Indigenous Women Theme Week

Indigenous Women Week: The Roundup

Check out all of the posts from our Indigenous Women theme week here.

Violence Against Indigenous Women: Fun, Sexy, and No Big Deal on the Big Screen by Elissa Washuta

Over and over, violence against Indigenous women is made to titillate, built into narratives along with action, suspense, swashbuckling, and romance. Indigenous women become exotic props, and when we are identified with these dehumanized caricatures, it becomes easier to treat us inhumanely.

Imprint: Examining the Presence of Indigenous Representation in the Horror Genre by Danielle Miller

In the endless web of conundrums that Native peoples face, marginalization is a result of societal erasure, whether that be through stereotypes or the lack of representations all together. … With that in consideration, I seek to influence popular consciousness by analysis of horror through a Native woman’s lens. One endeavor of asserting Native presence is through my analysis of the Native thriller film, Imprint.

The Unvoiced Indigenous Feminism of Frida by Brigit McCone

Frida Kahlo’s sense of kyriarchy, in which the tension between Indigenous culture and European imperialism is a core aspect of her multi-faceted narratives of oppression and resistance, is simplified in Julie Taymor’s film Frida towards a more Euro-American feminism, focused on Kahlo’s struggle for artistic recognition and romantic fulfillment as a woman, to the exclusion of her ethnic struggle.

From Racist Stereotype to Fully Whitewashed: Tiger Lily Since 1904 by Amanda Morris

Whatever the other problems might be with this film (and they are many), my focus for this review is the character Tiger Lily, who was originally conceived as a racist stereotype by J.M. Barrie and who has had her Native identity completely erased in this latest iteration. Is this progress? I think not.

Older Than America: Cultural Genocide and Reparations by Laura Shamas

One female-helmed film that directly addresses the horrific psychological, cultural, and spiritual legacy of Native boarding schools on Indigenous families in the United States is Older Than America, a 2008 release, directed and produced by and starring Georgina Lightning, from a script by Lightning and Christine Kunewa Walker. … Rain’s journey is part of the collective story of her community and her tribe… When entire generations of youth are traumatized or killed by the church and state, what is the remedy? Older Than America looks for answers to this key question.

Tanya Tagaq Voices Inuit Womanhood in Nanook of the North by Brigit McCone

Director Robert Flaherty not only framed Inuit womanhood according to his fantasies of casual sensuality, but according to Euro-American patriarchal fantasy. His portrait of Inuit life is neatly divided between the woman’s role, limited to cleaning igloos and nursing infants, apparently immune to the frustrations of Euro-American women in that role, and the man’s role, leading the band, educating older children, and hunting.

The Cherokee Word for Water: The Wilma Mankiller Story by Amanda Morris

Wilma Pearl Mankiller became the first modern female Chief of the Cherokee Nation in 1985 after working with volunteers from the small rural community of Bell, Oklahoma to bring water to the town. The Cherokee Word for Water is the story of this extraordinary woman and leader whose activism on behalf of her community continues to resonate across the Cherokee Nation today.

Kumu Hina: Documentary on a Native Hawaiian Māhū (Transgender) Woman and Teaching the True Meaning of Aloha by Gabrielle Amato-Bailey

Kumu Hina is a portrait of one activist working to preserve Native rights, culture, and dignity in a time when Native Sovereignty is being made more visible by events like the efforts of Water Protectors to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu draws a direct and explicit link between honoring her māhū identity and helping her people preserve their culture. Like the māhū of generations past, Wong-Kalu has taken on the responsibility of sharing sacred knowledge with the next generation. She wants to share with her students the true meaning of aloha which, to her, means giving them unconditional acceptance and respect.

The Problem With Disney’s Pocahontas by Shannon Rose

In Pocahontas, Disney missed an important opportunity to represent Indigenous women in a relatable, empowering way, and instead focused on commodifying their culture for mass-market appeal. … Pocahontas’ life only became a story worth telling when a white man became involved. She only became a princess when a white man recognized her as royalty. She only became the center of a Disney movie because white men realized they could profit off of her myth.

On Racism, Erasure, and Pan by Danika Kimball

Even less surprising is their casting choice, where they have once again whitewashed a Native American character, hiring Rooney Mara to play the part of Tiger Lily. Apparently, most Hollywood executives and casting directors live in a fictional land called Neverlearn. … There has been a long standing Hollywood cliche that states, the only color Hollywood executives see is green. This excuses the industry from their role in helping maintain white supremacist patriarchy because they are allowed to say, “We’re just giving the people what they want.”

Trespassed Lands, Transgressed Bodies: Horror, Rage, Rape, and Vengeance Within Indigenous Cinema by Ariel Smith

By forcing the subconscious fears of audiences to the surface, horror cinema evokes reactions psychologically and physically — that is its power. This power can serve and support uncensored Indigenous expression by allowing Indigenous filmmakers the opportunity to unleash dark, unsanitized allegorical representations of the abhorrent, repugnant, violent abomination that is colonization.

Lilo & Stitch, Moana, and Disney’s Representation of Indigenous Peoples by Emma Casley

Looking at Lilo & Stitch can provide a valuable lens in which to analyze the upcoming Moana, as well as other mainstream films attempting to represent Indigenous cultures. … Regardless of its individual merits, Lilo & Stitch is a moneymaking endeavor to benefit the Disney Company, which has not always had the best relationship (to say the least) with representing Indigenous cultures or respecting Indigenous peoples.

‘Lilo & Stitch,’ ‘Moana,’ and Disney’s Representation of Indigenous Peoples

Looking at ‘Lilo & Stitch’ can provide a valuable lens in which to analyze the upcoming ‘Moana,’ as well as other mainstream films attempting to represent Indigenous cultures. … Regardless of its individual merits, ‘Lilo & Stitch’ is a moneymaking endeavor to benefit the Disney Company, which has not always had the best relationship (to say the least) with representing Indigenous cultures or respecting Indigenous peoples.

This guest post written by Emma Casley appears as part of our theme week on Indigenous Women.

This November, Disney plans to release the much-anticipated Moana, advertised and hailed as the first Polynesian Disney princess. While it is the company’s first princess of Polynesian descent, it is not the first time Disney has ventured to represent Polynesian culture on-screen: the 2002 film Lilo & Stitch features sisters Lilo and Nani, who are of Indigenous Hawaiian descent as two of the central characters. Looking at Lilo & Stitch can provide a valuable lens in which to analyze the upcoming Moana, as well as other mainstream films attempting to represent Indigenous cultures.

Lilo & Stitch has been heralded as a film that avoids many of the harmful stereotypes of Polynesian culture that so many other white-produced works perpetuate. However, it is also worth considering how Lilo & Stitch as a film exists in the world, beyond the content of its storyline. As a mainstream blockbuster film made by Disney, Lilo & Stitch has an imperative to make money and to therefore appease ticket and merchandise buying audiences. Regardless of its individual merits, the film is a money-making endeavor to benefit the Disney Company, which has not always had the best relationship (to say the least) with representing Indigenous cultures or respecting Indigenous peoples.

The situation is a double-edged sword: mainstream films have the potential to challenge stereotypes and showcase Indigenous peoples’ voices on a large scale; but at the same time such widespread distribution and visibility almost always requires the heft of a multi-billion dollar company behind it — one which may or may not have the same interests in adhering to treating Indigenous peoples with respect. I’m not interested in looking at Lilo & Stitch and simply adding up the racist vs. un-racist points it scores to see which label holds up. Rather, I think that the film provides a helpful example of the complicated cultural space a film can occupy. Lilo & Stitch has racist elements; it also has moments where it challenges racial stereotypes in powerful ways for a broad audience to see. One fact does not negate the other, they coexist within the same text.

Many films set in Hawai’i do so from a colonialist white perspective, which Joy T. Taylor calls the “tourist gaze.” In these stories, Hawai’i is shown from an outsider’s perspective: often the islands are used to represent some kind of beautiful, lush, post-racial utopia that white people can visit and enjoy with no harmful repercussions — completely forgetting the Islands’ painful colonial history. The post-racial fantasy of Hawai’i can be seen in instances like the now infamous whitewashing casting of Emma Stone to play the role of half-Asian Hawaiian character of Allison Ng in Aloha. Under the “tourist gaze,” Hawai’i becomes a melting pot of different peoples in a way that explicitly favors white culture. Rather than addressing the ways in which white culture was very much forced upon Indigenous Hawaiians, films like Aloha center white actors with mainstream (read: white) sensibilities who then wear a couple of leis and hula skirts to showcase some vague form of “cultural mixing,” while still assuming whiteness as the dominant and default perspective.

On the other hand, Lilo & Stitch primarily adopts the point of view of the young, native Hawaiian Lilo, rather than the outside white visitors who come to the islands. Lilo’s hobby of taking pictures of the tourists she meets can be read as an inversion of the “tourist gaze.” Instead of Lilo becoming the subject of scrutiny and outside observation, she literally turns the camera onto the people doing the observing. Rather than being a side character in a white person’s journey, Lilo has the agency to not only be the protagonist of her story, but to turn the tables on the typical white narrative of Hawai’i by taking pictures of the white tourists that surround her: they’re the ones out of place on her island, they’re the ones that should be gawked at.

Nani similarly bucks stereotypes of Indigenous women on-screen, though in a different way. A related facet of the “tourist gaze” is the Dusky Maiden trope: where Indigenous women are cast as exotic, sexually available objects for the (generally) white male characters to consume, just another aspect of the beautiful Hawaiian scenery at their disposal. A clip from the 1962 film Mutiny on the Bounty (which the uploader has charmingly captioned as the “hottest scene in the history of cinema”) provides a pretty clear example of this trope in action:

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDpD2757jrc”]

In the video, Tahitian women perform for the white sailors, and the film cuts between their dancing and Marlon Brando watching them. It is a spectacle of Tahitian culture and bodies designed to entertain and appease white observers, both within the context of the story as well as the film itself. It’s just as much about the audience being able to watch these women performing and smiling and implying sexual availability as it is about the characters watching the same thing. Indigenous women are there to be looked at, not just by anyone, but by outsiders, by white men.

Unlike Mutiny on the Bounty, Lilo & Stitch adopts a very different gaze towards its female characters. Nani has a small romantic subplot, but it is not a crucial aspect of her character. The film frequently shows Nani in action and with agency. Her primary role in Lilo & Stitch is as the older sister and guardian of Lilo, rather than as a sexual object of desire. She turns down co-worker David’s romantic advances in favor of spending more time caring for her sister. Though the circumstances of Nani’s legal guardianship of Lilo were outside of her control, the film still lets Nani have agency to prioritize what matters most to her — the preservation and happiness of her family — over her dating life, thus giving a substantial alternative to the Dusky Maiden trope so prevalent in other films featuring Indigenous women.

Perhaps the most heartbreaking challenge to colonialist sensibilities in Lilo & Stitch is the scene where Nani must tell Lilo she is going to be taken away by Child Protective Services. Nani takes Lilo onto the hammock and signs her “Aloha ‘Oe” as a way of explaining what is about to happen to their family.

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

“Aloha ‘Oe,” in addition to being one of the most iconic Indigenous Hawaiian songs, also has ties to the U.S.’ illegal annexation of Hawai’i and the fall of the Hawaiian kingdom. It was written by Queen Liliuokalani, the last ruler of Hawai’i, and has come to symbolize the loss of the Kingdom to Western rule. Using this particular song ties the experiences of Lilo and Nani to the history of the Hawaiian people. Much like Queen Liliuokalani lost her kingdom to a specter of Western civilization (the U.S. government), Nani faces losing her family to another Western force: Child Protective Services.

Despite Lilo & Stitch’s relative willingness to engage with colonialist issues faced by Indigenous Hawaiians, at least as compared to other Hollywood films, the animated feature does shy away from a more direct confrontation of modern day Indigenous issues. One such example of this hesitation comes from a deleted scene that more explicitly points criticism at the behavior of modern white tourists in Hawai’i.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taPoeIQaOiQ

The deleted scene shows Lilo having to answer frequent questions by tourists butchering the Hawaiian language, as well as someone exclaiming, “Oh look a real native!” as she passes by. Unlike the “Aloha ‘Oe” scene, and Lilo’s hobby of taking pictures of tourists, this scene offers a more direct commentary on the lasting effects of colonialism and the media’s use of the “tourist gaze” when depicting Hawai’i. I am not discrediting the power of the two examples which remain in the final cut of the film, but it is worth noting that there were moments such as these that never made it on-screen.

And here lies the central tension in the production of Lilo & Stitch: even as a relatively low budget Disney film, ($80 million), it’s still a film being produced by a major studio for a mainstream audience with an imperative to make money. Anything that might threaten its profitability, such as direct critiques of modern white tourists in Hawai’i, often gets thrown out for being too big of a risk for financial success. On the other hand, the global reach of Disney films also provides a very large platform for issues of racism and colonialism faced by Native Hawaiians to be seen by millions of people.

A very similar tension can already be traced out in the upcoming Moana: a film that has been praised for its use of Polynesian voice actors but has also been criticized in its depiction of demigod Maui and its merchandise and marketing — in particular, the release of a racist Halloween costume of the Moana character Maui featuring brown skin and tribal tattoos, an example of brownface and cultural appropriation. A tweet by @LivingOffTheGrid perfectly encapsulates the conflicted emotions associated with the situation. Along with many others, this Twitter user expresses the simultaneous desire to support Indigenous voices on a large scale, while also frustration at the fiscal endeavors of the corporation which funds these films; endeavors which more often than not do not take into consideration the voices or concerns of Indigenous peoples. With the advent of cheaper filmmaking and distribution technologies, it is technically possible for smaller companies to provide a large platform for typically underrepresented voices, but it is undoubtedly harder and much rarer for such films to gain the amount of widespread attention Disney blockbusters get on a daily basis. Though for what it’s worth, Disney did pull the costumes after the large amounts of criticism it garnered through social media and other means — a conversation largely lead by Polynesian people, so there is undoubtedly always room for shifts, however small, in this dynamic.

Moana has also faced criticisms from Indigenous Hawaiians for white people telling the stories of Indigenous peoples. While Taika Waititi wrote the film’s initial draft, the credited directors and writers are all white people. As Tina Ngata writes at Civil Beat, Disney is participating in “colonial subversion of storytelling as a statement of diversity”:

“While they are celebrated for presenting a protagonist who will ‘not put up with mansplaining,’ Disney is patently ignoring the fact that this entire film is an act of whitesplaining.”

Anne Keala Kelly at Indian Country Today Media Network also criticizes Disney and Moana for “mining” Indigenous Hawaiian culture for profit:

“Most Indigenous peoples under U.S. control, certainly Hawaiians, have yet to carve out a meaningful space to represent ourselves, what we value, and our reality in mass media and film largely because America’s master narrative relies on our subjugation. […] The cultural imperialism of Disney mirrors the military imperialism of the United States and the other industries it uses to erase our Indigenous belonging…”

The controversies Moana has faced, even before the film has even been released for wide audiences, demonstrates how Lilo & Stitch is by no means an anomaly in terms of its complex relationship with race and representing Indigenous peoples. There are moments where Lilo & Stitch offers a profound counterpoint to mainstream narratives about Hawai’i and Indigenous Hawaiian people. There are also ways in which the desire to make money keeps the film away from making more direct or explicit statements about these issues. While it’s imperative to critique racist, colonialist, and white supremacist narratives, tropes, and representations, simply trying to look at Lilo & Stitch (or any film), and trying to determine if it’s good or bad in terms of its representations of race and Indigenous peoples overlooks the complicated cultural space these films occupy.

Unilaterally praising a film like Lilo & Stitch as being a pinnacle of “good” Indigenous representation ignores its significant flaws, and the flaws of the Disney company as a whole; just as completely dismissing the film overlooks the ways in which it can be used as a vehicle for positive change. As with most films, Lilo & Stitch occupies a more tenuous middle ground — a space of conflict and tension that must be acknowledged and explored, not overlooked in favor of either/or categorizations. Upcoming films like Moana deserve similar treatment.

Emma Casley is a Brooklyn-based film writer. She recently participated in the New York Film Festival’s Critics Academy and currently interns at the Metrograph. She can be found wandering the streets for good coffee and also on Twitter @EmmaLCasley.

Trespassed Lands, Transgressed Bodies: Horror, Rage, Rape, and Vengeance Within Indigenous Cinema

This guest post by Ariel Smith originally appeared at Bitch Flicks and is reposted here as part of our theme week on Indigenous Women.

Mi’gmaq filmmaker Jeff Barnaby employs aesthetic strategies and themes from horror cinema in order to push back against stereotypical representations of Indigenous peoples and critique contemporary neo-colonial systems. Barnaby has been known to recall conventions from both body horror and dystopian science fiction in order to present dark, disturbing narratives in which Mi’gmaq characters navigate through gruesome representations of abjection and assimilation. In his first feature film, Rhymes for Young Ghouls (2013), we see Barnaby drawing from another sub-genre of horror cinema, that of the rape revenge film.

Revenge tropes in the hands of Jeff Barnaby are used to not only tell the story of the female lead’s experiences of violation, but also to articulate a visceral, rage-filled revenge fantasy on behalf of a violated peoples.

Rhymes for Young Ghouls is set against the backdrop of Canada’s Indian Residential School System.

For those who don’t know, from 1884 to 1948, it was compulsory for Indigenous children under 16 years of age living in what is now known as Canada to attend colonial government-funded, church-run day and boarding schools. Children were forcibly removed from their families by Indian agents, and families were threatened with fines or prison if they failed to send their children. Children as young as 5 could be kept away from their parents for months or years at a time, were prohibited from speaking their language, and were issued severe corporal punishment for any expression of non-Christian cultural, social or spiritual practice. The Indian Residential School System’s express and specific, methodical intention was to “Kill the Indian in the child“ and resulted in cultural genocide that Indigenous nations are only now beginning to heal from. Many children experienced heinous sexual, physical, and psychological abuse, as well as being subjected to publicly documented sterilization efforts and starvation experiments. The last residential school closed in Canada in 1996 and this colonial system has resulted in multiple, consecutive generations with both stolen childhoods and parenthoods. Even Indigenous children who did not attend residential school are affected by inter-generational trauma, as their parents and/or grandparents most likely attended.

Rhymes for Young Ghouls takes place on a Mi’gma reserve in the late 1970s. The lead protagonist, 15-year-old Alia, makes her living dealing pot. One of her most pressing expenses is paying off the corrupt and evil Indian agent, Popper, in order for herself, and other kids from her community to not be taken away to the residential school, where they will undoubtedly be physically and sexually abused. Alia winds up being double crossed and taken against her will to the school, but she soon breaks out and on Halloween night, together with a posse of other kids from the rez, enacts violent, bloody, revenge against the school’s abusive staff.

For me, the violence and graphic nature found in Barnaby’s work is fitting and appropriate due to the themes he engages. Barnaby’s films trigger visceral responses by exposing the audience to poetic and raw depictions of colonial violence against Indigenous bodies. As Indigenous people, we understand genocide and trauma; we understand horror, we live it. Barnaby’s films frame a space where non-Indigenous people must look at the screen and feel repulsed, afraid, and unsafe by facing the terrifying and grotesquely violent truth and reality that is colonial nation building.

The sub-genre of rape revenge is often categorized under an umbrella of exploitation cinema, famous for its use of shock value and extreme scenarios. However, Indigenous filmmakers’ contributions to the rape revenge canon do not require exaggeration. We do not need to think up imagined incidents of vicious macabre torture. The Marquis de Sade has nothing on Canada’s residential schools. The horror, the terror — it’s all around us, it is the foundation that the colonial states are built upon. We walk in it every day, and prove our resilience through continued survival.

Another example of rape revenge themes within Indigenous cinema can be found in Niitsítapi/Sami filmmaker Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers‘ short film, A Red Girl’s Reasoning.

Tailfeathers presents us with a narrative in which an Indigenous woman, who is raped, is failed by the justice system and becomes a vigilante, seeking and delivering violent revenge against her own and other women’s rapists.

As with Barnaby’s work, it is impossible for A Red Girl’s Reasoning to be read outside of a larger overarching social context, which in this case it is the ongoing epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous woman and girls. There are over 800 cases of missing and murdered woman and girls in Canada which have been documented so far. Amnesty International Canada states:

“According to Statistics Canada the national homicide rate for Indigenous women is at least seven times higher than for non-Indigenous women… There are also a greatly disproportionate number of Indigenous women and girls among long-term missing persons cases. In Saskatchewan, Indigenous women make up only 6 per cent of the population of the province, but 60 per cent of its missing women are Indigenous.”

Media coverage and police support is often far less for missing or murdered Indigenous women than in the case of a white woman. Rape and sexual assault have been used as a tool of colonial conquest since contact and the epidemic of stolen sisters is a reflection of how Indigenous women continue to be devalued and dehumanized by white settler society.

The vengeance scenarios portrayed in both Rhymes for Young Ghouls and A Red Girl’s Reasoning resonate deeply with Indigenous audiences as they tap into our collective pain and anger. These films serve to disrupt the dominant visual culture, which excludes Indigenous perspectives and representation and has all but erased Indigenous peoples from the imagination of settler consciousness. Indigenous filmmakers provide visual allegory for what feminist and author bell hooks has called the “killing rage,” which is described as, “The fierce anger of black people stung by repeated instances of everyday racism… and the finding in that rage a healing source of love and strength, and a catalyst for productive change.”

Approaching and calling attention to the full depth of monstrosity that is colonial transgression is what makes Indigenous cinema, in general, such a powerful tool of resistance and resurgence. Indigenous cinema is bigger than the individual movies we make. Regardless of content or form, Native filmmakers have not yet been afforded the luxury to create work that is not automatically placed under a socio-political lens. As Indigenous peoples living in post-colonial/neo-colonial times, our presence — our very existence — is in itself a political statement, and our artistic expression is in itself a beautiful declaration of sovereignty, and self-determination.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

Courage and Consequences in Rhymes for Young Ghouls

Ariel Smith (Nêhiyaw/Jewish) is a filmmaker, video artist, writer and cultural worker currently based on unceded Algonquin territory, also known as Ottawa, Ontario. She has shown at festivals and galleries internationally including: Images (Toronto), Mix Experimental Film Festival (NYC), Urban Shaman (Winnipeg), MAI (Montreal), Gallery Sans Nom (Moncton), and Cold Creation Gallery (Barcelona, Spain). Her film Saviour Complex (2008) was nominated for Best Experimental at the 2008 Winnipeg Aboriginal Film Festival. Ariel’s video Swallow (2002) was the winner of the Cynthia Licker Sage Award at the 2004 imagineNative Film Festival, and Jury Third prize at the 2003 Media City Festival of Experimental Film and Video. Ariel’s writing and has been published by The Ottawa Art Gallery, The Ottawa International Animation Festival, imagineNative Festival of Indigenous Film and Media Art, and Kimiwan Magazine.

Ariel also works in Indigenous media arts advocacy and administration and is currently the director of National Indigenous Media Arts Coalition (NIMAC).

On Racism, Erasure, and ‘Pan’

This guest post by Danika Kimball previously appeared at Bitch Flicks and is reposted here as part of our theme week on Indigenous Women.

Hollywood has a history of recreating the same stories over and over again. I mean, in recent years audiences have seen remakes of Carrie, Cinderella, and about 18 Spiderman films (18 too many, in my opinion). So it came as no surprise when Warner Brothers announced that they would be making a new version of Peter Pan, entitled Pan. Even less surprising is their casting choice, where they have once again whitewashed a Native American character, hiring Rooney Mara to play the part of Tiger Lily. Apparently, most Hollywood executives and casting directors live in a fictional land called Neverlearn.

Raise your hand if you’re sick of it.

Director Joe Wright reportedly intended the film to be “very international and multi-racial,” but if the characters we’ve seen in this adaptation of Pan are indicative, he very well means “whiter than bleached snow.” Really, if he wanted the film to stand out from the rest of the Peter Pan films, he might have made it a point to create a non-racist one, as it would be the first of its kind to do so. I mean let’s not forget the disgusting racism present in the beloved 1953 Disney classic.

But fear not!

The studio apparently did an exhaustive search in finding the right girl to play the role of Tiger Lily, auditioning both Lupita Nyong’o and Adele Exarchopoulos before choosing Mara for the part. Though both of these actresses are phenomenally talented, name-checking starlets born in Kenya and France respectively hardly counts as an “exhaustive search,” especially when you cast a conventionally attractive white woman in the role at the end of the day.

Though certainly not the first film to completely screw up its casting choices (ahem — Stonewall, Aloha, Breakfast at Tiffany’s), Native whitewashing is particularly problematic. Fashion editors, photographers, and designers frequently appropriate Native culture, sport red face, and hypersexualize women. Though women are sexualized overall in entertainment mediums, the objectification of Native women presents a whole new set of problems. While one in four women is the victim of sexual abuse on average, that number more than doubles for Native women.

Furthermore, when was the last time you saw a film featuring Native Americans that didn’t use a harmful stereotype like “the violent savage,” “magical Native American,” or one who is drunk in a casino? Why are sports teams still using Native American caricatures as their mascots, despite overwhelming public dissent? How is Columbus Day still a thing? Why do we call celebrities our spirit animals?

To the naysayers that argue that Warner Brothers couldn’t find a good Native actress to fulfill the role, please allow me to call bullshit.

2002’s Whale Rider cast an unknown actress, Keisha Castle-Hughes, who went on to receive a well-deserved Oscar nomination. Similarly, Quevenzhané Wallis was cast as an unknown talent in 2012’s Beasts of the Southern Wild. That year she became the youngest actress to receive a Best Actress nomination at the Academy Awards.

Laverne Cox and Peter Dinklage are both testaments to the fact that casting great actors in roles that they authentically embody pays off in the long run. How inappropriate (not to mention ridiculously offensive) would it have been for HBO to continue the practice of “shrinking an actor” in order to depict the role of Tyrion Lannister? Consider the backlash that both Jared Leto, Eddie Redmayne, and most recently Elle Fanning have received for being cast as trans characters, rather than trans actors who could authentically play those parts.

Why on earth is Warner Brothers so hesitant to adopt a more progressive and culturally sensitive casting choice? What more do Hollywood executives need? Casting marginalized actors is not an impossible task, and their hesitation to embrace diversity on screen has real-life consequences.

The film Miss Representation touches on this idea. Adopting the mantra of Marie Wilson, director of The White House Project — “You can’t be what you can’t see” — the film argues that media representation is important. Without visible role models to look to, young people, especially girls and people of color, will be dissuaded from joining certain fields. Marginalized groups continue to be underrepresented in STEM, politics, leadership, and law enforcement, fields that are currently oversaturated with white men.

This opinion is shared by those who it most severely affects. A recent graduate from Arizona State University, Edilh Gallardo, shared her experiences in pursuing an education with her alma mater, emphasizing that pursuing higher education as a minority can be difficult because “a lot of our children don’t realize the opportunity is there.”

Her sentiments are part of the reason why representation in television film matters so much. If the only representations you see of your race or gender on TV are terrorists, criminals, and savages, rather than doctors, lawyers, or leaders, it might be difficult for you to imagine yourself in those positions later on in life.

There has been a long standing Hollywood cliche that states, the only color Hollywood executives see is green. This excuses the industry from their role in helping maintain white supremacist patriarchy because they are allowed to say, “We’re just giving the people what they want.” It’s clear in films like Pan, Tonto, and Aloha that Hollywood has no qualms with telling the stories of women or minorities. They have no problem with disenfranchised characters, but it has become apparent in recent casting choices that Hollywood is not ready for disenfranchised actors. This kind of transgression is irresponsible at best, and damaging to our cultural fabric at worst. So for the sake of actors, films, and the future of the industry, I hope eventually someone will start listening.

Danika Kimball is a musician from the Northwest who sometimes takes a 30-minute break from feminism to enjoy a TV show. You can follow her on Twitter @sadwhitegrrl or on Instagram @drunkfeminist.

The Problems with Disney’s ‘Pocahontas’

In ‘Pocahontas,’ Disney missed an important opportunity to represent Indigenous women in a relatable, empowering way, and instead focused on commodifying their culture for mass-market appeal. … Pocahontas’ life only became a story worth telling when a white man became involved. She only became a princess when a white man recognized her as royalty. She only became the center of a Disney movie because white men realized they could profit off of her myth.

This guest post written by Shannon Rose appears as part of our theme week on Indigenous Women.

For as long as I can remember, my brother who has autism and I have loved Disney movies, and they have given us a real way to connect and bond with each other over the years. Disney has had such a positive impact on my life and my relationship with my brother that it is difficult to look back and see how problematic the films are, especially with regards to Indigenous women. However, I have realized that it’s important to step back from our own attachments and examine the harm Disney has done by perpetuating damaging stereotypes. This, in turn, will help us fight for better representation in future animated films that will positively impact the next generation of Disney movie fans. In Pocahontas, Disney missed an important opportunity to represent Indigenous women in a relatable, empowering way, and instead focused on commodifying their culture for mass-market appeal.

Pocahontas is an animated romantic musical drama about a young Native American woman in the 17th century who falls in love with a colonizing European, John Smith, and saves his life, bringing temporary peace between the colonizers and the Indigenous people. I always assumed it was an overly embellished rendition of history, but it is actually a heavily romanticized version of John Smith’s account of the events. This is problematic because there is a long, fraught history of European storytelling that involves a colonizing white man being saved by an Indigenous woman, who then falls in love with him and becomes a Christian, which is suspiciously similar to Pocahontas’ tale. The Powhatan Nation criticized Pocahontas for perpetuating the trope of “the ‘good Indian,’ one who saved the life of a white man.” White men have been fascinated with “civilizing” gorgeous Indigenous women, and John Smith’s story is only one of the many that have been perpetuated. Knowing this changes the context of the film. It’s no longer a story of a woman who falls in love with a seemingly unattainable man, but rather the delusions of a white colonizer who dreams of a beautiful Indigenous woman wanting to give up her life among “savages” to become a proper “civilized” European, aiding him in his desire to spread white civilization and power across the world.

Disney sells the film as having a female protagonist, but since the source material originated from a white man’s point of view, she lacks the agency to guide the story. Pocahontas is immediately “othered” as a mystical creature deeply in touch with nature, and not a complex human being. She communicates with animals, she can leap from great heights, she asks advice from a tree, and the wind leads her along her journey. All of these magical touches create distance between her and the audience. More importantly, it creates distance between Native Americans and how they are represented on-screen. When Disney made Pocahontas and her culture otherworldly, they erased the humanity of Indigenous people.

The audience is introduced to John Smith as an English man who has traveled all over the world, and has proudly killed many Indigenous people in order to spread his idea of “civilization.” “You can’t fight Indians without John Smith!” a fellow shipmate says. “That’s right, I’m not about to let you guys have all the fun!” Smith elatedly responds. Here is a man who has never hesitated to kill Indigenous people before, but when he finds Pocahontas at the end of the barrel of his gun, he suddenly has a change of heart. He doesn’t stop because she’s a woman; he stops because she is stunning. Her body is worth more to him alive than dead.

Another magical element that does more harm than good is the way Pocahontas immediately learns how to speak English, to the shock and delight of both her animal friends and Smith. Off the hook, Smith now has no need to learn her language because Pocahontas adjusts herself to accommodate his needs. The language barrier that exists between cultures has always required give and take from both sides; it makes us better communicators and strengthens our ability to understand each other in a deeper, more meaningful way. By forgoing that struggle, the white colonizer is accommodated and their white supremacist beliefs are sustained.

Part of the problem with Pocahontas is how it teaches young Indigenous girls that their worth is dependent on the men in their lives. To be seen as a princess, as royalty, they must be willing to risk their lives to defend white men and turn away from their own culture. While Pocahontas is portrayed as a heroine, did she ever have a choice? Would her story ever have been told if she had let Smith die, if she had chosen her family over him? She would have been erased from history, as far too many Indigenous women have been. Pocahontas’ life only became a story worth telling when a white man became involved. She only became a princess when a white man recognized her as royalty. She only became the center of a Disney movie because white men realized they could profit off of her myth.

Disney exacerbated the erroneous long-held belief that Indigenous women welcomed Europeans and their culture to America, erasing the history of racism, colonialism, and genocide against Indigenous peoples. Disney went one step further, however, and commodified Native Americans and their culture in ways we have not been able to recover from. In early 1995, months before the movie was released, Disney spent millions marketing the film. Pocahontas Barbie dolls, Payless Shoes moccasins, and Halloween costumes can still be found today, twenty years later, giving white girls permission to appropriate Native American culture and treat race and culture as costumes. Because Disney made Pocahontas an American “Princess,” many non-Native people assumed her as one of their own. Thus, we now can claim a shared American heritage, and not have to think twice before appropriating her culture. Many of us have long struggled with our place in the U.S.’s violent and troubled history but Disney single-handedly made cultural appropriation “okay” for an entire generation of children in order to sell merchandise.

It is hard to accept that something we love is deeply flawed because their flaws reflect back on us. It’s much easier to brush those criticisms off and push it to the back of your mind. It’s important to know, though, that you can love something that is flawed (I’ve been singing “Just Around the River Bend” for a week now) and still push Disney and other filmmakers to not make the same mistakes again.

We need to amplify stories of Indigenous women, and give them the support they need to tell those stories and make them be heard to a larger audience. Indigenous women need to be writers and directors, not props in white people’s stories to make us feel better about colonizing their home. The true story of Pocahontas, where she was kidnapped and used as propaganda by the Virginia Company and whose real name was Matoaka, is tragic and should embarrass us non-Native people. It was never Disney material, but there are stories about Indigenous women out there that are. Disney just needs to look beyond source material created by white men.

Shannon Rose is a writer and director living in Los Angeles. She has her MFA in Film & Television from USC School of Cinematic Arts, and she is passionate about creating opportunities in film for diverse voices. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram @femmefocale.

‘Kumu Hina’: Documentary on a Native Hawaiian Māhū (Transgender) Woman and Teaching the True Meaning of Aloha

‘Kumu Hina’ is a portrait of one activist working to preserve Native rights, culture, and dignity in a time when Native Sovereignty is being made more visible by events like the efforts of Water Protectors to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu draws a direct and explicit link between honoring her māhū identity and helping her people preserve their culture. Like the māhū of generations past, Wong-Kalu has taken on the responsibility of sharing sacred knowledge with the next generation. She wants to share with her students the true meaning of aloha which, to her, means giving them unconditional acceptance and respect.

This guest post written by Gabrielle Amato-Bailey appears as part of our theme week on Indigenous Women.

Kumu Hina is a 2014 documentary directed by Dean Hamer and Joe Wilson, which follows Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu, a māhū (transgender) Native Hawaiian school teacher, through a year in her life. The documentary begins by introducing Halau Lokahi, the public charter school where Wong-Kalu teaches hula. This school is “dedicated to native Hawaiian culture, language, and history… subjects long prohibited in Hawai’i’s Americanized education system.” This is followed by a brief animated introduction during which Wong-Kalu, through voiceover, introduces viewers to the Hawaiian concept of māhū: “those born ‘in the middle’” “who embrace both feminine and masculine traits that are embodied within each and every one of us.”

Wong-Kalu explains that in pre-colonial Hawai’i, māhū people held honored positions in society as healers, keepers of sacred wisdom, and teachers. It is clear that Wong-Kalu sees honoring her own māhū identity and preserving Hawaiian culture as deeply intertwined. In her introduction, she clearly ties respect for māhū to the body of Hawaiian traditions. Western missionaries condemned māhū individuals at the same time they forbade hula and other cultural expressions. This queer identity is part of traditional Hawaiian culture; the identity cannot be claimed without connecting with the Hawaiian heritage, and that heritage cannot be fully honored without respecting the gender identity. Wong-Kalu recalls that in her youth she was often made fun of for being too feminine, but found refuge in her cultural identity. The strength that she drew from connecting with her heritage led her to her purpose to “spread the true meaning of aloha.” Connecting with her Hawaiian heritage gave her the strength to be true to her gender identity, and being true to her gender identity seems to have led her to the traditional role of a māhū as a teacher. The documentary really illustrates this close connection by weaving together stories of Wong-Kalu’s personal and professional life. We follow her as she prepares her students for their end of year hula recital, and as she begins married life with her husband, Hema Kalu.

Wong-Kalu is the hula teacher at Halau Lokahi, and it is she who teaches students of all ages the traditional songs and dances of Hawai’i. The documentary focuses particularly on her high school age boys as they struggle to fully commit to their performance. Early on, we see Wong-Kalu demonstrate the chant to her students and how they imitate her very timidly, seemingly afraid to look silly. She demonstrates again, first telling them, “There’s nothing wahine about my voice.” Although Wong-Kalu later discusses her concerns about how her identity may impact her social life, she uses her māhū identity and gender fluidity to serve her students.

There is another reason that the documentary focuses on this particular group of students. A middle school student, Ho’onani Kamai, who is also a māhū person, has asked if she can be part of the high school boy’s performance. Wong-Kalu is originally hesitant to allow it because of possible backlash from parents, but considers it her job to nurture her students, not force them into gender identities or gender roles. Her presence ends up being to the benefit of the male students because Kamai is fully committed to the performance. Wong-Kalu describes her to the other students as someone who embodies Ku, or male energy. Wong-Kalu even plays to adolescent male pride, asking her male students if they’ll let themselves be outdone by a younger female student. In an interview, Kamai suggests that the high school boys struggle partly because they’re afraid to look foolish and partly because they think they don’t have to try very hard.

Kamai’s dedication and commitment pay off when, at the end of year recital, she is the one to lead the high school boys’ chant. Towards the end of the documentary, we see this group of students meeting again after their performance, and the boys all praise and thank Kamai for being a leader and teacher.

Throughout Wong-Kalu and Kamai’s journey together working on this performance piece, the documentary reveals to us how these two māhū individuals are received by their community. Other students at Halau Lokahi are quite comfortable with the māhū identity. Kamai is accepted by her peers and has friends, and the documentary even shows some of her classmates explaining what it means when someone is māhū. This broad acceptance from the students is obviously the result of the environment of respect and cultural pride that the school staff fosters in their students. During morning assembly, Principal Laara Allbrett reminds the students the importance of respecting their teachers by giving their full effort to their lessons, especially because her generation and those before were prevented from learning about their heritage as a colonized people. This sentiment is echoed by Kamai’s mother, for whom it is very important to see her children get the type of education she could not have, and she is comfortable with Kamai expressing her māhū identity. It is evident that Wong-Kalu’s philosophy that respecting the māhū identity is part of respecting and expressing traditional Hawaiian culture is shared by her community.

The final word on Wong-Kalu’s mentorship of Kamai comes before the end of year recital. Wong-Kalu takes her student aside and lets her know that as long as she’s in this supportive environment, she can express her māhū identity freely, but that this might not be the case everywhere. Wong-Kalu cautions Kamai that as a child she may have to go along with other’s expectations. She explains that, as an adult and someone who is confident in her identity, she doesn’t move for anyone at this point in her life, and that Kamai will also reach that point in her own life.

Running parallel to this story of the mentoring relationship is the story of Wong-Kalu’s relationship with her husband, Hema Kalu. Kalu is a Tongan man from Fiji, and the documentary picks up when his visa has finally come through and he can move to the U.S. Wong-Kalu describes her husband as a “full-on bush man,” and Kalu says of his life in Fiji that he was “poor but free.” In contrast to Wong-Kalu’s experience of Hawaiian tradition being supportive of the māhū identiy, Kalu describes Fiji as more conservative. He admits that at first he was hesitant to get involved with a māhū person because he was afraid of how his friends would perceive him. Wong-Kalu also expresses anxieties about “passing” (a controversial and problematic term to many trans women as it implies that there is a specific way women should look and behave, although for many trans people it is “rooted in a desire for safety“) for Kalu’s friends. They are both very protective of one another in the face of possible discrimination.

Conflict arises in the relationship between Wong-Kalu and Kalu for the same reasons as in any other relationship: expectations. On the one hand, Kalu seems to still have fairly traditional gender expectations for his marriage. He is extremely jealous and doesn’t want his wife to have any male friends. On the other hand, he struggles to adapt to more urbanized life in Hawai’i, and Wong-Kalu becomes extremely frustrated with him because of the time it takes him to adjust. Part of the conflict also seems to come from their age difference. Kalu is in his early 20s, while Wong-Kalu reaches her 40th birthday during the filming of the documentary. Some of Kalu’s behavior comes off as deeply immature and selfish. When Wong-Kalu invites him to attend her students’ mid-year concert, he takes a call on his cell during the performance and then rushes to leave to spend time with his friends. He also calls and interrupts Wong-Kalu several times during one of her classes. Kalu doesn’t seem to understand how important his wife’s work is to her.

Wong-Kalu discusses her concerns about being in a relationship at all, and whether she as a māhū person is maybe willing to put up with more conflict or disrespect in order to not be alone. At the same time, there is an obvious affection between her and Kalu. Towards the end of the documentary, he presents her with a birthday cake and gifts, singing “Happy Birthday.” Wong-Kalu expresses that, however things might turn out for her marriage, she is grateful to live in a place that allows her to be herself and love who she loves.

Kumu Hina is a portrait of one activist working to preserve Native rights, culture, and dignity in a time when Native Sovereignty is being made more visible by events like the efforts of Water Protectors to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. Wong-Kalu is a cultural advocate, a teacher, and the chairperson of the Oahu Burial Council. She draws a direct and explicit link between honoring her māhū identity and helping her people preserve their culture. Like the māhū of generations past, Wong-Kalu has taken on the responsibility of sharing sacred knowledge with the next generation. She wants to share with her students the true meaning of aloha which, to her, means giving them unconditional acceptance and respect.

Gabrielle Amato-Bailey is just starting out as a freelance writer. In between paying gigs she writes about feminism, pop culture, and social justice.

‘The Cherokee Word for Water’: The Wilma Mankiller Story

Wilma Pearl Mankiller became the first modern female Chief of the Cherokee Nation in 1985 after working with volunteers from the small rural community of Bell, Oklahoma to bring water to the town. ‘The Cherokee Word for Water’ is the story of this extraordinary woman and leader whose activism on behalf of her community continues to resonate across the Cherokee Nation today.

This post written by staff writer Amanda Morris originally appeared at Bitch Flicks and is reposted here as part of our theme week on Indigenous Women.

“Long before the United States existed, the Cherokee people had a society based on democratic principles,” a male voice says at the opening of The Cherokee Word for Water. A man in a cowboy hat walks toward the camera alongside a river, trees bare of their leaves, the landscape dominant. Later, we learn that this man is the real Charlie Soap (Wilma Mankiller’s husband and the film’s co-director). The voice continues, “They were guided by the spirit of balance between the self and community, elders and youth, men and women. One Cherokee community was reminded of that balance in the early 1980s.” The image transitions to a closer view of the river carrying a soft layer of mist above her surface, the sun gently touching the tops of the distant trees. The next statement from the voiceover is in the Cherokee language and subtitles read, “The Cherokee word for water is,” beckoning viewers to listen.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h5TsMBO_nQ”]

“If there is no water, many communities begin to scatter, fall apart. That’s what was happening by the 1970s,” the voiceover continues as the visual shifts to broken down equipment, abandoned wood frame homes, and the faces of enduring elders. Viewers are introduced to a vision of real people surviving years of broken treaties, neglect, and empty promises; people trying to survive in the face of a serious problem: no water. The narrator continues, “Then something happened that no one expected. It started with the return of one Cherokee woman, Wilma Mankiller.”

Kimberly Guerrero plays Mankiller in the film and after the narrator’s introduction of the community’s problem, we see Wilma (Guerrero) driving a brown station wagon loaded with suitcases and clothing, smiling at her sleeping children in the front seat. She is headed home to Cherokee territory in Oklahoma.

As she settles into her original home community, Wilma suffers the same transitional pains that any woman might face upon moving home: difficulty finding a job, an oldest daughter who doesn’t want to be there, and bureaucratic red tape that stalls the simplest tasks. However, she also suffers a terrible head-on collision that breaks her body apart, after which she has time to heal, think, and plan. Wilma’s friend, George Adair (Roger Vann) stops by with a box of chocolate and she asks for his help. “Let me go talk to the water,” he says, and the scene shifts to his ceremony by a spring in the woods. When he returns to Wilma, he holds her hands and announces, “You gonna be alright.”

Three months later, as Wilma and Charlie Soap (Moses Brings Plenty) begin to visit Bell to gather support for the waterline project, they are greeted with friendly, but aloof, skepticism. Just saying that the tribe wants to help isn’t enough for the Cherokee residents of Bell, who are used to being lied to and let down by government authorities. When words fail them, Wilma sets out to show the community that she is serious about helping them. She and Charlie start by fixing Mae Canoe’s (Cindy Soap) roof, changing out the screen door of another’s home, and other tasks around the community. It is clear that in this locale, actions speak much louder than words, especially for people who are painfully familiar with broken promises. Even after some people in the community begin to open their homes and minds to Wilma and Charlie, Mae’s daughter Elizabeth (Jamie Loy) scolds Wilma, “You might get my mom to believe your fancy talk, but you ain’t foolin’ me. … Keep your dreams to yourself, lady.”

The film features many quiet moment of contemplation, sometimes near water and sometimes indoors, as when we see Wilma writing in her journal after her encounter with Elizabeth. We hear Guerrero’s voiceover say, “Trust. Like with Mae’s daughter. We need hers, but she needs to see we can make things better, together.”

Once the community learns to trust Wilma and seems to be getting on-board, her determination to succeed with the Bell waterline project runs into opposition from tribal politicians. Chief Ross Swimmer (Darryl Tonemah) calls Wilma into his office to alert her that her project is getting a lot of attention, that the idea of “poor Cherokees pulling themselves up by their bootstraps” is a story that the media will love. She assumes this is good news. “You and Charlie making progress out there can be seen as a threat,” Chief Swimmer says, crossing his arms across his chest, sending a strong defensive body language message that reflects a practical concern of all politicians: potential new voters who may oppose the status quo. Wilma and Charlie have many obstacles to overcome including intense and personal political pressure from tribal leaders who don’t want the project to succeed, but Wilma remains adamant in her response to the Chief, “This project will not fail.”

The Cherokee Word for Water has captured the attention of Gloria Steinem, who said, “The Cherokee Word for Water is a very rare story because it is about the empowerment of people who have been made to feel they have no power.”

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCtmZhxOK9s”]

Furthermore, in a background video for the film, Kimberly Guerrero said, “It’s a woman’s story, it’s Wilma’s story, and it’s about how a woman goes about unifying a community.” And that unification begins with truth. Charlie warns Wilma once the community commits to voluntarily digging 18 miles of waterline through rocky terrain without a firm budget yet in place, “Wilma, around here, when you say something, it better be true.”

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2d24Bj1GiQ”]

The determination of one woman to make a difference for her people against political pressure, bureaucratic red tape, and community skepticism comes to life in The Cherokee Word for Water, and serves as a necessary reminder that sovereign Indigenous nations remain a vibrant part of this land with strength, passion, stories, and experiences of their own.

For those of you interested in activism, this film was funded through The Wilma Mankiller Foundation with profits going back to the foundation “to support economic development and education throughout Indian Country,” according to the official website. The Cherokee Word for Water would make a wonderful addition to any course or community workshop in women’s studies, Indigenous studies, American studies, or politics, as it “demonstrates the positive attributes of modern Native communities and provides positive role models for Native youth in the mainstream media.”

Note: Chief Mankiller walked on in 2010, but her Foundation, spirit, and works live on.

Dr. Amanda Morris is an Associate Professor of Multiethnic Rhetorics at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania with a specialty in Indigenous Rhetorics.

Tanya Tagaq Voices Inuit Womanhood in ‘Nanook of the North’

This post written by staff writer Brigit McCone originally appeared at Bitch Flicks and is reposted here as part of our theme week on Indigenous Women.

Nanook of the North is an iconic 1922 drama that recreates traditional Inuit lifeways through the representative struggles of Nanook (“Polar Bear,” played by Allakariallak), his wife Nyla (“The Smiling One,” played by Maggie Nujarluktuk), another woman identified only as “Cunayou,” Nanook’s young son “Allee,” and baby “Rainbow.” However, we are shown older boys, described as “some of Nanook’s children,” eating sea-biscuits and lard at the trading post, adding to the film’s casual, hand-waving vagueness about Nanook’s family relationships. Male helpers pop up for group hunts, as though from nowhere, but Nanook’s family is never placed in a wider community context. Despite describing Nanook as band leader, he is never depicted leading, and is frequently infantilized by director Robert Flaherty. By framing his drama as “documentary,” Flaherty converts Allakariallak and Nujarluktuk from active collaborators into passive subjects.

Flaherty erased the fact that both Maggie Nujarluktuk and, reportedly, the woman playing Cunayou, were his own wives (or “mistresses,” from Flaherty’s cultural perspective). The “morning” scene, in which Nanook, his two women and his son awake naked inside the igloo, therefore closely resembles Flaherty’s own polyamorous living arrangement, exoticized into a symptom of Nanook’s cultural Otherness. The domestic warmth that Flaherty captured in Nanook of the North, through his access to both women, is key to his “documentary’s” charm, but his pretended objectivity converts this intensely personal intimacy into an image of the women’s indiscriminate availability to outsiders. Maggie Nujarluktuk smiles self-consciously and playfully flirts with the camera, because the camera is being operated by her husband, but that husband disowns her smiles and essentializes them as a permanent characteristic of “Nyla the smiling one.”

In her thesis, “Neither Indian Princesses Nor Squaw Drudges,” Janice Acoose examines the pervasive stereotype of the “loose squaw” in literature about Indigenous women, which constructs the Indigenous woman as a disposable sexual convenience. Flaherty’s own concept of Inuit disposability was demonstrated when he abandoned Nujarluktuk after filming, who then bore him a son, Josephie, that he never saw, acknowledged, or materially supported. This adds sinister resonance to Nanook of the North‘s description of Nyla’s baby Rainbow as “her young husky,” jokingly implying that Inuit women view their own children as equivalent to animals. In Acoose’s view, “loose squaw” images “foster cultural attitudes that legitimize rape and other similar kinds of violence against Indigenous women,” whose disappearances often go uninvestigated in Canada, particularly if they are also sex workers.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCEzGouiy2Q”]

Josephie Flaherty’s family was caught up in the “High Arctic Relocation,” the forced transfer of a community of Inuit to the High Arctic, as “human flagpoles” to support Canada’s territorial claim to the Northwest Passage. It was masterminded by the Department of Northern Affairs, who wished to remove the Inuit from white civilization to free them from “a toxic culture of dependence.” In other words, like Nanook of the North, the “High Arctic Relocation” was an artificially staged, Euro-American vision of uncorrupted Inuit innocence. It is impossible to draw a neat line between Flaherty’s fictional vision and the Department of Northern Affairs’ imposed reality; each was inspired by a toxic culture, not of dependence but of colonial entitlement and the romanticizing of “noble savages”; the Department’s resident romantics may even have been directly inspired by Nanook of the North. The High Arctic Exiles were denied material support from the Canadian government, though that same government intervened to prevent them from hunting on its designated “wildlife preserve.” The Inuit, identified by numbered tags, were taken from a community with a school and nursing station, and transported on a boat with infectious tuberculosis patients. Tuberculosis was also the disease that had previously claimed the life of Flaherty’s star, Allakariallak, a fact that Flaherty covered up by telling audiences that “Nanook” had “starved to death” while hunting deer, yet again erasing Euro-American influence. Several of the High Arctic Exiles’ children were taken from their parents for medical treatment and “misplaced for several years” by bureaucrats, a chilling indifference that echoes Flaherty’s casual attitude to Nanook’s fluctuating number of “young huskies.” For his monument symbolizing victims of the “Relocation,” Inuk sculptor Looty Pijamini chose a life-size Inuk woman and child, carved from a block of granite tinted red like blood.

Her international recording career has made “Inuk punk” Tanya Tagaq into one of the most recognizable cultural ambassadors of the Inuit people. Tagaq’s own mother hailed from Nanook of the North‘s Quebec location before falling victim to the High Arctic “relocation,” informing Tagaq’s complex response to the film’s mixture of colonial ideology and preserved history. In 2012, the Toronto International Film Festival commissioned Tagaq to provide an original soundtrack to the film, drawing from the Inuit art of throat-singing, katajjaq. Discussing the film, Tagaq spotlights Flaherty’s staged scene of Nanook biting a gramophone record, as though unaware of what it is. “Inuit are running the cameras a lot of the time,” Tagaq laughs. Watching this scene closely is revealing. As the gramophone starts up, neither Nanook nor Nyla appears surprised by it, while Nyla rocks her baby to the music. There is an awkward jump cut, Nyla has been removed from the shot, and Nanook is laughing and biting the record. In such scenes, Allakariallak demonstrates the comic ability which gives the film its charm, but is harnessed to create a demeaning image of Inuit childishness, which Flaherty frames as generally representative of “the fearless, lovable, happy-go-lucky Eskimo,” rather than individually representative of the talented comedian, Allakariallak. However, Tanya Tagaq’s soundtrack rejects Flaherty’s impulse to isolate, essentialize, and fossilize Inuit culture into artificial purity. As a confident inheritor of her own culture, she engages with the musical traditions of other nations, harnessing non-Native technology and instruments to enrich her evolving practice of katajjaq.

When the show came to the 2014 Dublin Fringe Festival, I eagerly checked it out, having experienced the masculine tradition of Tuvan khöömei throat-singing in Siberia. Unlike khöömei, katajjaq evolved as a female tradition. Two women, facing each other, would improvise rhythmic motifs, the loser being the first to laugh or run out of breath. These throat-singing games tended to last between one and three minutes. Tagaq’s live performance to Nanook of the North lasts over an hour, an extraordinarily demanding tour-de-force of physical strength and passion.

Katajjaq blends mood, rhythm and the imitation of natural sounds, from wind to howling dogs to crying birds, weaving them into a spiritual whole. By blending the sounds of the natural world with the mind’s vibrations, katajjaq reflects the worldview of animism, the traditional Inuit conception that all objects and beings are endowed with spirit. From the 1930s to the 1960s, Christian missionaries banned throat-singing as a demonic and sexual act. Certainly, Tagaq’s version of katajjaq is strikingly sexual. Her hyperventilations build in intensity and peak with shrieking cries, inducing ecstatic trance. Where “Nyla the smiling one” was crafted as a submissive image of availability, the throat-singer powerfully (perhaps threateningly) voices her own desire. Nina Segalowitz, a survivor of coerced adoption and forced assimilation, found katajjaq an empowering tool for reconnecting to her heritage. Her story recalls the Australian Aboriginal experience of forced assimilation portrayed in Rabbit Proof Fence: “My father thought he was signing hospital admission forms. The next day, he came to take me back, but I was gone. They told him that he had signed release papers and couldn’t get me back.” Evie Mark, raised Inuk but with a white father, also describes the craving for something that will make your identity stronger as a major motivator for katajjaq revival, indicating its importance to national self-esteem. Placed against the imagery of Nanook of the North, katajjaq collapses the distance between spectator and subject, dismantling the subject’s perceived quaintness and giving voice to Inuit experience and perception, from the shrieking killing of a walrus to the grunting effort of igloo construction.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV-YQSQ1_FE”]

Tanya Tagaq’s reclaiming of Nanook of the North, with music that fuses tradition and modernity, may be compared with the work of A Tribe Called Red, a collective of First Nations DJs who have collaborated with Tagaq, that remix traditional chanting and drumming with electronica, dubstep, and spoken word, rejecting the impulse to isolate, essentialize, and fossilize. A Tribe Called Red’s visuals (start two minutes in) remix stereotypes of “Red Indians” from pop culture, with witty juxtapositions that subvert their original associations and assert A Tribe Called Red’s authorship. Genocidal policies of forced assimilation, from prohibitions by Christian missionaries to coerced adoptions and residential schools (whose painful legacy is depicted in Cree director Georgina Lightning’s Older Than America, among other Indigenous filmmakers), interrupt the line of cultural transmission in oral cultures, so that the imperial culture’s anthropological records can become the only source of preserved heritage. In reframing a colonial record of Inuit life into an expression of Inuit experience, Tagaq’s voicing of Nanook of the North can be compared to the art of Jane Ash Poitras (Cree), which reframes anthropological photographs by symbolically visualizing the subject’s own perspective. One of her Inuit artworks, “In My Parka You Will Find My Spirit,” offers multiple symbolic frames for her young Inuk subject. First, he is surrounded with the syllabic writing of his own language, inuktitut, whose flowing edges are contained by a rigid frame bearing the imposed Euro-American label “Copper Eskimo.” The outer frame is looped with blood, suggesting interior flesh, while the Arctic exterior, with ghostly inukshuk, is placed inside this flesh, the body experiencing the environment rather than the environment defining the body. On the lower left, an elder represents connection to cultural tradition through role models, an experience stolen from the victims (and survivors) of Canada’s policy of coerced adoption, as recently as the 1960s and 1970s.

Robert Flaherty not only framed Inuit womanhood according to his fantasies of casual sensuality, but according to Euro-American patriarchal fantasy. His portrait of Inuit life is neatly divided between the woman’s role, limited to cleaning igloos and nursing infants, apparently immune to the frustrations of Euro-American women in that role, and the man’s role, leading the band, educating older children, and hunting. In reality, Inuit women were hunters, including polar bear hunters, and played strong roles as educators and storytellers, while today’s Inuit women are also lawyers, government ministers, and activists.

Nanook of the North established the Inuk man as the sole icon of Inuit life. It was followed by 1934’s Wedding of Palo, a portrait of Greenland Inuit by Danish filmmakers, in which the Inuk woman is a love object fought over by two rivals. Though brilliantly filmed, and preserving authentic Inuit traditions, the film reinforces perceptions of Indigenous women as natural spoils of war, submissively accepting their role as the victor’s rightful property. The Inuit-made Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001) does portray the frustration of its heroine, Atuat, at being promised to villain Oki rather than her beloved Atanarjuat. Nevertheless, the story centers Atanarjuat’s experiences, and it is he must find a way to marry the heroine. The short film Kajutaijuq, co-written and produced by Nyla Innuksuk, also centers a male hunter but, hopefully, the rise of promising female filmmakers like Innuksuk will lead to more representations of Inuit women’s perspectives in future. In the meantime, Tanya Tagaq’s voicing of Nanook of the North is a powerful start.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4kOIzMqso0″]

Brigit McCone is still decolonizing her mind. She writes and directs short films, radio dramas, and “The Erotic Adventures of Vivica” (as Voluptua von Temptitillatrix). Her hobbies include doodling and telling people to check out the carvings of Susan Point.

‘Older Than America’: Cultural Genocide and Reparations

One female-helmed film that directly addresses the horrific psychological, cultural, and spiritual legacy of Native boarding schools on Indigenous families in the United States is ‘Older Than America,’ a 2008 release, directed and produced by and starring Georgina Lightning, from a script by Lightning and Christine Kunewa Walker. … Rain’s journey is part of the collective story of her community and her tribe…

This guest post by Laura Shamas originally appeared at Bitch Flicks and is reposted here as part of our theme week on Indigenous Women. | Spoilers ahead.

In July 2015, Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission released a major report entitled “Honoring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future” about the cultural genocide against Aboriginal children, due to abuse in Canadian residential boarding schools run by churches and funded by the state. The report is based on testimony from over 6,000 survivors; there are 94 proposals for reparation recommended. The Canadian Broadcasting System notes that the odds of dying in a native residential school in Canada (“1 in 25”) were higher than dying as a Canadian serving in World War II (“1 in 26”).

One female-helmed film that directly addresses the horrific psychological, cultural, and spiritual legacy of native boarding schools on Indigenous families in the United States is Older Than America, a 2008 release, directed and produced by and starring Georgina Lightning, from a script by Lightning and Christine Kunewa Walker. Lightning is a Canadian First Nations filmmaker, and a Maskwacis Cree, registered with the Samson Cree Nation. As the film begins, a graphic informs us: “This story is inspired by actual events.”

Tracing the devastating intergenerational effects of cultural and physical genocide, as part of colonialism, in a film about Native people is difficult and daunting, but Lightning’s approach is original and compelling, aided by a strong ensemble cast that features Native actors. The film begins on the Fond Du Lac reservation in northern Minnesota, as schoolteacher Rain O’Rourke (Lightning), awakes in the middle of the night from an ominous dream about a young man in a Sun Dance ceremony. Rain lives with her longtime boyfriend, reservation Police Officer Johnny Goodfeather (Adam Beach). She mentions to Johnny that they need to secure the door latch; it’s clear that “something” is getting in.

The film’s storyline is bifurcated, propelled by time; the plot of the present is jarringly interrupted by traumatic, haunting memories of the past, depicted in grey flashbacks. And the present is also connected to the future, as few are able to take action until the truth about the past is acknowledged. Ghosts also populate the present, filmed in color.

We follow Rain, the film’s protagonist, as she comes to terms with her past through visions and dreams, and her future, too, when she learns the disturbing truth about what happened to her mother and uncle at the nearby Catholic native residential school. Rain’s journey is part of the collective story of her community and her tribe; until the facts about what happened to Native students locked in a school cellar in the 1950s are revealed and the children properly mourned, Rain and the future of her tribe are in jeopardy. Children are “the hope” of any culture. When entire generations of youth are traumatized or killed by the church and state, what is the remedy? Older Than America looks for answers to this key question.

As Rain works in her job as a schoolteacher on the rez, she begins to have upsetting flashback episodes. An adult male spirit (Dan Harrison), the same one who was in her initial Sun Dance dream, appears more often, as her guide.

The importance and condemnation of the Catholic church, in regards to what happened to the community, is explored early in the film. Rain’s guardian, Auntie “Apple” (Tantoo Cardinal), consults in confession with Father Bartoli (Stephen Yoakam). We learn that Apple feels guilty for helping to commit Rain’s mother Irene (Rose Berens) to the Penrose Psychiatric Hospital. Father Bartoli says that Irene is delusional and must remain there for her own good.

Luke (Bradley Cooper), a geologist from Minneapolis, embodies the “non-Native” perspective in the film; as an outsider, Luke functions as a device to help a non-Native audience understand what’s happening on the reservation, since he can ask a lot of questions. He arrives to investigate a strange earthquake near a cemetery on the old residential boarding school property on the outskirts of town — now closed and condemned. Luke connects with policeman Goodfeather, whose father Pete is the tribe’s medicine man (Dennis Banks). Luke has his own vision in his car when he suddenly sees a former college roommate with a gun to his head. A significant line of dialogue in the film is said by Pete to Luke: “Some stories never make the history books.”

Luke has a theory about “plate collisions” that he’s exploring through his research in the region — a concept with metaphorical resonance throughout the rest of the film, applicable to the tension between: Native and white cultures; physical and spiritual worlds; Christianity and traditional Native beliefs.

It turns out that a wealthy developer is working with the current mayor of the town to turn the boarding school property into a deluxe resort. Luke continues his research at the Historical Society of Penrose County, where he eventually uncovers another earthquake story related to the school from the 1950s, involving Native students who died in a cellar.

The haunting ghosts of these dead Native students populate the film, and there’s a key line of dialogue that emphasizes “ghosts coming out of the closet.” Atrocities depicted in the film include a child being forced to swallow soap because she spoke in her native language, and Native children called “base savages” and then beaten.

The old school site affects Luke, as he goes back later to investigate the quake. He descends into a haunted cellar, where he finds a weathered sign inscribed with General Richard H. Pratt’s famous motto: “Kill the Indian – Save the Man.” Pratt is the founder of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School; it’s considered the prototype for all Native residential schools in the United States, and based on a military model.

Luke asks Johnny, “Do you believe in spirits?” It’s revealed that Luke once had a Native American college roommate who killed himself, after the roommate’s father killed himself. Here, the theme of intergenerational Native suicide, due to the fracturing of families, is noted by a non-Native character.

Throughout the film, Lightning explores what happens when the trauma of genocide is disbelieved or forcibly silenced. We learn that it is Father Bartoli, aided by a complicit Auntie Apple, who is responsible for Rain’s mother Irene receiving electric shock treatments, for revealing what happened at the Catholic native residential school. Irene was silenced through the shock treatments and sedation, and Rain realizes how wrong this is: “You want to talk about crazy…”

Medicine man Pete educates outsider Luke on how cultural genocide works on families and identity, starting with taking children right from their mothers’ arms: “They tried to beat the Indian right out of us.” And: “There are two ways to conquer a nation: kill ‘em or take away everything that defines who they are.” A mysterious murder near the school grounds in the present day is hushed up, related to what happened at the native school years ago and Christianity.

One poignant part in the third act illustrates why Rain didn’t marry earlier in her life: out of fear, because she thought there was something wrong with her and her fractured family. But she comes to understand that it was due to the unreported abuse from the boarding school – as Rain, too, was separated from her mother by Father Bartoli and Apple when Irene tried to out the abuse. Rain finally confronts Apple, whose name means in Native culture “red on the outside, white on the inside.” Eventually, Rain frees Irene, and ensures that the children who had been killed at the native school in the 1950s are given a proper burial.

One of the important themes of this film is how to heal from a century of cultural and physical genocide — a topic entirely relevant to what’s happening in the world right now. Writer-director-actor Lightning provides several answers: truth, ceremony, and honoring the old ways – “things that are older than America.” In a sweat lodge ceremony, Rain learns that the adult male spirit who has guided her journey was her uncle, Walter Many Lightnings, who was punished at the school (Dan Harrison). In the sweat lodge, Rain is told, “Our dreams and our spirits cannot be taken.” Rain also learns the power of forgiveness: “The truths of the past… Forgive these people for what they don’t understand.”

Near the end of the film, rez radio announcer Richard Two Rivers (Wes Studi) observes, “Everything we Indians do is in a circle.” As Rain finally welcomes her mother Irene home, everyone gathers for a ceremony. Apple and Irene hug, a start on the road to forgiveness. But a card at the film’s end reminds us of grim facts: Native Americans were forced to enroll in boarding schools are recently as 1975, and Amnesty International reports that the death rate of the Native population is six times higher than any other ethnic group.

Older Than America traces the collective intergenerational trauma that cannot heal until the truth of it comes to consciousness, in a country, a community, a tribe, and in a family. The bond between mother and daughter is the main connection that galvanizes the reckoning of truth in Older Than America. Rain and Irene are united at the end, and we see the ghosts of the native school children and Uncle Walter fade away into the woods.

This film has been categorized as horror and sold under the title American Evil in the U.K. for its 2012 DVD release, probably because of its use of supernatural ghost characters. The atrocities that have been committed at Native residential schools in the U.S. are horrific. The U.S. should follow Canada’s example and begin serious discussions about reparation in America for abuse at Native residential schools. It is long overdue.

Laura Shamas, Ph.D., is a writer and mythologist. She is a member of the Chickasaw Nation. In 2014, she was part of “The Undisciplined Research Project” at the Autry Museum in Los Angeles and wrote about researching native boarding schools: “Memories That Haunt and Reaffirm.” Website: laurashamas.com.

From Racist Stereotype to Fully Whitewashed: Tiger Lily Since 1904

This post written by staff writer Amanda Morris originally appeared at Bitch Flicks and is re-posted here as part of our theme week on Indigenous Women.

Pan has a 26 percent rating based on 152 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, and having just come from a matinee viewing, I must say I agree with these critics. The Peter Pan narrative that we all know has been reconstructed as a sort of prequel, and not very imaginatively, while still retaining its racist roots. The Native people are called “natives” and “savages” multiple times and retain their feathers, facepaint, fringe, dancing, and primitive clothing to emulate a stereotypical idea of Native peoples, and even the map that Peter finds guides him to “Tribal Territory.” The actor playing Hook thinks he is Clint Eastwood in a Spaghetti Western, the Neverbirds are just bigger, more threatening versions of Kevin in Up, and the main actors who appear throughout the entire film are all white.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1wRv8vTpxo”]

When J.M. Barrie’s original stage play, “Peter Pan; Or, The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up,” first appeared on the cultural scene, Miriam Skancke (stage name Nesbitt) played Tiger Lily. Nevermind the problem of reducing actual, living people to imaginary creatures in a fantasy land. According to Miriam’s father’s birth record, she appears to have been of Norwegian heritage. Certainly not Native American. So the fantasy creature, the “Indian princess,” Tiger Lily, started off in global imaginations as a beautiful white woman.

In 1911, Barrie published the novel version, Peter Pan, and soon more stage productions and the film industry came calling, clamoring for this children’s fantasy tale. From 1955-60, Broadway and the American TV industry brought the story to stage and TV with Sondra Lee playing Tiger Lily. Another white woman playing an offensive racist Native stereotype, with the music and dancing to match:

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVPc4SuoJWE”]

The 1979 Broadway production featured Maria Pogee, an Argentine-American dancer and choreographer, in the Tiger Lily role, and the 1990 version featured Holly Irwin in the role. The characterization on-stage remained “Native American,” but still, the actors playing Tiger Lily were non-Native. No self-respecting Native woman actor would WANT to play a racist fantasy stereotype of her own culture, and that is where Pan‘s studio, director, and writer made a costly miscalculation.

Here is where we need to be more critical of Warner Brothers, director Joe Wright, writer Jason Fuchs, and the casting staff responsible for adamantly refusing to re-conceive this problematic character into something more culturally appropriate and honorable. They DID take the time, energy, and money to construct a new narrative that explains how Peter Pan came to be; they reconstructed this narrative in myriad ways so as to make it clearly different from Barrie’s original, except where it concerns the “Natives.” Instead, they took the cowardly way out and completely whitewashed the character (while still retaining feathers, costuming, and even an Aboriginal actor as Tiger Lily’s father).

Bottom line here, Hollywood is lazy and greedy. They saw an opportunity to re-envision this narrative from stem to stern, possibly giving us a truly creative and compelling new story, but instead of also eliminating the racist stereotypes from the original, they chose to whitewash because that is the easier choice. From their perspective, it would have been too hard to reconstruct this “Indian princess” into a strong, brave, Native woman. Especially one who seems to be developing feelings for the future Captain Hook, who is white. Instead, they chose white actor Rooney Mara to portray a strong, brave, Native woman who wears beaded and feathered attire, long and dark braided hair, and colorful tribal makeup.

Who exactly do they think is fooled by this? Certainly none of us trying to encourage more respectful representations of Indigenous peoples. Plenty of reviewers, including one at Bitch Flicks, has pointed out the immense problems with the company and crew’s voluntary obtuseness to their heinous choices. In fact, director Joe Wright defended his choice.

So, Joe, you understand our criticisms, but were unable to find a Native woman to play a “badass” Native woman character?

Are you fucking kidding me?!

Here are some of the amazing Native actors you should have considered casting: Devery Jacobs, Cara Gee, Tanaya Beatty, Jamie Loy, Amber Midthunder, Taysha Fuller, or Crystle Lightning. That list is by no means complete, but the reason none of these women were chosen is because they are not considered bankable money makers by the Hollywood machine.

Warner Brothers would rather hire a known white woman (as usual) and to completely whitewash the character than to spend a few minutes asking the writer to re-conceive this character to be more respectful of real, living, Native peoples, and then hiring a talented Native woman to play her. Because with all of the white racist fear out there in the viewing audience, they knew this whitewashed version of J.M. Barrie’s original would make them money. They know their audience.

Thankfully, at 26 percent approval rating, Pan will not be in theatres very long. I predict that Warner Brothers could have made a lot more money doing what I and others have suggested — re-writing Tiger Lily to be a more relevant and vibrant representation of a Native American woman with a family that doesn’t look like the ridiculous, primitive stereotypes of Barrie’s imagination, and then casting a terrific Native actor into that role. The amount of positive publicity and curiosity alone would have driven people to want to see this film. Critics and viewers would be introduced in a big way to a talented Native actor, and all of the negative (and well-deserved) criticism that follows this film might have been reduced. Talk about a missed opportunity and a bad business decision.

Pan is just another in a long line of disappointing versions of this childhood tale. Barrie wrote in a time (1904) when the general populace had accepted the disappearance and death of Native peoples. Everything they read told them that these peoples no longer existed.

That we are still in that same headspace, imagining Native peoples as either racist stereotypes or as long-gone peoples of the past, is pathetic. Shame on you, Warner Brothers, Joe Wright, Jason Fuchs, Rooney Mara, and all of us who accept Hollywood’s standard practice of erasing Native peoples, cultures, and identities.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

On Racism, Erasure, and Pan
Violence Against Indigenous Women: Fun, Sexy, and No Big Deal on the Big Screen

Dr. Amanda Morris is an Associate Professor of Multiethnic Rhetorics at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania with a specialty in Indigenous Rhetorics.

The Unvoiced Indigenous Feminism of ‘Frida’

Frida Kahlo’s sense of kyriarchy, in which the tension between Indigenous culture and European imperialism is a core aspect of her multi-faceted narratives of oppression and resistance, is simplified in Julie Taymor’s film ‘Frida’ towards a more Euro-American feminism, focused on Kahlo’s struggle for artistic recognition and romantic fulfillment as a woman, to the exclusion of her ethnic struggle.

Written by Brigit McCone as part of our theme week on Indigenous Women.

The Tzotzil Mayan activist Comandanta Ramona has become an iconic figure in the struggle for Indigenous women’s rights, as an officer of Mexico’s Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), which was one-third comprised of women, and as a drafter of the Revolutionary Women’s Law which set out an uncompromisingly feminist agenda for self-determination, equality, and reproductive rights on behalf of the Indigenous women of Chiapas. Comandanta Ramona was also a founder of the National Indigenous Congress of Mexico, and led an EZLN delegation to the First National Congress of Indigenous Women in Oaxaca. In San Cristóbal, dolls of Comandanta Ramona are sold, while posters of her are a shorthand for revolutionary Indigenous feminism, comparable to the use of Che Guevara as the shorthand for wider revolution.

The iconic image of Ramona seems, from a Euro-American perspective, unusual: the combination of a revolutionary’s balaclava with a long, floral, traditional dress. In Euro-American culture, the floral dress tends to be viewed as a symbol of traditional femininity, alluding to female submission and domestic dependence. To find a long, floral dress combined with a militant image like a balaclava, representing a feminist ideology like the Revolutionary Women’s Law, may seem contradictory from other cultural perspectives. It declares that Indigenous feminism is an evolution and reclamation of Indigenous culture, not a revolution against it. Ramona’s floral dress expresses the traditions of a specific Mayan culture whose women had their extensive agency undermined by Spanish colonization. The costume is political; it is the visual shorthand and physical embodiment of Ramona’s Indigenous feminism.

If that is true of the iconic image of Comandanta Ramona, it is equally true of the even more iconic image of another famous wearer of Indigenous clothing: Frida Kahlo.

Granddaughter of the Indigenous Purépecha photographer Antonio Calderón Sandoval, daughter of a mother who befriended and aided Zapatista rebels, Frida Kahlo joined with her husband Diego Rivera in the Mexicanismo movement, which sought to reintegrate Indigenous culture and pre-Columbian heritage into the national identity of Mexico. Kahlo, probably the most significant female representative of Mexicanismo, focused on embodying the philosophy through her wearing of Indigenous clothing, particularly Tehuana dress, and its celebration in her painting. This was not merely an aesthetic choice or desire to be “exotic”: writers such as Brasseur de Bourbourg, and the Mexican educator José Vasconcelos had declared Tehuantepec to be a matriarchal society, and Frida’s choice of dress thus serves as a visual shorthand for her support of the matriarchal values that the Tehuana were famed for. Although Tehuantepec is no longer considered a true matriarchy, as its women were traditionally excluded from political power, Tehuana women did achieve a large degree of economic independence as market-traders, and were celebrated for their outspoken and sexually liberated manner. At the start of the 20th century, the Tehuana Juana Cata Romero became a revered power broker, entrepreneur, landowner, and a sexually liberated woman known for her affair with the Mexican president Porfirio Diaz, all while promoting traditional Tehuana costume.

With such precedents, Frida Kahlo’s decision to wear Tehuana dress makes a political statement of Indigenous feminism: the embodiment of female emancipation as a natural evolution of reclaimed Indigenous culture, rather than as a colonial import. It is a gesture stripped of its vital meaning if removed from the context of Tehuana (Zapotec) culture, reduced to flowery exoticism when interpreted from a Euro-American viewpoint.

For that reason, it is unfortunate that the most famous and Oscar-nominated cinematic account of Frida’s life, 2002’s Frida by the Euro-American director Julie Taymor, revels in the colorful Tehuana costumes of Salma Hayek’s Frida without providing a single line of dialogue to address their significance or the matriarchal values that they represent.

Kahlo’s Mexico was a culture of assumed hierarchies: the superiority of the European over the Indigenous, of the rich over the poor, of the masculine over the feminine. In her specific choice of peasant garb from a matriarchal Indigenous culture, Kahlo wordlessly resists each of these hierarchies simultaneously. She is, as Andre Breton described her, “a ribbon around a bomb” against a complicated, interconnected kyriarchy of oppressions.

Kahlo’s sense of kyriarchy permeates her work. “Two Nudes in the Forest” is a queer-positive work that visualizes nature as a space of lesbian eroticism, but it is equally and simultaneously a representation of solidarity between Indigenous people and cultures and European people and cultures. In “Portrait of Lucha Maria, a Girl from Tehuacan,” an Indigenous Tehuacan girl, whose very name means “struggle” in Spanish, clutches a military plane as her toy, suggesting she must be raised in preparation for battle rather than domesticated with dolls. By her military plane’s juxtaposition with her traditional costume, Kahlo’s “Lucha Maria” resembles the iconic image of Comandanta Ramona. In “My Dress Hangs There,” a chaotic collage of the decadence of Euro-American civilization is dominated by Kahlo’s Tehuana dress, hanging as a flag of mute resistance. In her most famous work, “The Two Fridas,” Kahlo celebrates the strength and wholeness of her Tehuana self, in contrast to an alternate self in colonial dress who is bleeding and has her heart torn open, associating European values with romantic weakness and dependence. The image of the empowered Tehuana, either as a disembodied dress or as an aspect of Kahlo’s dual self, continued to evolve throughout her art.

Kahlo’s sense of kyriarchy, in which the tension between Indigenous culture and European imperialism is a core aspect of her multi-faceted narratives of oppression and resistance, is simplified in Taymor’s film towards a more Euro-American feminism, focused on Kahlo’s struggle for artistic recognition and romantic fulfillment as a woman, to the exclusion of her ethnic struggle. Frida’s communism is acknowledged, but not her admiration for Stalin’s cultural nationalism, which formed the subject of several of her paintings. The political beliefs of Kahlo, and of Mexican communists generally, are left largely unexplored by Taymor’s film, or reduced to a naive admiration for the imported ideals of foreign revolutionaries such as Leon Trotsky (Geoffrey Rush).

Another major Indigenous aspect of Kahlo’s work is its integration of Aztec and Mayan cosmology into artistic landscapes defined by the mythic Aztec struggle between light and dark, and peopled by a pantheon of pre-Columbian gods and heroes. Here again, feminism plays a key role in the emphasis that Kahlo lays on the pre-Columbian female divinities, in contrast to the wholly masculine trinity of the Christian worldview. The snake-headed Aztec goddess of birth and death, Coatlicue, sits atop the pantheon of heroes and deities in “Moses,” while in “The Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth (Mexico), Myself, Diego, and Señor Xolotl” the motherhood and fertility goddess Cihuacoatl cradles Kahlo, mirroring Kahlo’s own maternal pose like a universal alter-ego.

Indigenous mythology serves as a source of strength and inspiration to Kahlo, through which she envisions a distinct feminine life-force within a complementary parity of male and female energies. This aspect of Kahlo’s art is entirely absent from Taymor’s film, though it does depict a visit by Kahlo and Trotsky to pre-Columbian pyramids. For a filmmaker with Taymor’s brilliant visual sense and gift for surreal sequences, this is surely a missed opportunity. What might Taymor not have achieved with a vision of a scarred earth transforming into the heaving bosom of Cihuacoatl, or a moon that shelters a sacrificial Mayan hare, or a writhing and devouring goddess of skulls and snakes who embodies the fearful ordeal of birthing life from death? There is no doubt that Taymor’s film is vivid and captivating, but could it not have been more so, if it had delved deeper into the brutally beautiful mytho-poetry of Kahlo’s painted world and the richness of the Indigenous heritage that informs it?

Paul LeDuc’s 1983 film Frida Naturaleza Viva, starring Ofelia Medina, is slow in pace and bleak in tone, more a collage of impressions and immaculately posed images than a coherent account of the artist’s life or work. Nevertheless, it does place Kahlo and Rivera at gatherings of Indigenous Mexicans, commemorating Emiliano Zapata through folk song and celebration, and thereby representing the political roots and ideological leanings of the artists themselves.

Julie Taymor’s 2002 work is a far more satisfying film, dramatizing a coherent account of Kahlo’s life, and a vibrant portrait of her will to succeed as a bisexual woman with a disability. Frida is saturated in Mexican music and the beauty of Mexican culture, and filled with visual references to Kahlo’s art that are a treat for fans to spot. It fails, however, to provide any context for Kahlo’s political convictions as a Mexican cultural nationalist, her identification with folk art, or her profound interest in pre-Columbian culture. Surely, the purpose of an artist’s biopic is to explore the beliefs and experiences which have shaped their work, to give voice to what was silent on the canvas? Kahlo’s images live in Taymor’s film, but the animating beliefs and Indigenous feminism behind them remain unspoken. In the opening sequence, Kahlo with a mobility disability is carried to her final exhibition in her bed and she’s accompanied by her sister Cristina and an Indigenous peasant woman, who smiles at Kahlo in affection but whose relationship with her will never be explored, and who will never even utter a line of dialogue. Her voicelessness seems to sadly typify the film’s continual use of the Indigenous as silenced accessory.

On one of the film’s posters, Kahlo’s painting “The Two Fridas” is restaged with dual Salma Hayeks clasping hands, one in a male suit and one in a Tehuana costume. The duality is now between her masculine and feminine selves, a tension of gender identity and sexuality, rather than the original painting’s tension between European and Indigenous models of womanhood, that is a distinctly Mexican cultural tension. The alteration appears to reflect the film’s wider purpose of universalizing Kahlo’s story of love and physical suffering. Are Mexican struggles to decolonize really so threatening or so difficult for international audiences to relate to? By reinforcing the impression that a “universal” and relatable story of a woman’s struggle must be a story in which specifically Indigenous concerns are silenced, Frida perhaps unwittingly contributes to the marginalization of Indigenous feminism, depriving it of a potent international icon. While an excellent film in many aspects, it could have been much more. It remains to us as viewers to put back the meanings that are left unsaid.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

Biopic and Documentary Week: Frida

Brigit McCone has a passion for all things Frida Kahlo and Salma Hayek. She writes and directs short films and radio dramas. Her hobbies include doodling and memorizing lists of underrated female artists. Brigit McCone is an extremely boring dinner party guest.

‘Imprint’: Examining the Presence of Indigenous Representation in the Horror Genre

This guest post written by Danielle Miller appears as part of our theme week on Indigenous Women.

The horror genre has always been a realm that I naturally gravitated towards, simply because of the ways it embraces imagination, eccentricity, and feeds my curiosity for the unknown. The more involved I have become in social justice discourse and analysis, I have become cognizant of the lack of representations for Native people, and even more so when narrowed down to specific genres like horror. In the endless web of conundrums that Native peoples face, marginalization is a result of societal erasure, whether that be through stereotypes or the lack of representations all together.

Many times, I have been angered by the films that whitewash and stereotype, and they drove me to educate myself to dismantle those depictions in hopes of also addressing the further links to oppression. With so many resources available and outlets within social media to discuss my grievances, I have very much reached the saturation point of feeling the need to prove that Native oppression is real. Yes, I recognize the need for those conversations, but no longer do I question the validity in my analysis of linking the existence of power structures and settler colonialism to the struggles Indigenous peoples face.

Increasingly, I have begun to expand beyond basic concepts and feel more free in applying these ideals to everyday interest to assert that Natives are multidimensional in every aspect of our identities, personhood, and modern existence. Being burdened by the need to constantly educate, means exclusion from participating in the upper echelons of art forms such as film. That is not to say there haven’t been artists and creators asserting their vision, but as I see it, if we are denied basic understandings of personhood, then we are also being pushed out from artistic options as creators and from participating as an acknowledged and respected audience. Without being creators or consumers, Native people will also be denied opportunities for creating and overseeing accurate and positive representations.

With that in consideration, I seek to influence popular consciousness by analysis of horror through a Native woman’s lens. One endeavor of asserting Native presence is through my analysis of the Native thriller film, Imprint (2007).

The story was written by Michael Linn and produced by prominent director of the “Ndn famous” film Smoke Signals (1998), Chris Eyre. With Smoke Signals being “the first wide-release feature film written, directed, co-produced, and acted by Native Americans” and popularly known as a positive representation of Native peoples, that gave me an optimistic feeling about Imprint. I had every intent to view this film in hopes that it wouldn’t just be a good watch, but also offer analysis of Native identity in proximity to broader themes of the horror genre.

One of the most important aspects of horror I seek to critique as a Native person, are the various tropes that so frequently repeat in film. One of the most pervasive tropes is “Indian mysticism.” Initially, I watched this film with hopes to see that trope turned on its head because the protagonist Shayla Stonefeather (Tonantzin Carmelo) worked as a lawyer. While it was successful in showing an authentic contemporary narrative, there were some moments that may still pander to that stereotype. During multiple scenes Shayla sees a wolf, (Hello “spirit animal” trope!) eventually this leads her to follow the wolf, where she meets a spiritual leader from her community. There weren’t terms used like “spirit animal” or “shaman” IN the film, but it was clear he had done spiritual work as he cleansed her house previously and gave her advice: “What you see might frighten you until you learn to listen.”

Where filmmakers were successful in not replicating the Noble Savage trope, was in the content of the Elder’s advice to Shayla. Rather than ending the conversation on a note of vague wisdom, the elder takes the conversation a step further in bringing up real issues:

“…I was here, these people were slaughtered, we forget, but it’s the trees, rocks that remind us. It is imprinted on this land. The past, present and future together, time doesn’t exist. Can you hear them? Can you hear their cries?”

The cries that he is referring to are an implied allusion to the genocide of Wounded Knee massacre. It is in this conversation that one realizes where the title is mentioned in the film, which then leads to further speculation on its meaning. In alluding to connection with the land, collective memory, and the concept of time, it ultimately sets the stage of paradigms as they relate to Indigenous survivance. I immediately saw a juxtaposition which challenges colonial perceptions of time and reiterates collective memory as a shared value of Native peoples. One can also assume this correlates to the identity conflicts Shayla faces, inner turmoil in questioning which paradigms are more valid: the cultural views she grew up with or the new views she internalized through her occupation as a lawyer? The supernatural element of that conversation, as well as the general idea of the film, is emblematic of a larger statement; one that diverts from the societal conception that Natives are ghosts of the past. In centering Shayla as the lead character experiencing supernatural phenomena and asserting her agency in confronting her many struggles, her character renders that popular misconception of the Native ghost, as paradoxical.

A significant aspect of this film was the fact it brought up real-life issues. In the special features of the DVD, an excerpt explains more about the making of the film. Initially, Imprint was supposed to be a story about a white family, which was decidedly changed after actor Misty Upham posed the question, “Why aren’t there more Indigenous representations in film?” This question is put into a deeper perspective with the knowledge of the suspicious and tragic details of her passing on October 4, 2014 — a tragedy emblematic of the issue of Missing and Murdered Indigenous women worldwide, that is so reoccurring but goes unsolved. It’s interesting that the film started with her brother Nathaniel (Tokola Clifford)’s disappearance, as there is also little discourse on the disappearance of Indigenous men. In a way, this shifted things away from this turning into an expected story centered purely on the trope of a broken and battered woman. In mentioning the inspiration of Misty Upham, one can see the ways in which that influenced the dynamics of the story.

One barrier to the discussion of issues like Missing and Murdered Indigenous women, is white fragility. This film doesn’t shy away from displaying a white man as the cause for injustice. Shayla’s romantic relationship with a white man (Cory Brusseau) exacerbates her conflicts with culture clash and eventually endangers her life. But the way this played out was not over the top; a nice outcome in comparison to films that mention violence against Indigenous women, but end up reinforcing ideals by displaying scenes of gratuitous and triggering violence (such as rape scenes like in The Revenant). Although there were moments which underlined dynamics of whiteness and paternalism, there wasn’t fear to ultimately subvert that. The main character’s internalization of colonial systems as well as the paternalism of her white boyfriend running for office were a bit touchy in concern of identity (maybe too often simplified as universal Indigenous identity conflict) but they ultimately remained relevant to the outcome of the story.

Other references to larger issues of oppression, such as state sanctioned violence and the protest of the court decision, mirror the ongoing movements of resistance that Indigenous peoples have lived for centuries against the myriad faces of settler colonialism. It was unexpected to see a reference to Native protest in a horror film.

Other scenes challenged popular misconceptions of Native culture as stagnant, by showing cultural rituals and customs actively taking place. In one scene, Shayla smudges with her parents, in another they huddle together around a drum group. There was nothing performative in the manner of which either takes place, but is simply representative of Natives as contemporary peoples.

One symbol I do wish to address that plays into the trope of mysticism is the dream catcher, pervasive throughout the film. Numerous dream catchers inhabit Shayla’s brother’s room, to the point that it’s almost overkill. On the film’s poster and DVD cover, a dream catcher is placed next to wolf, which could admittedly be perceived as a bit stereotypical.

The dream catcher has been commodified to a point that it has the potential of pushing Pan Indianism. However, this brings up the question, would I remove them from the film? There are Native tribes all over that embrace the dream catcher symbol. While not always in the appropriate way of using them, there is an intercommunity connection in recognizing the dream catcher origin that is Ojibwe. It led me to think this is also representative of the complexities of Native cultural identity as an example of the intercommunity customs that organically take place, such as the process of cultural exchange. Recognizing those dynamics is what sets the distinction between when a symbol like the dream catcher is a cultural identifier or blatant cultural appropriation. While I wouldn’t conclude it must go, I am critical enough to recognize the need to make those distinctions and recognize the ways symbols are being represented in films. There could have been a better inclusion of the dream catcher that respects its purpose, but I also recognize that its relationship to Native people is different than with non-Natives.

After introducing the dynamic of the way Native symbols and identity are consumed, that leads me to the topic of intercommunity conversation and conflict. In one scene, the word “Apple” was spray painted across Shayla’s car as backlash to her complicity in a guilty verdict which ends up leading to a Native young man’s death. In another scene, Shayla argues with her mother (Carla-Rae Holland) about alleged mismanaging of funds from Tribal members and her mother points out how much she changed; Shayla retorts with the remark, “Our problems are self-inflicted.” On the surface, these are all complex issues that definitely should not be for the judgment of non-Natives, or even Natives outside of those communities. So I’ll admit, they made me feel a bit uncomfortable. While it is frustrating to know that non-Natives might watch this and feel affirmed in their presuppositions, it does give credence to the idea that Natives can be complex, flawed human beings and reclaim those struggles.

In summation, Imprint is a film that I enjoyed. There were emotional moments, a solid plot, a unique take on visuals of the spirits Shayla encountered (suspense with minimal effects), and a twist ending. I would recommend it just on the basis that the film cast so many Native actors. It was nice to watch something where I felt represented rather than alienated or excluded. It was refreshing to see new faces, rather than the standardized casting that caters to colonial/white supremacist beauty standards. Another huge positive for me was the use of Lakota language throughout the film, which further contributed to the idea of Native culture as thriving and contemporary. It also showed a sense of ethical dedication because of the process of cultural coaching and consultation that should be heeded when incorporating a cultural story in a film. There are aspects of the film that could have been fine-tuned and I’m sure the film would be even more engaging had the script been an Indigenous story from the beginning and Indigenous representation was a priority. Ultimately, films like this will be an example to open doors, and inspire more Indigenous filmmakers to pursue their talents and tell their own stories, regardless of societal perceptions and expectations.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

Complicating Indigenous Feminism: Shayla’s Story in Imprint

Danielle Miller is a Native American (Dakota/Lakota) with a Tribal Affiliation to Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, that grew up and currently lives in Southern Maryland. Danielle is an alumni of the University of North Dakota, a writer and co-founder of the horror platform called Never Dead Native. You can follow Dani on Twitter @xodanix3 and @NeverDeadNative.