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

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.

Captain Hook kidnaps Tiger Lily in Peter Pan

This guest post by Elissa Washuta originally appeared at Racialicious and on her Tumblr. It previously appeared at Bitch Flicks is reposted here as part of our theme week on Indigenous Women. It is cross-posted with permission.


The body of 15-year-old Tina Fontaine, a member of Sagkeeng First Nation, was pulled from the Red River in Winnipeg on Aug. 17. Her murder has brought about an important conversation about the widespread violence against First Nations women and the Canadian government’s lack of concern.

In her August 20th Globe and Mail commentary, Dr. Sarah Hunt of the Kwagiulth band of the Kwakwaka’wakw First Nation wrote about the limited success of government inquiries and her concerns about other measures taken in reaction to acts of violence already committed, such as the establishment of DNA databases for missing persons. Dr. Hunt writes:

“Surely tracking indigenous girls’ DNA so they can be identified after they die is not the starting point for justice. Indigenous women want to matter before we go missing. We want our lives to matter as much as our deaths; our stake in the present political struggle for indigenous resurgence is as vital as the future.”

Violence against Indigenous women is not, of course, happening only in Canada. In the U.S., for example, the Justice Department reports that one in three American Indian women have been raped or experienced an attempted rape, and the rate of sexual assault against American Indian women is more than twice the national average. This violence is not taking place only in Indian Country.

In the Globe and Mail on August 22nd, Elizabeth Renzetti wrote about three recent murders of First Nations women.

“What unites these three cases is that the victims – Tina Fontaine, Samantha Paul and Loretta Saunders – were all aboriginal women. What else unites them, besides the abysmal circumstances of their deaths? What economic, cultural, historical or social factors? Anything? Nothing?”

I can’t answer that, but I know that all of these women — and every other Indigenous woman in Canada and the U.S. — lives in a society that includes images of violence against Indigenous women in its entertainment products. 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.

Pocahontas

Take as an example Disney’s Pocahontas. Released in 1995, the cartoon feature has replaced the historical figure’s life story in the minds of many Americans. Much has been made of Disney’s exotification of Pocahontas. John Smith is only compelled to put down his gun because of her beauty. Pocahontas is imbued with animal qualities throughout the film as she scuttles, bounds, swims, creeps, and dives. This reinforces a long-held conception of Native peoples as being “close to nature” at best, “more animal than human” at worst — and the latter is a view that makes us easier to abuse.

Emily and Sam in New Moon

The recent depiction of Emily (a Makah woman) in the Twilight series offers viewers a direct representation of violence in a fictional Native community. Emily’s broad, visible facial scar is said to be the result of her partner Sam’s (a Quileute man/werewolf) outburst of rage: he was a younger werewolf, with difficulty controlling his “phasing” from human to wolf, he became angry, and she was standing too close. The presentation of this story is problematic in its shrugging absolution of Sam of his responsibility in maiming Emily, and the aftermath is heartbreaking: in the more detailed version of the story presented in the Twilight books, after Sam mauls Emily, she not only takes him back, but convinces him to forgive himself. This sends the message that an episode of violence can and should be overlooked for the sake of romance. Emily, a Native woman, becomes expendable. Her safety is of little concern; the fact that Sam has “imprinted” on her, cementing his attachment, is more important than the reality of recidivism.

In a Globe and Mail editorial, “How to Stop an Epidemic of Native Deaths,” the author brings up the many social factors at work in the epidemic of violence against Native women. I bring up the problematic and pervasive imagery above not because I think it is the most problematic issue, but because it is what I know, and because we can start solving it with our individual actions. We don’t need to call Native women “squaws” and joke that they were “hookers” when forced into prostitution, as Drunk History did last year. We can make better choices than “naughty Native” costumes on Halloween. We have the freedom to choose the representations we make in the world, and when we perpetuate damaging stereotypes of Indigenous women as rapeable, we are using our autonomy to disempower others.

Karen Warren wrote in “A feminist philosophical perspective on ecofeminist spiritualities”:

“Dysfunctional systems are often maintained through systematic denial, a failure or inability to see the reality of a situation. This denial need not be conscious, intentional, or malicious; it only needs to be pervasive to be effective.”

Tiger Lily faces Hook

I’m tired of hearing that these images aren’t harmful. I’d rather see how much they’re missed when they’re gone than continue to listen to the insistence that the image of Pocahontas at the end of a gun barrel is wholesome while, every day, more and more Indigenous women die while we are told that this is not a phenomenon, not a problem, nothing more than crime.


Elissa Washuta is an adviser in the Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Washington and a faculty mentor in the MFA program in creative writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her first book, a memoir called My Body Is a Book of Rules, was recently published by Red Hen Press.

Call For Writers: Representations of Indigenous Women

There is a continually growing, vibrant presence of Indigenous independent films that are often made by and star Indigenous people telling their own stories, and these stories are receiving critical acclaim. Native people across the world are participating in this movement that raises the voices and visibility of Indigenous people.

Call-for-Writers-e13859437405011

Our theme week for October 2016 will be Representations of Indigenous Women.

There are relatively few mainstream representations of Indigenous people and even fewer representations of Indigenous women. Throughout the history of film, non-Native women have been playing the roles of Indigenous women; a prime example is Peter Pan‘s Tiger Lily who is effectively whitewashed in her various incarnations. When Indigenous women do appear on-screen, they are often stereotyped, exoticized (Pocahontas), and brutalized (The Revenant). Indigenous women have little agency in these stories that objectify and violate them because these are the stories told by non-Native men who use these women as a plot device or a symbol.

However, there is a continually growing, vibrant presence of Indigenous independent films that are often made by and star Indigenous people telling their own stories, and these stories are receiving critical acclaim (Smoke Signals, Ixcanul). Native people across the world are participating in this movement that raises the voices and visibility of Indigenous people (The Cherokee Word for Water: an American Cherokee film, Once Were Warriors: a New Zealand Māori film, Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner: a Canadian Inuit film, Samson and Delilah: an Australian Aboriginal film, and Ixacanul: a Guatemalan Kaqchikel Mayan film). Much of the movement of Indigenous storytelling focuses on male protagonists, so there is still a great need for the stories of Indigenous women.

We desperately need more Indigenous people on-screen and behind the camera, especially in mainstream Hollywood films, which is why it’s exciting that the upcoming 2016 Disney animated film Moana will feature the first Polynesian princess, voiced by Auli’i Cravalho, a Native Hawaiian girl.

We’d like to avoid as much overlap as possible for this theme, so please get your proposals in early if you know which topic you would like to write about. We accept both original pieces and cross-posts, and we respond to queries within a week.

Most of our pieces are between 1,000 and 2,000 words, and include links and images. Please send your piece as a Microsoft Word document to btchflcks[at]gmail[dot]com, including links to all images, and include a 2- to 3-sentence bio.

If you have written for us before, please indicate that in your proposal, and if not, send a writing sample if possible.

Please be familiar with our publication and look over recent and popular posts to get an idea of Bitch Flicks’ style and purpose. We encourage writers to use our search function to see if your topic has been written about before, and link when appropriate (hyperlinks to sources are welcome, as well).

The final due date for these submissions is Monday, October 31, 2016 by midnight Eastern Time.


Here are some possible topic ideas:

Moana

Rabbit-Proof Fence

The Revenant

Imprint

Red Road

Pocahontas

The Far Horizons

The New World

Smoke Signals

Northern Exposure

Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner

A River Runs Through It

Longmire

Rhymes for Young Ghouls

Whale Rider

Peter Pan

Once Were Warriors

Edge of America

Ixcanul

Four Sheets to the Wind

Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance

Dances with Wolves

Inuk

Samson and Delilah

The Cherokee Word for Water