The casual blasphemy was one thing, but this, via Lou Lumenick at the New York Post, is completely unacceptable:
It’s not unusual for a movie to be re-edited after its premiere at a film festival — “The Wackness” lost four minutes — but “Hamlet 2” may be the first movie where the main character’s nationality was altered. When it premiered in January at the Sundance Film Festival, Steve Coogan’s character, a failed actor who teaches drama at a high school in Tucson, was identified as being “from a dairy farm in Manitoba.” I met Coogan at a party afterwards and he said the director had asked him to play the character as a Brit, but he thought being a Canadian was “funnier.” When the film opened Friday at 103 venues, the reference to Manitoba was gone and many reviews referred to the actor — seen in the video above performing “Rock Me Sexy Jesus” — as an “American.” In recent interviews, Coogan has changed his tune and repeatedly said he wanted to play the role as an American.
I know there are those who would say that we Canadians should count ourselves lucky that our national honour is no longer besmirched by this film (what makes us so “funnier”, anyway?), but to steal a line from Harvey Fierstein: “Visibility at any cost!”
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