't very good at your job, odds are you'd have a tough time getting work, and eventually you'd have to stop doing it professionally on a full time basis and find something else to support yourself.

What probably wouldn't happen is that you would say your carpentry adds intangible benefit to society-at-large and that you make great sacrifices to be a carpenter despite popular rejection. You would most likely not expect that the government should give you money so that you could continue to practice your craft, which evidently is something you're not not good enough at to generate enough support so you can be self-sufficient.

Craftsmen and, well just everyone else in every line of work could take a page out of Canada's third-rate arts community, who think that the drivel they produce that only a handful of people care about should be subsidized by tax money to the tune of millions per year.

Great artists throughout history have painted or written because they had something to create or say that came from a passion in their soul. They were anxious for patronage, but real artists, the Van Goghs and Melvilles and Fitzgeralds crated in poverty out of love. They achieved success, in their lifetimes of after, because of the merit of their work.

But Merit need not be the key to success as an artist in Toronto. You can be a talentless hack, but if you have connections on Arts' Councils and whine loudly enough, you can still have taxpayers' hard-earned money deposited directly into your bank account st support your "art."

That may change soon. The new administration at City Hall has let it be known that cuts are needed and they have committed to keep taxes down. The prospect that they may have to create something in which someone is actually interested enough to pay for has sent Toronto's "arts community" into a full-fledged panic. The City Manager's report comes in tomorrow morning with the mandate to make either 10% cuts across the board or accept the recommendations of the consulting firm that has been examining city services over the last few months.

It's expected that arts funding, which is only of major benefit to marginal artists, will be first on the chopping block. They may not be able to fill theatre seats, paint pictures that people want to buy, make music that people want to hear or write words people are willing to pay to read, but Toronto's arts community does know how to scream loudly when they fear the government largess may come to an end.

So when you hear shrill shrieking tomorrow, its source will be from Queen Street by people who may actually, finally have to do something that someone values enough to pay for.