Silly Iconography

"CAN AN AMERICAN ACTOR TAKE ON A CANADIAN ICON?" That's the "puzzler" that's front and centre on the National Post's front page. Beneath it is a still from Barney's Version, the film based on the Mordechai Richler novel of the same name. The movie will have its first public screening this evening at the Toronto International Film Festival. Barney Panofsky, the novel's/film's title character, is, suppposedly, the Canadian icon, while Paul Giamatti is the American actor who has taken on the supposely monumental challenge of portraying him.

So to return to the NP query: Can an American impersonate a Canadian, and an "iconic" one at that? (I should probably confess that, despite three sincere attempts to read Richler's novel, I never made it more than half-way through; had I known I was dealing with an "icon," perhaps I would have tried harder.) Let's see: if a Swede can impersonate a Chinese detective; if an Englishman can impersonate a Danish prince; if an American can impersonate a Venetian Jew; Italian-American Giamatti impersonating Jewish Montrealer Panofsky should be a piece o' cake. Er, better make that a bowlful of poutine (poutine being Quebec's "iconic" dish).