Revisionism and Rocket Richard...

A nice opinion piece in today's Ottawa Citizen by Janice Kennedy on the new Rocket Richard movie.

According to a new film biography - Maurice Richard, just released in Quebec this weekend in French, and set for broader release in English next spring as "The Rocket" -- our hero did not in fact belong to all of us. He belonged instead to those of us who a) spoke French and b) felt oppressed.

The film, directed by Belgian-born Charles Biname and starring Quebec actor Roy Dupuis, begins and ends with the Forum riot of 1955, sparked by Campbell's ignorant decision to suspend Richard for the playoffs. According to the Montreal Gazette's preview of the film, the incident is treated as the defining moment of modern Quebec history - a quebecois hero assaulted by the forces of les autres, a turning-point that could only lead to the true-bleu march for freedom.

The story quotes Dupuis, who was born three years after the Rocket retired. Says the actor of Richard, "He's the one who brought together the French-Canadian people who were, at the time, second-class citizens. That was the beginning of the fight. Before that, there was only submission and frustration. We were dominated. The bosses were Anglophones."

(Yeah, yeah. And Duplessis was part of the English conspiracy. The stifling rule of the Church was imposed by the sons of Wolfe.)

You can see there they've gone with this. They've taken one of Quebec's rare apolitical heroes and turned him into a sovereigntist lightning rod. Richard -- who was a federalist and mostly non-partisan, despite a brief fling with the Union Nationale - must be turning over in his grave.