Tag Archives: Lakota

documentary

Native America: Tell Diabetes to go Kick Rocks!

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Diabetes Is Not Our Way

A few months ago, I researched films related to Native American athletes and sports for a chapter entitled “Building a Library Collection: Fifty Years of Native American Athletes, Sports and Games on Film” which was just published in The Native American Identity in Sports: Creating and Preserving a Culture ( edited by Frank A. Salamone, Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2012). In the chapter, I write about all types of sports as well as non-athletic games like the Hand Game. I also include a few films on the mascot controversy. There are a number of famous and lesser known talented athletes that any aspiring athletes out there can draw inspiration from.

Today, though, I’m writing to all the rest of you. Those of you who think you don’t have an athletic bone in your body and who may be struggling with diseases like diabetes, which is affecting Native American communities in large numbers. A few months ago, I briefly wrote about the film Good Meat, which is an inspiring story of how far a more active lifestyle and a change in diet can go in fighting this disease. The film references some of the obstacles to good nutrition, like the commodity system implemented by the federal government.  In that post, I referenced some health-related resources like the exercise video RezRobics and the animated Eagle Series, which explains the importance of an active lifestyle and good nutrition to children (see the episode “Tricky Treats” below). Today I learned of a new video series called Diabetes Is Not Our Way, created by the people at The Cheyenne River Youth Project (CRYP). Please check it out and share it with your community.

If you are not athletic, please don’t let that stop you. Start by walking. I personally know a number of women who walk dogs a few times a week at a local animal shelter and have dropped 15-30 pounds just by doing that. If you’re  having trouble finding motivation to get active, finding something personally meaningful like this might be your way of staying the course. Consider doing a walk-a-thon or running even a short race for a charity that’s important to you. You don’t have to be fast. You just have to do it.

Let me know how it goes. I’ll be rooting for you!

 

Eagle Book “Tricky Treats” episode

documentary, Film Screening, television

Get Smokin’ and Movin’!

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Smokin’ Fish trailer

For those of you in Sitka (AK), Whitehorse (Canada), Plymouth and Palm Springs, there’s a new documentary called Smokin’ Fish coming to a theater near you. The film revolves around Cory Mann, a Tlingit man, who returns to Alaska to smoke salmon the Tlingit way and it sounds like it covers a lot more besides. Tickets at the Plimouth Museum in Plymouth MA include a tasting, are $25 or $40 for couples. If you go, let me know how you like it! (It may be a while before I get a chance to see it since I missed the NYC screening in November and don’t see one on the upcoming screening list.)

I also just noticed that @nativemedia tweeted that Good Meat will be playing on air in Alaska this Sunday at 8pm. Good Meat follows an Oglala Lakota man as he returns to a traditional Lakota diet as a way to regain his health. Let me know what you think about both. If you are interested in more Native American books and films about diabetes and health, check out my recent tweets about the Eagle Series (also an animated series) and RezRobics!

 

Good Meat trailer

feature film

Imprint

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Imprint Trailer

I just watched Imprint, a 2007 thriller directed by Chris Eyre that is set on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. It tells the story of Shayla Stonefeather, a Lakota prosecutor, who, along with her white partner and boyfriend, takes a case against a Lakota teenager who is found guilty of murder. Soon after the case is over, she returns to the reservation and we learn that her father is in a vegetable state which came on soon after the disappearance of her brother, who had problems with meth. The rest of the story involves Shayla trying to understand the meaning behind the strange voices and spirits she sees in her parents’ home, partly with the guidance of a medicine man, and with some help from an old flame named Tom.

I thought the film was suspenseful, had cool effects, and beautiful landscapes. If you are interested in more Native thrillers, you may want to check out two films that are adapted from Tony Hillerman novels. These are Skinwalkers and A Thief of Time, which were incidentally both also directed by Chris Eyre, but are both set on Navajo territory. (I haven’t yet seen Coyote Waits.) Although Shayla is a strong female lead, I hadn’t considered, as does this reviewer, that this is something out of the ordinary for Native films. While some feature films like Smoke Signals or Skins center on men, I think of strong female protagonists in movies like Edge of America, Older than America, or the documentary On the Rez. So, while I think having a strong female lead is great, I had already felt like Indian women are shown as strong, substantial characters or people in quite a few films. I also did not understand what the reviewer meant when she says that this is not a conventionally Indian movie, since the many Native films I’ve seen show that Indian directors, like directors from all over, produce innovative, surprising material that shows they are thinking outside of the box. Which is why I was annoyed to see (spoiler alert) the white boyfriend cast as the villain. I liked that the film countered some stereotypical views, like the  fact that it centers around a middle class family as opposed to a poor Lakota family. Pine Ridge tends to be portrayed as very downtrodden (Skins and Children of the Plains are two examples). And I was glad that although you could see Shayla and Tom getting back together, they didn’t actually have a romantic scene. But why do the parents have to instinctually dislike the white boyfriend? Actually, he turns out to be a jerk, so that’s fine. But why does the jerk have to be white? As the reviewer above points out, why not make him another ethnicity and really surprise us?

The other theme that I think is important but doesn’t get thoughtfully developed is the whole idea of “selling out.” Shayla is depicted as having “sold out” just because she took a case against a Lakota. Her car is vandalized and her mother also equates her cold-heartedness as being an identity issue; of not “knowing who she is.” It seems like the conflicts that I think many Indians must face regarding identity and assimilation and culture deserve to leave the viewer questioning to what degree or in what ways can one can assimilate another culture and still maintain one’s own? In other words, it’s a pretty complex, messy, and controversial topic that deserves more. Rather, in this film, I felt like the issue is too neatly tied up. The story develops in such a way that serving as prosecutor against your own kind seems to be equated with selling out and once Shayla realizes the error of her ways, she seems to be almost cleansed and becomes good again. I should point out that had the racially biased nature of the trial been developed more, I may have felt less strongly about this point. Also, one can’t fault Eyre too much for possibly wanting to make a good thriller and leave it at that. Every movie can’t deal with all societal concerns.

So, it’s a good thriller with an interesting story that is beautifully shot, but the cliche character and the simplistic treatment of the issue of identity left me wanting more. In terms of using this in the classroom, I would think it might be of interest to film students because of the special effects, cinematography, and plot twist. Also, the medicine man speaks in Lakota and this may be of interest to people studying the language. Those teaching about the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation may also be interested in its depiction in this film.

documentary, shorts, television

Students Rebut 20/20 Special

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More Than That by Todd County High School students

Fellow AILA member, Debbie Reese, recently blogged about the ABC 20/20 special, A Hidden America: Children of the Plains, on her American Indians in Children’s Literature blog. I missed the special but caught it thanks to her post. While I actually thought it was good to see something – anything – on Native Americans on mainstream television, the topics were predictable ones. Yes, Diane Sawyer did preface the piece by noting that it was part of a series on the “poorest populations in the country” and I agree with the first commentator on Debbie’s post that these subjects – alcoholism, unemployment, teen pregnancy, suicide – are important to discuss and tackle. But, it’s just that the one time you see Indians get that much time on mainstream T.V., you somehow want that coverage to be more inclusive of other tribes and experiences. And that they wouldn’t fade the teenage athlete and top student Robert Looks Twice’s face onto historical Indian figures or see a group of Pine Ridge residents inexplicably riding horses toward the camera.

Reese notes that students at Todd County High School created a rebuttal to the special entitled “More than That.” While I think that some of the qualities that the students highlight in the video were reflected by the youth in the special, the point is taken that people who have the power to bring portrayals of Native people to others via books and other media need to aim for more inclusivity. When a community (here I am talking more broadly in terms of Native Americans as a minority) doesn’t get all that much air time and you are taking the time to cover it, do it right. Don’t get me wrong. It was definitely a positive to hear Looks Twice say he aims to be the first Native American president or hear the kindergardeners speaking Lakota and yelling out the same future careers that any American kindergardener would call out when Sawyer asks them what they want to be when they grow up. But, don’t just show the problem issues and what may seem like the few exceptions who are overcoming their situations. Like the students say: show more than that. It’s probably impossible to cover an entire people to anyone’s satisfaction (I vaguely remember watching specials on Latinos and Blacks on other channels that were also somehow lacking), but ABC could probably afford to try a little harder. Series topic suggestions, anyone?

 

feature film

Weaving: “Skins” and “Edge of America”

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A few weeks ago, I saw Skins again after a long time and also caught Edge of America. Both are Chris Eyre films. I like his work. His films tend to deal with poignant issues in nuanced ways, incorporating drama and humor, Western and Native culture, and sometimes, just when you think that there’s about to be a cliché, you see the potentially righteously self-righteous one get schooled on why their kettle is black.

Skins is the story of two brothers, played by Graham Greene (Rudy) and Eric Shweig (Mogie), who have taken divergent paths and their journey towards finding harmony, in one case within himself (from the native perspective, his imbalance is symbolized the trickster, personified as it were, by the spider who follows him) but also with each other. Around this story of family bonds, Eyre weaves context: the reality of living on the Pine Ridge Reservation, which includes a large rate of alcoholism. He does so in a subtle way, including news clips but also social commentary by the characters. I always tell folks that for me, a good presentation at a conference is based on humor. If you can make me laugh, you can make me enjoy what you’re telling me and I’ll know you’re going to hit me with some bright stuff. In a similar way, when movies make you laugh even about serious topics, you learn without it being preachy and, like a Facebook friend recently said, “I like the kind of humor that makes you laugh for a minute and think for ten” (or something to that effect; dang Mafia Wars status updates are so friggin’ long I couldn’t re-check the exact quote). Anyway, the Eyre movies I’ve seen always add humor to serious topics and they go down easier and stay with me longer. So, if your class is looking at family, the effects of alcohol on native communities, and native religion/spirituality and politics, I think this movie would be good to check out.

Edge of America would also be good to look at for its treatment of religion/spirituality as well as alternative perspectives and ways of dealing with issues that affect young people. Just as a story is woven above, one character in this film is an actual weaver and teaches the professor, and us, about certain key differences between western and native perspectives. It is also an interesting and funny look at race relations between minorities, in this case between the black English professor who comes to the community and ends up coaching the girls’ basketball team, and the Navajo community who he encounters and who encounters him. This was pretty cool to see because there is usually so much emphasis on white -minority relations and not as much on minority -minority relations. I thought the dialog, the incremental steps at mutual understanding and the humor made it a pretty cool film. So, thumbs up for these two films. I think you may enjoy them.