Beadling & Georgina Lightning

I've been thinking a lot lately about the connections between film scholar Laura Beadling's discussion of indigenous filmmaking and Georgina Lightning's film Older Than America. Beadling provided a wonderful theoretical foundation to Native films when she defined them as expressions of "cultural sovereignty --opportunities to tell one's own stories and create one's own images."

Niro's Kissed by Lightning seeks to reconcile the traditional narrative of Hyenwatha (Hiawatha) told by Whites both through Mavis's paintings and the stories told by Jessie, her dead husband. Lightning's film, while part of the canon of indigenous filmmaking (especially with its 23 film festival awards!), carries a different message. Georgina (I think lunch, dinner, and a goodbye hug allow us to be on a first name basis) doesn't hide her social activism. Indeed, her film and television career seem like mere digressions in a blossoming career as a social and cultural changer. That's why I think we need to consider her film as something closer to a bottom-up history. She's not retelling a narrative; she's telling a story that has never been told. Worse, it's been obscured by historical ignorance and blatant cover-ups of a sinister, conspiratorial nature.

What distinguishes Older Than America is its ability to be read and interpreted and its simultaneous ability to elude us all. Yes, its pays homage to some of the great horror films and thrillers occupying the AFI canon; yes, it has themes, motifs, symbols, and language all waiting for interpretation. All that pales in comparison to its status as a protest film, crying out against vicious abuses by the American government and myriad religious organizations. Older Than America demands an authentic apology from our President and our government. Its showing at the National Museum of the American Indian on November 17th is a beacon of hope that legislators will listen: "common" experience payments aren't cutting it. Acknowledgement and proper memorialization are needed to work through a healing process --Georgina's ultimate goal.

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I spent some time with Georgina on Friday and I'll share my thoughts. She's not bitter or angry. She has a clear set of demands (not unreasonable) that will really benefit us all. We talked at lunch about textbooks and their role in forming young minds to White versions of history. On this we agree: throw them out! Until a textbook comes along that can tell a truthful version of First Peoples/Nations, educators need to rely on Native Americans (as guests in classrooms) and primary documents to learn and comprehend history. Her long-term vision is impeccable: healing might be the goal, but in order to get there she foresees a showing of her film in The White House. Finally, she knows how powerful media is in our lives and its ability to implant ideas and spark movements, because as we all should know there is nothing more powerful or transformative than an idea. Her medi(a)um is film and it reminds us all that just when we think we know history, even that stuff we're not expected to know, we don't know it all.

Laura Beadling & Indigenous Filmmaking

Laura Beadling’s Common Time discussion on the state of indigenous filmmaking and Shelley Niro’s Kissed by Lightning underscored the nascent and fragile state of Native Americans telling their own story. As might be expected of any industry, Hollywood is a peculiarly exclusionary institution and rarely provides financial support to Native filmmakers. Niro’s film was partially funded by the government of Canada which might be considered a component of the apology issued by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to all members of the First Nations.

Beadling used the second half of her presentation to critically interpret Niro’s film. In particular, she illuminated aspects of the film that a non-Native viewer or someone unfamiliar with the culture would be unlikely to understand. Mavis’s paintings, for instance, depict a “traditional” narrative of Hyenwatha (Hiawatha) and his efforts to form a Confederacy. With this knowledge, viewers are able to treat the film with a greater aesthetic since the paintings now possess double meaning as manifestations of Jessie’s (Mavis’s husband’s) stories to her and as expressions of a Native creating Native imagery/stories in an “authentic” way. This is, after all, the ultimate goal of indigenous filmmaking.

Noticeably absent from the film is an explicitly scathing critique of White culture. There are of course moments of tension --the diner scene especially --but Niro uses them to express multiculturalism and a sense of unity. Niro’s choice to rewrite the diner scene from confrontational to funny serves a more effective agenda since viewers learn that African Americans too can stereotype and be stereotyped by other minorities. They expect a “traditional” Mohawk song from Mavis and she manages to pass judgment on the singers boisterous, Gospel-choir natures; Mavis targets them for their showy affect which indeed she sees as more confrontational to the White patrons than her own quiet, unassuming manner which just wants a meal. By singing together, Mavis and the Gospel singers evoke a sense of unity and spirituality. A seemingly more effective strategy than confronting the glares and terrible customer service is to overcome all that through solidarity. More generally, Niro’s choice to focus on Mohawk narratives demonstrates that indigenous filmmaking can follow two tracks: creating “authentic” or “traditional” stories or re-telling stories which have been manipulated by White filmmakers. In other words, Niro ignores the problems of The Last of the Mohicans (among hundreds of problematic portrayals of Native Americans, but perhaps the most famous) and in developing Mohawk storytelling (through painting and film), reshapes Native identity in her own subtle, but equally effective way.

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A big thanks again to all who made this Film and Performance Forum a success and to all those in attendance.