Reel injun discussion questions answers

Discussion Responces

Discussion 1: Reel Injun ( Minteng chen):

I found the Native American actors' tactic of playing the trickster, as mentioned by Michelle H. Raheja in Reservation Reelism, to be very interesting.

"Native American actors refusing to play dead when shot on film sets, replacing revolver blanks with live ammunition, and performing staged ceremonies incorrectly in order to subvert the potential power of the act attest to the on-screen and off-screen attempts on the part of the Indigenous entertainers to subvert Hollywood hegemony."

This tactic was also mentioned in Reel Injun. Native American actors would joke in their language and go off script in films such as A Distant Trumpet (1964). The American audience didn't notice because no one ever bothered to translate what the actors were actually saying. The white filmmakers just needed them to sound "Indian". It's not as bad as when white actors used to play Native American characters and would speak English backwards to sound savage. However, it is still incredibly degrading to treat them as props instead of actual people.

Visual sovereignty refers to the right of Native Americans to an accurate portrayal of their culture and people. As discussed in Reel Injun, Hollywood was not interested in differentiating the different tribes and ethnic groups. For a long time, all Native Americans and their cultures were lumped together. Every Native American in film were Plains Indians and they all live in the desert. The Native American actors didn't have the power to call for accurate representation in film.

Discussion 2: Pariah ( Nurul )

I think Pariah is kind of a departure from the other films because rather than focusing on crimes or hardship of blacks’ community, it focuses on lesbian group. Even though there is a lesbian character in Dope, the overall story is nothing about her. However, Pariah still portrays a glimpse of what black middle class family looks like with depiction of Alike’s family. With both parents really love their daughters, it is not what I used to see in other films because there are not using harsh words or ways to their daughters. Even though the depiction of Laura’s family problem is common, it is nothing to do with her parents being irresponsible- it is Laura who chooses different pathway than her mother. I think the way Laura and Alike dress up just because they want to show their tendency to become butch and manly in relationship with other women. They want to express themselves.

What I could conclude from the reading is that oppression is what causes some people to reject LGBT. “Black lesbian relationships pose little threat to “self-defined” Black men and women secure in their sexualities. But loving relationship among Black women do pose a tremendous threat to systems of intersecting oppressions. How dare these women love one another in a context that deems Black women as collectivity so unlovable and devalued? The treatment of Black lesbians reveals how the sexual expression of all Black women becomes regulated within intersecting systems of oppression.”

Discussion 3: Atanarjuat ( Kamil )

I thought of Atanarjuat as a rather unique and interesting film to watch; minus the length of the film which almost 3 hours long. The film casted the real Native people which make it much more special. I really like how their language sounded like, the tone, the melody and the lyrics themselves. The first hour of the film was rather slow, but when I get the flow of the film, 3 hours went swiftly. The film depicted the love story in a tribe, the rivalry among men and brotherhood relationship between Atanarjuat and Amaqjuat. I’m amazed at the setting of the film, in the thick snowy Artic, and during the summer. I could not begin to imagine the difficulties in the making of this film.

It somehow didn’t occur to me that the film is being racist at any points throughout the film. However, I thought the film did a great job at giving a brief scenario of how the Artic people lives, also their tribal tradition. As the reading argues that “Arctic communities in North America are depicited as 'a people without technology, without a culture, lacking intelligence, living in igloos, and at best, a sort of simplistic native boy type of subhuman arctic being” (Raheja 210) ; I think that the director makes the film as the way it is because the want to display the tribal originality. Also, I disagree when the reading said that they film depicted Inuit people as living without culture. Clearly, in the film, they living with their long inherited culture. As examples; how they decide who their leader is, and how they divide their work as for men and women.