Allow me a very brief word here: This began as an e-mail challenge from Chrysophyta (writing as Tonya Blair of the Carolina Chapter, to Paula Gross (me, Ailis writing from the Ohio Chapter) of what we dubbed DSML(a) [We pronounce it "dismal"].
If you are at all familiar with some of the more unpleasant things people in Literature fields do, MLA is the Modern Language Association, a powerful organization that holds conferences across the country to hear scholarly papers (an abstract is a summary of such a paper). The two of us added a DS to the acronym, and created a fictional section of MLA devoted entirely to entertaining scholarly-sounding papers on Due SOUTH.
There are no actual papers, only the brief abstracts. Actual papers would have required some real work. :p
Oh, DSWNCE was a small gathering that was held around Christmas. It originally stood for "Due South Weekend North Carolina Extravanga" but now we pretty much use in regard to anything we have to say about due SOUTH.

DSML(a) 2000 Paper Abstract Submissions
Ohio Chapter, DSWNCE
Paula Gross, Leftenant

Priorly Submitted (and pending publication):

"I'm sorry, Ray; Reasons and Resonance in the Replacement of the Vecchio Character: A Very Shakespearian Solution?"

Received the 1999 second-tier commendation in the sub-directory heading of Classics, Canon and Paul Haggis' due SOUTH

Abstract: Submitted to the conference by Roberta MacKenzie, charter member of the Ohio Chapter of DSWNCE, this brief compare and contrast exposition explores the decision to replace and re-configure the character of Ray Vecchio in the third/fourth season of due SOUTH.
Motivated greatly by the fact that the original actor was no longer available (or willing) to sign a contract, producers and writers chose to retain the name and appearance of the role as played by David Marciano, but cast Callum Keith Rennie in his place, as the undercover Stanley Ray Kowalski. A character "playing" the role of Ray Vecchio.
How similar (and how not) is such a dramatic situation when viewed alongside such Shakespearian switches as those in Twelfth Night (Viola/Cesario and Sebastian), and Much Ado About Nothing (Hero and Margaret, Hero [dead] and Hero [living])?

"Taming the Snow, the Shrew and the Yukon Medusa: The perplexing and contradictory role of attempted domination and emasculation in Paul Haggis' due SOUTH"

Awarded tertiary endorsement in category of Feminine Revisionist Lexiconography and its perceived work in Paul Haggis' due SOUTH, 1999

Abstract: This paper, submitted by Shane Twain of the Ohio Chapter of DSWNCE, examines the attraction (sexual and inter-personal) both the Canadian Constable Benton Fraser and the American Detective Ray Vecchio harbor for women who are presented (if read only on a text-level) as unpleasant, unfriendly, duplicitous, and often (in the case of Metcalf and the ATF agent) violent toward their amorous advances.
The author provides detailed character analysis for the following characters: State's DA Louise St. Laurent, the ATF agent, Victoria Metcalf, Inspector Margaret Thatcher, Welsh's Sgt. boss.
Other characters discussed to a lesser degree are MacKenzie King and Irene Zuko, and whether or not they fit into the above-mentioned schema.
At the heart of the paper is the struggle to understand and label such characters' anger and hostility, and conversely, the protagonists' fascination with them.
Is it simply driven by the desire to subdue and conquer the forbidding North? To triumph over the glacial female? Or are viewers expected to be complicit with the de-codifying process, and read subversively (the subtext written as text)?

Current Submissions:

"A Deskfull of Dead Caribou. A knife, a carcass, a candle, and a very human Mountie: Paul Haggis and the re-fanging of the Fraser character"

3.) DISQUALIFIED from original submission category of Year 2000 Crystal Haggis Award, due to length

Abstract: In a thirty-two page manuscript (relatively lengthy for this conference, and, in fact, disqualifying it from consideration for the Crystal Haggis award [given for excellence in the field of Haggis-ian close-reading]), Tibera Fraser of the Ohio Chapter of DSWNCE posthumously submits her life-work: to reconstruct the Fraser character as seen through the eyes of series creator Paul Haggis, and in that re-reading to re-claim the humanity and fallibility in which he was originally conceived. Resurrecting the Mountie from seasons-old myth, such as that he is never wrong, or that he is incapable of anger, or fear, or selfishness.
Included in the text are examinations of such scenes as: The shooting of Gerard, and deliberate leaving him behind, wounded in the snow (Pilot), the aggressive challenge of the dead caribou on the desk (Pilot), Fraser's misguided faith in both Victoria Metcalf (Victoria's Secret) and Mark Smithbower (The Blue Line), his apparent complicity with Eric and the Inuit (Mask), his violence toward Gerard-both at the consulate and in the warehouse (Bird in the Hand), and his own, very harsh words to his father's ghost (Victoria's Secret).
Of other interest is the suggested reading in Victoria's Secret, that the speech Fraser gives about his mother, the "Petty Speech," as T. Fraser refers to it in her paper, could just as easily be the Fraser character sublimating into that his own experiences with Fraser Sr.

"The Absent Mother and the Chicago Blonde. Dichotomy of Loss and Reclamation: Deconstructing the Un-appeal of the accessible female in Paul Haggis' due SOUTH"

Submitted Year 2000 to division A, class 139, category RCW: Character Benton Fraser, Backstory, Freudian Psychology: Heading Oedipus

Abstract: From the files of Arliss Munro of the Ohio Chapter of DSWNCE. An engaging study based on the hypothesis that the premature death of Fraser's mother impressed on his young psyche the idea that only those females difficult to get close to (the distant, frosty and disinterested Yukon Medusa) are worthwhile to pursue.
The study also accounts for the possibility that such a belief may be so deeply rooted as to be unconscious.
An interesting companion piece to last year's "Taming the Snow, the Shrew and the Yukon Medusa: The perplexing and contradictory role of attempted domination and emasculation in Paul Haggis' due SOUTH" by fellow DSWNCE-er Shane Twain, this conference paper takes a closer look at the "polar" opposite of the Medusa, what Munro dubs the Chicago Blonde.
Profiles of the following characters are included (proving that the Chicago Blonde need be neither blonde nor necessarily from Chicago): Blonde Julie Frobischer (Manhunt), Blonde (They Eat Horses, Don't They?), Blonde Esther Pearson (Hawk and Handsaw, Chicago Holiday), Dog owner (Wild Bunch), Blonde PR Agent (The Blue Line), Blonde Jane Krakowski (Invitation to Romance), Blonde Physio (Letting Go), Blonde Stripper (Body Language), as well as Elaine Besbriss and Francesca Vecchio, the two most prominent (and most romantically-afflicted) female characters on the show.
However, the lynch pin of this argument must be the excitingly sketched dichotomy of the two MacKenzie Kings. A character, that within her two episode-life went from (Diefenbaker's Day Off) Yukon Medusa, manipulative, cunning and frosty, to (One Good Man) Chicago Blonde; fawning, swooning, and desperate for the Mountie's attention.
Also included is a brief coda, re-viewing Fraser's response to Chicago Blondes versus Diefenbaker's fascination with the same women, and naturally, an argument for the deaf wolf's personality as the only outlet for his human companion's repression in this area.

DSML(a) 2000 Paper Abstract Submissions
Carolina Chapter, DSWNCE
Tonya Blair, acting Constable

Priorly Submitted (and pending publication):

"Two Axes: Male Castration and the Misanthropic Implications of Benton Fraser's Repeatedly Wounded Right Leg"

No Abstract is available

Current Submissions:

"You hungry?" Bipolarization of Food: Dialectic of Comfort, Longing and Separation, Isolation: a Pastiche of Food, Crime, and Love in Paul Haggis' due SOUTH.

Submitted for DSML(a) 2000 in the category of LOBSTERS and TELEPHONES: symbols and signposts

Abstract:
In her first submission since transferring from the Nova Scotia chapter, Johanna Major places the traditional view of eating as a communal celebration, an expression of brotherhood, against the experience of Ray Vecchio and Benton Fraser in Paul Haggis' due SOUTH. Specifically, this paper examines the interruption by criminal forces of Vecchio and Fraser's attempts to eat.The argument addresses the specific episodes of "The Pilot" in which Vecchio and Fraser leave the meal at Ray's house unfinished in order to question Drake's wife. In "Chinatown," Vecchio and Fraser's meal is interrupted by a kidnapping. In "They Eat Horses, Don't They," the meal is pre-empted because it is literally contaminated. The plot of "Pizza and Promises" is centered around a late pizza that is never eaten--Ray only takes a slice as he and Fraser leave to save the pizza boy.
There are countless episodes in which a sandwich or other food is handed to Vecchio and Fraser but it is never eaten on screen.
These constant interruptions and denial of food not only suggest a perpetual search for the comfort that food represents but also the futility of such a search. This also suggests Vecchio and Fraser are characters isolated from the community around them as well as from each other since they are unable to complete a meal with each other.
A corollary argument examines the completed meal depicted in three episodes: "The Deal," "Victoria's Secret," and "Juliet is Bleeding." In "The Deal," Fraser eats with Franscesca Vecchio. Although the ceremony of the meal is completed, later in the episode, Fraser is brutally beaten. Likewise in "Victoria's Secret," Fraser and Victoria eat together (although the meal itself is off screen) and later Fraser is shot.
Lastly, in "Juliet is Bleeding," the brotherhood of the detectives is established when Vecchio, Fraser, Duey, and Gardino celebrate Vecchio's promotion. Despite the ruckus that ensues, the community remains briefly in tact after dinner. However, not long after with the promise of more food, Gardino dies in a car explosion.
The denial of food, therefore, suggests that Vecchio and Fraser's isolation is essential to their physical (if not emotional) well-being. In contrast is Fraser's alter ego, Diefenbaker whose search for food and comfort is (almost) always successful, suggesting a gluttony that Fraser is not allowed. Major presents this isolation as necessary to the crime fighter/superhero character: those who fight chaos must always remain above it, and therefore can never be a part of the world they save.

"The Ghosts That Haunt Me": The Ambivalent Relationship between Sons and Fathers: A dichotomy of Futility in the Search for the Father in Paul Haggis' due SOUTH"

Submitted for DSML(a) 2000 in the category of APPARITIONS and ABSENCES: SIR JOHN FRANKLIN's GHOST.

Roberta Martin, after a brief sabbatical, returns to DSML(a) with this critical exploration of the anti-Oedipal relationships on due SOUTH. She views the patriarchal relationships in terms of Kurt Vonnegut (Indiana born) who wrote in his novel Breakfast of Champions that all novels are about the search for the father.
With this as a springboard, Martin examines the relationship of Vecchio and Fraser with their dead fathers. The sporadic appearance of the fathers' apparitions seems related to the dichotomy of approval and rejection especially in the first season (in subsequent seasons, Fraser's father becomes more of a secondary character). In "The Gift of the Wheelman," the ghosts appear for the first time. They appear at a time of crisis for Ray and Fraser: they must find the wheelman, figure out his plan, or he will be killed.
Such crisis is what facilitates the appearance of the fathers. This applies to "North" and "Victoria's Secret" as well. At such times, the sons could ideally seek out the father for comfort or advice. However, the reality of the father proves to be the opposite.
Although the essence of their respective relationships are vastly different--Vecchio dislikes his father whereas Fraser dearly loves his--both represent a negative behavioral model, what not to do or how not to do it ("North"). This negative behavior model results in an ambivalence in their relationships with their sons.
Often antagonistic, Ray and Fraser vacillate from rejection of the father to a longing for acceptance and approval ("Gift of the Wheelman," "Victoria's Secret"). This longing remains unfulfilled because the father is dead (despite his reappearance) to grant their approval ("Pilot").
Conversely, although Kowalski's father is living, his physical appearance fails to alleviate the palatable disapproval. Therefore, patriarchical approval across the emotional distance (one of them might as well be dead) remains elusive.
Martin ends on the question: is the absent, disapproving father a trope (not just in television, and therefore, do all stories lead back to Hamlet)? And if so, do we require our heroes search for something they will never find?

*due SOUTH is owned by Alliance TV and is not the property of either author, and no mis-use was intended by using it here.
*The intellectual property of the above, remains with its creators, Ailis and Chrysophyta.
09 May 2000 (c)