All Things Scottish:

 Material Culture and the Scottish Revival in North America

Scottish Themes in Popular Culture

Another approach to the whole question of the construction of Scottish symbols might examine their manifestation in North American popular culture. A cursory enumeration of the use of such symbols reveal s examples  on television, film and in print. Much of it falls into the category of so-called "invented" traditions like the kilt and tartan. For instance, the creators of the Looney Tunes cartoons often lampoon Scottish symbols such as the kilt, tartan and  bagpipes. On one occasion, Bugs Bunny tramples on a kilted gentlemen's set of  pipes after mistaking them for a monster attacking an elderly woman. On another occasion Bugs floats out of castle by way of a helium-filled set of bagpipes. For its part, the late-night television show, Saturday Night Live, satirized the selling of Scottish paraphernalia in its sketch set in a Scottish supply store called, "All Things Scottish".

The medium of film has also recently made much use of Scottish themes and subjects. Mike Meyers, the creator of the main character in the "All Things Scottish" sketch, was also the lead actor in a film called, "So I Married an Axe Murderer" in which a piper plays the Rod Stewart song, "If You Want My  Body" and promptly falls on his face at the wedding of Meyer's character.

Of a more serious nature are the recent Hollywood attempts at portraying two figures from Scotland's history: William Wallace in Mel Gibson's, Braveheart and the Scottish cattle thief, Rob Roy MacGregor, played by Liam Neeson in Rob Roy.

In print, too, Scottish themes are prevalent. Witness the Globe and Mail's recent fascination with the contemporary Scottish diet and especially  the spectre of the deep-fried Mars bar. The return of the Stone of Destiny to Scotland after its theft about five hundred years ago during the Scottish wars of independence also garnered front-page coverage in the newspaper. Most recently, an advertisement for a travel weekend to the western islands of Scotland and Ireland with Robert Bateman appeared claiming that lucky adventurers who paid $3, 595 and up would experience "the culture that produced castles, celts, kilts, clans, ceilidhs, curling and clootie dumplings!"

At the same time, another genre of Scottish subjects have sprung up. This genre presents a less-Romantic, more stark picture of Scottish life. It includes such films as the well-publicized Trainspotting, an adaptation of an Irvine Welsh novel of the same name, the black comedy Shallow Grave, about three Edinburgh flat-mates who find their fourth, newly moved-in flatmate dead in his room,  and the less well-known motion picture Small Faces, about a small  boy growing up in the low-income areas of Glasgow in the 1960s.

This trend towards a more cynical portrayal of Scottish life is also echoed in literature. Irvine Welsh and James Kelman, among others, are two authors who write using working-class dialects on such topics as Scottish urban, inner-city life and Edinburgh heroin culture.

Any questions or comments? Feel free to e-mail me: rmaclean@chass.utoronto.ca.