“Ah the [ˈrat.ən] luck”: Dialect, Authenticity, and the Regional Stereotype in Donald Shebib’s Goin’ Down the Road

Don Shebib’s 1970 film Goin’ Down the Road is widely recognized as having heralded “the beginning of the film industry in English Canada” (Ramsay and McIntosh 2009). The film tells the story of two hard-up young men, Pete and Joey, who leave the relative poverty of the Maritime Provinces of Canada in search of fortune and fulfillment in Toronto. Critically acclaimed upon its release, the film was praised for its “authenticity” and “documentary objectivity” (Ramsay and McIntosh 2009; Ebert 1971). Nevertheless, though nearly all critics applaud the film’s authenticity, noting the naturalistic performances of Doug McGrath (Pete) and Paul Bradley (Joey), none have paid significant attention to the actors’ use of working-class Cape Breton accents in the discursive construction of the film’s authenticity. Situating the protagonists’ use of dialect within a broader critical discourse surrounding the film’s authenticity, this paper explores the ways in which the use of working-class speech and Cape Breton accent serve to construct the protagonists as ostensibly “authentic” Maritimers, conflating their failures with their socio-linguistic identities. It argues that the protagonists embody regional stereotypes and that their use of non-standard Canadian English is a central marker of their regional identity, connecting dialect, dialogically and thematically, to their deficiencies.