Blackstone – Bitch Flicks

‘Blackstone’: Stoney Women And The Many Meanings of Sovereignty

The most remarkable feature of Ron E. Scott’s Canadian drama ‘Blackstone,’ apart from its blistering probing of Kellogg’s “ugly facts” of demoralization, is how closely it links gendered oppressions with other exploitations.

(No spoilers in the comments past Season Two please, deprived Irish viewer here.)

“It is a cause of astonishment to us that you white women are only now, in this twentieth century, claiming what has been the Indian woman’s privilege as far back as history traces.” – Laura Kellogg

The writings of pioneering suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton reveal that the political status of Iroquoian (Haudenosaunee) women inspired her vision of gender equality. The early 20th century Oneida political activist, Laura Cornelius Kellogg, also highlighted Benjamin Franklin’s acknowledged debt to the Five Nations’ (Iroquois) Great Law in inspiring distinctive features of American democracy. Kellogg: “have you not pauperized and debauched a whole people who were not only the richest in possessions, but whose native character has inspired those of your arts and literature which contain national distinction?”

As we in Europe benefited from peace-building through federal government, and from female emancipation, those very qualities were stripped from the civilizations that birthed them. Diverse Native cultures were reimagined as a patriarchal monoculture, iconically represented by the Plains Indian Chief, while female diplomats and political activists were reinterpreted as sexualized Indian Princesses, or silenced as “squaw” drudges. Native democracy itself was destroyed by a system of wardship, that subordinated its people to a Euro-American Bureau of Indian Affairs which Kellogg slammed as a “school for sycophants.”

Chief Andy's Boys' Club — Chief Andy’s Boys’ Club

“If I did not believe enough of you remain staunch to our ancestral standards of truth, to stand the ugly facts that concern us now, I should not speak.” – Laura Kellogg

The most remarkable feature of Ron E. Scott’s Canadian drama Blackstone, apart from its blistering probing of Kellogg’s “ugly facts” of demoralization, is how closely it links gendered oppressions with other exploitations. Bad government is represented by the chuckling boys’ club of Band Chief Andy Fraser, who hold meetings at the Roxy Rolla strip club, joke about screwing each other’s wives, and dismiss female opponents with gendered slurs like “cow” and “bitch.” The takeover by Leona Stoney and Victor Merasty therefore represents not only a return to idealism, but to gender-balanced leadership. Blackstone explores the toxic legacy of abuse within Canada’s residential schools, in which Irish religious orders played a major role, replicating our own traumatic legacy of institutional abuse and even perpetuating linguicide and colonial stigma, despite their demoralizing impact in Ireland. “Falling under the spell” of priests in his residential school shaped Tom Fraser’s bitter resentments and resistance to taking responsibility, which he has passed on to his son, Chief Andy (who, my God, is such a better portrait of Charlie Haughey than the recent Irish biopic. Period end). Blackstone also acknowledges the crushing impact of mainstream Canada’s indifference to the “fucking waste of time” of “this Indian bullshit,” but suggests that renewal must ultimately come from within. Its villains have internalized the colonizer’s gaze to the point that they reflexively worry “this looks bad” rather than acknowledging and tackling problems, perhaps anticipating criticism of the show’s own negative portrayals.

Just as the exaggerated domestic dramas of soap operas and telenovelas offer their mainly female audiences an important forum for processing their own frustrations, so the condensed and intensified social problems of Blackstone‘s fictional reserve are not simply a negative distortion of reality, but a basis for developing discussion and self-advocacy. The series’ opening sets the tone: over confrontational images of teen drug-taking, an elder tells a creation story, evoking nostalgia for the “real Indian.” But the elder, Cecil Delaronde (Gordon Tootoosis), challenges the disconnect between theory and practice: “if you look around you, culture is on display every day. Family violence, alcoholism, drug abuse, incest, suicide, corruption… that’s our culture now.” The show’s English title grows out of black roots in Cree, embodying both continuity and linguicide. Connecting political sovereignty, mental sovereignty and bodily sovereignty, Blackstone centers women in its hopes for renewal. Stoney women are the community’s bedrock.

Chief Leona Stoney

“More schooling than usually falls to the lot of an Indian woman and more contact with Caucasian artificiality and insincerity have graduated me into what might be called a polite Indian, and the process, I sometimes think, has taken a lot out of me” – Laura Kellogg

Leona Stoney is the daughter of a deceased chief. After sobering up from youthful addictions, her father entrusted the nation’s treaty pipe to her, representing her duty to lead. Leona lives off-reserve and works in addiction counseling with urban kids that her white boyfriend, Chris, charmingly calls: “kids who are ready. Ones who’ve escaped Blackstone.” Chris voices the defeatism that Leona must confront inside herself. Like historical allotment schemes, Chris associates redemption with assimilation into the white mainstream and “escape” from an irredeemable culture. As Chief Andy’s wife, Debbie, snarks to Chris, “it’s not easy being a chief’s wife, is it?” the show implies that his patriarchal pride is as threatened by Leona’s leadership as his Euro-American culture. In herself, Leona embodies the recovery narrative that the reserve needs: she has taken responsibility for her actions, she has integrated respect for traditional culture with adaptable openness to modernity, and she has cultivated compassion.

Her off-reserve status and white boyfriend are repeatedly used to question her right to lead, but Cecil Delaronde, representing the community’s conscience, affirms “we do need someone like you. A healer, someone who’s been elsewhere.” Leona’s fictional chiefdom recalls Wilma Mankiller’s legacy (see The Cherokee Word For Water), though Leona is overwhelmed by a nightmare reserve combining issues from across Canada. Her status as an educated activist for territorial sovereignty, with one foot off the reserve, also echoes the relentless activism of Laura Kellogg, who once sarcastically described herself as “a product of almost every institution on the outside except the insane asylum and Tammany Hall.” Leona applies an addiction recovery narrative to self-government: “we can’t keep blaming Ottawa for all our problems, it’s a flawed system we have to navigate.” Faced with a revelation of child abuse, however, her defensive reaction is tragically typical: “I’ve known that man since we were kids,” before growing into a real ally for justice (sexual violence is a major theme, handled with refreshing emphasis on victim/survivor impact, though Scott’s filming of the strippers is predictably male-gazey). Leona’s struggle to keep faith with the reserve is embodied in her painfully personal struggle with her elder sister, Gail.

Gail Stoney

“If the American Nation… charges to the Indian all the demoralization it has brought upon him as his inheritance, it has heaped upon him not only plunder and outrage but the stigma of inferiority.” – Laura Kellogg

Gail Stoney is a chronic alcoholic. Where Leona embodies the reserve’s recovery narrative, Gail is Blackstone: “it’s where I belong.” Gail is sharply intelligent, sarcastically cynical, fundamentally generous and warm-hearted, with a resilient will to live, but she is also a selfish addict who combines paranoia with deeply internalized negative self-image. Michelle Thrush’s raw performance adds layers with every episode, growing into the heart of the show (plus, I would watch Michelle Thrush read a laundry list). As Leona despairs of turning the reserve around, Cecil asks, “in your counseling experience, does an addict make a turnaround overnight?” By embodying the renewal of the reserve in the personal journey of an addict, Blackstone illustrates that the perseverance to withstand setbacks, and the fortitude to resist instant gratification, are key to the entire community’s recovery. It is Cecil who most empathizes with Gail’s solitary struggle for sovereignty over herself: “please do not self-destruct… if you look really deep inside, you will find that you have your father’s strength and determination. I know it,” implying that all of her father’s qualities as chief are equally needed in this personal struggle. Whenever Chief Leona approaches Gail with assumed superiority, she is resented and rejected. Conscious of her public image, she tries to censor Gail’s problems: “everybody is watching me right now, I need you to make an effort,” which only drives Gail to give up on herself: “I quit. Save you the embarrassment.”

In moments like this, Leona’s silencing and dismissive attitude to Gail almost echoes Chief Andy’s treatment of the entire reserve. Leona also struggles to take her own advice and forgive her alcoholic mother. Complexities like this elevate Blackstone above a simplistic battle between good and evil. The enemy is within, and right next door. Leona is urged to neglect Gail by sympathetic characters, because she has “bigger problems”. Yet, if a community is a collection of individuals, what problem can be bigger than any individual’s deepest crisis? As Leona is praised for her counseling skills, she says, “there’s a lot of need for it here. Our previous chief didn’t see it as a priority,” before the show cuts to Gail’s secret drinking, that Leona herself cannot see as a priority. As Gail collapses in a ditch, the song “I Won’t Be There For You” plays. Saving Gail requires nothing but the deepest love and solidarity, to believe that Gail is capable of saving herself. Gail demands that onlookers face her pain and loss, leaving the noose which hung her daughter, Natalie, to confront Andy “every time he drives by in his fancy truck.” As Leona counsels, over a montage that includes Gail’s hospitalization and Andy’s painful relationship to his father, “what we’re trying to do here is to locate that point of brokenness. Start to find a connection to ourselves again. So we can start to be who we were truly meant to be.” Keeping faith and believing in Gail’s potential is an emotionally bruising challenge, but it is the heart of the show’s opening season.

Natalie Stoney

“They don’t know us; they don’t know what it means to be killed alive.” – Laura Kellogg

Natalie Stoney haunts Blackstone, as Laura Palmer haunts Twin Peaks. For her mother, Natalie represents the guilt of Gail’s neglect, as well as her own possible doom. Natalie’s ghost becomes the taunting voice of Gail’s negative self-image, as Tom Fraser will be for his son Andy, or as boyfriend Chris voices Leona’s urge to abandon Blackstone. For Leona herself, Natalie’s suicide is her catalyst to submit to the duty of leadership. Leona fights to challenge the social narrative that victims like Natalie are inevitably doomed: “they are not ghosts. They are children.” As a ghost, Natalie makes the trope of the “vanishing Indian” into a visible presence to be resisted. As played by Roseanne Supernault, star of Jeff Barnaby’s Rhymes For Young Ghouls, Natalie is as smart, fundamentally sweet and sarcastic as her mother. Though rape was the catalyst for Natalie’s suicide, her filmed interview with Victor, before the rape, points to deeper issues. As Victor approaches, a drugged-out Natalie slurs “you wanna fuck me too?” already understanding sexual exploitation as her only value, or her inevitable treatment. When asked about her dreams for the future, she mumbles “what future?” Her rape was an unjustifiable assault on her bodily sovereignty, but her suicide is a choice to surrender that sovereignty, inspired by this internalized sense of futurelessness. Believing that any group is inevitably doomed, whether that belief is triumphalist or pitying, is an act of psychological violence against them. Chief Andy may try to appropriate Natalie’s silenced body, to point the finger at “victimization by an apathetic, indifferent administration in Ottawa” in his neverending search for funds, but on Blackstone, Natalie will speak for herself.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Osr4GmPsmQ”]

Acing the Bechdel, confronting rape apologism, modeling female leadership… in just the trailer

Blackstone is available to watch on hulu

Brigit McCone is mad that hulu is unavailable in Ireland and hopes Blackstone gets a distribution deal with TG4. She writes and directs short films and radio dramas. Her hobbies include doodling and telling people to check out the carvings of Susan Point.

#Filmherstory: Six Royals Objectively Cooler Than Another Bloody Henry 8th

In honor of Henry’s wives and the #filmherstory campaign, here are six Royal women overdue the Hollywood treatment. To help with your visualizing, I’ll even toss in a pitch, director, and star.

Damian Lewis smirks at me from a magazine rack under the caption “Damian Lewis Makes Henry VIII Sexy!” Déjà vu. Clearly, I’m missing the exciting difference between Wolf Hall‘s sinister-but-sexy Henry VIII and Eric Bana’s sinister-but-sexy Henry VIII in The Other Boleyn Girl, which rewrote Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ sinister-but-sexy Henry VIII in Fifty Shades of Tudors (OK, OK, Natalie Dormer did rock), which updated Richard Burton’s sinister-but-sexy Henry VIII in Anne of the Thousand Days, which critics agree was sexier than Charles Laughton’s Oscar-winning sinister-but-lovable Henry VIII in The Private Life of Henry VIII. It would be easy to make this a feminist issue, considering that chronic womanizer Henry VIII executed two wives for infidelity, despite having won the right to divorce them. However, 18 actresses have immortalized Queen Elizabeth I on screen, earning Oscar nominations for portraying the woman who presided over campaigns of religious persecution and expansive colonization as heroic, or sinister-but-lovable at worst.

Nowadays, we theoretically agree that colonialism was a bad idea. Our conquering heroes have become conquering antiheroes. Yet antiheroes actually command empathy as effectively as heroes. A study by Chippewa researcher JoEllen Shively found that 60 percent of her Sioux focus group, viewing Western The Searchers, identified with John Wayne’s viciously racist (and misogynist) Ethan Edwards. While conflicted, “half breed” sidekick Martin Pawley is cited as evidence that the film is “morally complex,” according to Shively, “the Indians, like the Anglos, identified with the characters that the narrative structure tells them to identify with.” Tokens represent no-one, only their author’s urge to appear liberal, while vicariously identifying with conquerors. Meanwhile, today’s White Saviors admirably rescue natives from evil colonizers, thereby ironically reinforcing the colonialist assumption that white heroes should control the destinies of the colonized.

Women of the Third and Fourth World are doubly marginalized; they are the damsels-in-distress for the natives-in-distress for the White Savior: #filmheranticolonialstory. Here in Ireland, our anticolonial icons remain unfilmed, apart from Irish director Neil Jordan’s Michael Collins, but entry to the EU Colonizer’s Club has entitled our Mr. Rhys Meyers to play colonial icon Henry VIII (progress!). So, while I would love to see Fiona Shaw as Pirate Queen Grace O’Malley, storming fortresses and sailing to London to confront Elizabeth I (thereby nailing the elusive Royal Bechdel), it matters more to invite audiences to identify with female leaders of the Third and Fourth Worlds. In honor of Henry’s wives and the #filmherstory campaign, here are six Royal women overdue the Hollywood treatment. To help with your visualizing, I’ll even toss in a pitch, director, and star.

Ava DuVernay’s Nzinga

The plot: Queen Nzinga Mbande fought and maneuvered in 17th century Angola. Serving as diplomatic envoy for her brother, Ndongo’s King, Nzinga personally negotiated a peace treaty with Portugal, sitting on a willing follower when denied an equal seat by their governor. Taking the throne in 1626, Nzinga forged alliances with African neighbors and Portugal’s Dutch rivals, scoring a victory against the Portuguese at the 1647 Battle of Kombi, and personally leading troops in battle until the age of 60. Building her base, Matamba, as a strategic trading port, the abolitionist Queen resisted the Atlantic slave trade and foreign rule throughout her lifetime, dying peacefully in 1663.

The pitch: Elizabeth: The Golden Age in Africa.

The star: Lupita Nyong’o is an internationally celebrated African star, noted for her regal style on the red carpet as well as her Oscar-winning acting. Playing an actual queen is the logical next step.

The director: Ava DuVernay’s Selma shows she can find interesting humanity in inspirational icons. In her hands, Nzinga could be a pragmatic political player, juggling conflicting alliances, more than a romantic ideal, and shed light on African colonial history from a fresh angle.

Ang Lee’s Cixi

The plot: Chinese historian Jung Chang‘s biography of Empress Dowager Cixi highlights her role in industrializing the country, opposing foreign rule, banning torture and foot-binding, educating women, establishing a free press and initiating China’s transition to parliamentary democracy. This semi-literate concubine forged a stable alliance with the Emperor’s wife (another Royal Bechdel), loved and lost a palace eunuch, whose execution was ordered by her own brother-in-law, faced down continual threats to her power and was driven by European encroachments to back the devastating Boxer rebellion. Not forgetting a Japanese invasion, a rebellious Emperor’s gay love affairs and Cixi’s final decision to prevent her reactionary adopted son from undoing her reforms by poisoning him. Drama!

The pitch: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon meets The Last Emperor.

The star: Michelle Yeoh should be in everything. From her delicate portrait of repressed longing in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to her commanding turn in The Lady, Yeoh is the natural choice.

The director: With a heroine forced by convention to rule from behind a silk screen, this demands a director like Taiwan’s Ang Lee, who can make gripping drama out of restraint.

Deepa Mehta’s Lakshmibai

The plot: Though Rani (Queen) Lakshmibai was the heroine of India’s first technicolor epic, 1956’s Jhansi Ki Rani, she deserves Hollywood stardom and a grittier reboot. After her Maharajah husband died, Lakshmibai’s claim to rule, as regent for her adopted son, was denied by the British East India Company to justify their annexation of her state, Jhansi. Learning martial arts in childhood, Lakshmibai became a major leader of the 1857 Indian Rebellion, training women to fight in her ranks. Her role in a mutiny that massacred British forces at Jhansi’s fort remains unclear. Fighting off invasions by two neighboring rajas, her city finally fell to British heavy artillery. Lakshmibai fled in male disguise with her infant son, joined the rebel army of Tatya Tope and died fighting in the battle of Gwalior.

The pitch: Ashoka the Great meets Braveheart. For girls.

The star: Shriya Saran, who played Parvati in Mehta’s Midnight Children, showed the determination to prepare for her role by working for two months in Mumbai’s slums, and has an athletic body trained in Kathak and Rajasthani dance, with the striking beauty that even her British enemies admired in Lakshmibai.

The director: Deepa Mehta has tackled epic narratives of India’s Partition in Earth, taboo sexuality in Fire, the cruel treatment of widows in Water, and the diaspora experience in Heaven on Earth, but never explored British colonial rule. Like Sam Mendes directing Skyfall, putting Mehta in charge of an action epic could bring psychological depth to its high-octane clashes. Lakshmibai is so iconic in India that she is almost saintly, but Mehta has the guts to give her human flaws and delve into the brutal dilemmas of warfare.

Shonda Rhimes’ Ranavalona

The plot: “I will rule here, to the good fortune of my people and the glory of my name!” Ranavalona I has been labelled the “Mad Queen of Madagascar” for overseeing religious persecutions, inquisitions under torture and sweeping purges of political enemies, just like sinister-but-supposedly-sexily-sane Henry VIII. Rising from a commoner’s background, marrying the king and seizing absolute power on his death in a masterful coup, Ranavalona murdered the father of her child for his infidelity (*cough* Henry VIII), and harnessed French lover Jean Laborde to oversee Madagascar’s industrial revolution. Her later years were marked by excess, with numerous Malagasy dying to construct a road for her buffalo hunt, but Ranavalona foiled all plots to overthrow her (including ex-lover Laborde’s) and kept Madagascar free from colonial rule. There was method in her madness.

The pitch: The Tudors meets Shaka Zulu. For girls.

The star: Angela Bassett’s Emmy-nominated voodoo queen, Marie Laveau in American Horror Story: Coven, shows she can be commanding, scary and sympathetic in turn. Ranavalona is the role she was born for.

The showrunner: Ranavalona’s journey to the dark side deserves a Tudors-style series to fully develop. In Scandal and How To Get Away With Murder, Shonda Rhimes has proved that she relishes antiheroines and moral ambiguity. Ranavalona would take Rhimes into the lush historical epic, too long monopolized by white royalty.

Steve McQueen’s Nanye-hi

The plot: After snatching the rifle of her dead husband and rallying Cherokee warriors against their Creek rivals to win the 1755 Battle of Taliwa, Nanye-hi was elected Ghighau (Beloved Woman), heading the Women’s Council and sitting on the Council of Chiefs (OK, the Cherokee were too advanced to technically have royalty, cut me a break). Nanye-hi, also called “Nancy Ward” after marrying settler Bryant Ward, was a political moderate juggling extreme pressures, alerting settlers to Cherokee plans for a massacre, saving a white woman from burning at the stake and personally negotiating the peace treaty of 1781, but strongly opposing the sale of Cherokee lands and petitioning against plans for removal, which would culminate in the Trail of Tears after her death. Nanye-hi would showcase Indigenous traditions of “petticoat government” that inspired the first suffragettes, within a tense drama of compromise and resistance.

The pitch: Princess Kaiulani meets Borgen.

The star: If you’ve seen her powerful performance in Blackstone (lucky American readers can catch up on hulu), you know Michelle Thrush should be in everything that does not already star Michelle Yeoh (actually, I just had a great idea for a buddy cop movie). She’s a natural choice to capture the strain of Nanye-hi’s political conflicts.

The director: I haven’t yet seen Georgina Lightning’s Older Than America, so I can’t suggest any Native American women to direct. However, Steve McQueen’s treatment of the Irish Troubles in Hunger, and American slavery in 12 Years A Slave, prove the British director is unafraid to tackle controversial history with an outsider’s fresh eye. Lupita Nyong’o’s Oscar, for her first major film role, also shows his talent at coaxing raw performances from his actresses. Disney’s Pocahontas this would not be.

Timur Bekmambetov’s Khutulun

The plot: Mongols were pretty imperial, what with the largest land empire in history. But Central Asia’s absorption into the Russian/Soviet sphere has made it invisible, with Sacha Baron Cohen selecting Kazakhstan for Borat because “it was a country that no one had heard anything about” despite being the ninth largest in the world and launching the first man into space. Played by the physically slight Korean actress Claudia Kim, as a supporting character in Netflix’s Marco Polo, champion wrestler Khutulun deserves solo stardom. Excelling in battles against the armies of her cousin Kublai Khan, this Mongolian princess demanded that suitors beat her in wrestling, or forfeit 100 horses. She acquired 10,000 horses before making a politically strategic match of her own choosing. Nominated for khanship after her father’s death, Khutulun reportedly backed her brother Orus’ bid in exchange for being appointed Commander-in-Chief of his army.

The pitch: Mongol for girls.

The star: Mongol actress Khulan Chuluun was mostly stuck in the love interest role, but showed flashes of stubborn spirit. With a director like Bekmambetov, known for making action heroes of character actors like James McAvoy, could she train up and become an icon?

The director: Kazak director Bekmambetov’s talent for tongue-in-cheek, inventive action would be perfect for the unbelievable legends that have grown up around Khutulun. Witness his wild portrait of his namesake, Central Asian conqueror Tamerlane (Timur) in the opening of Day Watch. He’s also a great director of women, from Galina Tyunina’s scene-stealing Olga to Angelina Jolie’s tough-but-fair Fox in Wanted. Movie, please.

So, who would be your historical (anti)heroines? For the Soska Sisters to realize their dream to film Bathory? Michelle Rodriguez in Robert Rodriguez’s Malinche, as a punk survivor of sex trafficking who wants to watch the world burn? Gong Li as Zhang Yimou’s Wu Zetian? Kerry Washington in Fanta Régina Nacro’s Mama Yaa Asentewaa? Saoirse Ronan as a young Countess Markievicz for Juanita Wilson? Iman as Hatshepsut? Join the conversation – #filmherstory.

Brigit McCone writes and directs short films and radio dramas. Her hobbies include doodling and memorizing lists of forgotten female leaders (Brigit McCone is an extremely dull conversationalist).