For you non-Canucks, Canadian Heritage Minutes are vignettes about Canadian history and culture that are played on CBC. They are a staple of Canadian television and I doubt there is a single Canadian out there unfamiliar with at least a few if them.

Sometimes creative license is taken with these shorts, which is understandable given they delve into some complex topics for their 60 second allotment. But one of their most recent additions has got me pretty annoyed, and that's the one about author of Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery. Here is the video, which I suggest you watch if you are interested in reading the rest of this post.

You see, I am a big time, life long fan of L.M. Montgomery. I have read most of her novels, and her complete journals from 1889-1917. So I feel qualified to point out some of the disingenuous representation of her life in this short. At best, it's a complete exaggeration some of her personal struggles, and at worst, CBC is basically lying about them.

Let's start with the first and most obvious. At 0:22 in the video, the voiceover tells us;

"They say a woman shouldn't write... some days I almost give up."

The first sentence of that quote is completely divorced from the context of who 'they' are. According to L.M.'s journal from 1906, this quote is solely attributed to an incident where she overhears some friends/associates of her grandmother who were basically criticizing her for 'allowing' her granddaughter to work as a writer instead of solely devoting herself to finding a husband.

Doubtlessly upsetting as hearing this was to L.M., who had been writing for many years at this point and was caring for her grandmother at the time, in the context of the Heritage Minute, the attribution of 'they' makes it sound far more conspiratorial and sexist than the prevailing cultural norms actually were. Writing was, in the late 19th-early 20th century in the British Empire, one of the few acceptable professions for a middle class woman to have. It had been that way for well over 100 years when L.M. began her career. Also, this sole incident- where two gossiping biddies from church throw shade on a young woman for not finding a man- is basically the only time that I was able to find L.M. being reproached for being a female author. Her family, her friends, her publishers, society at large was completely accepting of her work. CBC took an 'ok boomer' moment and turned it into a defining feature of L.M.'s life.

Furthermore, the quote is disingenuous because it takes two completely separate journal entries and links them up to create the impression that sexist notions from the time were the reason L.M. felt like throwing in the towel. Nope. The reason she was lacking confidence didn't come from 'them' saying 'women shouldn't write', but rather from personal doubts about her manuscript. Like many authors, she lacked confidence in some level in her writing ability. She was still writing her first manuscript at the time and was struggling with it's development. That's it.

Which brings us to the second part of my post. At the end of the Heritage Minute, a different voiceover tells us;

"Lucy Maud Montgomery battled depression, rejection and sexism to become known around the world for Anne of Green Gables and 19 other novels."

It just... is false. It's misrepresentative. It's disingenuous. It's essentially deceptive.

The depression part is the only unambiguously true part about her 'battles'. She did struggle with depression most of her life.

The part about sexism is a dubious claim but still technically true. 100 years ago was certainly a more sexist climate than today. Gender roles were rigid and women were denied many rights and privileges. I don't think L.M. faced any more sexism than the average woman would have (and frankly probably less- her husband and family were very supportive of her dreams), but yes, sexism was an issue back then for every woman.

But to say she 'battled' professional rejection is almost a complete falsehood. Let me break it down for you. At age 13, she submitted a poem for publication, and it was rejected. For several years she was discouraged from submitting more. At 16 she plucked up the courage to try again and was published. She continued to publish articles in local newspapers and magazines until she began studying to be a teacher, and then studied literature for 2 years, writing (and being published) throughout her studies, and throughout her teaching career. Between the time she finished school and the time she began work on Anne of Green Gables, L.M. wrote and published over 100 stories, as well as poems and articles for local newspapers and magazines.

When she was finished her first manuscript and sent it out to the first round of publishers and it was rejected. She sent off a second, and it was published. And this was within 3 months of completing her manuscript. Yes, she took it hard when she was rejected, but her trajectory for getting published was completely routine and commonplace. Almost no debut author, past or present, gets their manuscript accepted on the first try. If anything L.M was luckier than most. And obviously after the success of Anne she never had trouble getting published again. To say that Lucy Maud Montgomery was anything but a highly successful writer is completely insincere.

I'm not typically bothered by most things some people would consider SJW-y, but having read many of L.M.'s journals I do feel that the CBC was working an angle they felt might score them extra clout with the woke crowd. But L.M.'s brushes with sexism and rejection are such a small part of her life and story, to the point where in my mind they do not need to be the takeaway from a 60 second biography. I wonder if the creators didn't think that her life wasn't interesting enough in it's own merits to do a vignette on without injecting some forced conflict. If so it's doing her a great disservice for she was a brilliant woman with an interesting life as a writer, activist, suffragette and an iconic public figure.

Anyways, thanks for coming to my TED talk.