Reel Injun with S.A. Lawrence-Welch

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
On the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
The questions ask if movies have women and them, are
all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they
have individualism? It's the patriarchy, Zeffi Beast start changing it
with the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Hi, Bechdel Cast listeners, it's us with an exciting live
show announcement in Los Angeles on December tenth.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
We are covering It's a Wonderful life.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
But is it?

Speaker 1 (00:27):
But is it?

Speaker 3 (00:28):
We'll be examining this.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
And the show is Sunday, December tenth at four pm.
It's live in LA at Dynasty Typewriter and we're also
live streaming it, so if you live anywhere else you
can still see the show.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
We're going to be donating half of the proceeds from
this show to ANARA and PCRF, which are both organizations
that are providing aid in Gaza right now. Because Free Palestine, bitch,
And if you don't feel that way, then you can
escort your self off our feed exactly. Anyways, live show.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Once again, it's Sunday, December tenth at four pm live
in La a Dynasty Typewriter. Also live streams are available,
so go to link tree slash Bechdel Cast or Dynasty
typewriter dot com to grab your tickets.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
See you at Dynasty Typewriter December tenth, four pm.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
See you there, the Bechdelcast. Hello and welcome to the
Bechdel Cast. Uh huh Okay, my name is Caitlin Deronte.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
Why are we being so shy about it? I don't know? Hello,
excuse me. I guess we're coming off of our horror
movie air Weekly or our annual horror movie things, so
we're kind of final girling into the show being like, Hello,
my name is Jamie Laftus, and this is the Bechdel Cast,

(01:56):
our intersectional feminist movie podcast where we take a look
at your face movies using an intersectional feminist lens. Although
this week I'm excited that we were making history on
the Bexel Cast by covering our first documentary. We've never
done this before. I'm super super pumped about it. So,

(02:16):
but before we start talking about it, let's tell everyone
what the show is.

Speaker 4 (02:20):
Hi.

Speaker 3 (02:21):
Everyone, Welcome to the show.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
Yes, welcome, And our show is called the Bechdel Cast
because it's loosely based off of the Bechdel Test, which
we use simply as a jumping off point if you're
not in the know, it is a media metric created Bible.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
Well, I can I do that this week almost where
my fun fact is okay, yeah, do it fun fact listeners.
I do read the iTunes reviews. And some people would
say that that's emotional self harm, and if so, I
do it. And I noticed when recently, first of all,
some of y'all are hurting my feelings, some of y'all

(02:56):
are making me feel great. And one of y'all made
me think about this of how we don't often give
credit to we say you know that it is a
media metric created by Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel
Wallace test, that is not quite accurate to history. So
while we go back to the factory and retool our

(03:18):
way of saying that sentence, I just wanted to do
a quick shout out for the benefit of that iTunes reviewer.
So we usually say is it is a media metric
created by Alison Bechdel in the eighties in her comic
strip Dikes to Watch Out for Great Comic Classic Comic
that was originally intended to point out how infrequently women,

(03:40):
specifically queer women, speak to each other in any piece
of media about anything that is not about man explicitly.
But there I went back and just verified that. So
Alison Bechdel credits While she was the first person to
publish the Bechdel Test, it makes sense that it's called
the Bechdel Test, but it's the idea to her friend

(04:02):
Liz Wallace, which is why we sometimes call it the
Bechdel Wallace Test. But she also credits it to Virginia
Wolf and a quote from A Room of One's Own
which I have never read, but I just wanted to
share this quick quote from Virginia Wolf weirdly at the
beginning of this episode, because Virginia Wolf does pretty clearly

(04:22):
lay out the Bechdel Test in nineteen twenty nine. She says, quote,
and I tried to remember any case in the course
of my reading where two women are represented as friends.
They are now and then mothers and daughters, but almost
without exception, they are shown in their relation to men.
It was strained to think that all the great women
of fiction were, until Jane Austen's day, not seen by

(04:42):
the other sex, but seen only in relation to the
other sex. And how small a part of a women's
life is that unquote? So obviously, you know, very nineteen
twenty nine language, But I thought it was interesting we've
never shouted that out on the show before, that the
Bechdel Test, while understandably attributed to Alison Bechdel, was a
group effort over a course of sixty years. And I

(05:04):
think that's fun.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
As many many things are a collaborative effort.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
It's true and intergenerational collaborative effort. But Caitlyn, all that said,
what is the Bechdel test?

Speaker 1 (05:17):
Oh? Short, for sure.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
So our version of it is because we've added some
flair we've contributed, Well, yeah, it continues to be a
collaborative effort. Our version is do two people of a
marginalized gender who have names speak to each other about
something other than a man? And we especially like it

(05:38):
when it is a kind of narratively impactful conversation and
not just like throw away dialogue. All that to say,
it won't really even apply on this episode because we
are covering a documentary, but it's a good thing. We
gave a full history of the test we will not
be using today to get the episode. You're welcome for that,

(06:00):
And with that, let's make history on the Bechdel Cast
and discuss not just a documentary, but a really terrific documentary.
And let's bring in our guest.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
Yes, let's do it. Our guest is a mitchif and
Nihio advocate, organizer, speaker, activist, artist and writer focusing on
the lasting damage of residential school system, Indian boarding schools,
and the sixties scoop on First Nations people. She's the
founder of tradish Ish. They are the co host of

(06:35):
Creepy Teepee. It's Essay. Lawrence Welch, Welcome, Hello, and.

Speaker 4 (06:40):
Welcome Ben Shay. Thank you for having me. This is
so exciting.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
I thank you so much, so excited to talk about
the documentary from two thousand and nine, Real Engine Again.
This is our We're making history here because normally we
do narrative film. But I think this is a great
way for us to break into documentary.

Speaker 3 (07:03):
I think that this is like us working our way
out because we on the show always say that we
will never read a book, but I think that documentary
we got to be careful. It's a gateway to books.
It's a gateway drugs to books.

Speaker 4 (07:16):
I mean, it's it's the lazy person's read, you know,
like I don't do well with books either, So team,
no reading right here. I just it needs to be
super engaging, and I just I have a really hard
time staying focused saying with pages. So tell me stuff,

(07:37):
show be things. I'll retain it better. And that's why
I like documentaries. And I wanted to add too, I
think that the test does apply to this in some way,
shape or form. There's a lot of narratives within this
documentary that kind of showcase how fems were erase secondary. Yes, yeah,

(07:59):
secondary to basically erased in a lot of cinematic history,
especially talking about the first people's of this land. So
go team for sure.

Speaker 3 (08:12):
This documentary. I want to talk about everyone's history with
it in just a second. It's made. Yeah, came out
in two thousand and nine, directed by Neil Diamond, Catherine Bainbridge,
and Jeremiah Hayes. It's wild, how I mean. I've I
watched the doc twice and it's for a ninety minute
documentary covers so much.

Speaker 4 (08:33):
So much jam packed.

Speaker 3 (08:35):
Yeah. So I say, what is your history with this doc?
When did you first see it and how did you what?
We were your feelings on it?

Speaker 4 (08:44):
Yeah? I saw it when it first came out. I
was it's been along road, which the film will highlight,
you know, of natives and cinema, But it was so
amazing to see a Cree person, not unlike myself. Neheoh
is the actual word for the people, not Cree was

(09:08):
the name that was given to us by settler colonizers whatever.
But yeah, we still identify with that name because it's
how we get recognized. I guess that's a different conversation though,
But yeah, I saw it, and it's honestly, this movie
means a lot to me, more than most things. And

(09:29):
even like you know, thirteen some odd years later, it's
the movie I recommend for people to have even a
glimpse into understanding how racism and prejudice started against Native
people and how narratives, really Hollywood can create a narrative
that transform, transforms the way people think about an entire

(09:52):
demographic of people who is, unto itself, completely diverse. So yeah,
I just from the first moment seeing this, I was
absolutely enamored by it.

Speaker 3 (10:04):
Yeah, it's so good. It's so good, and it's like
and it's a road story on top of like it's
just like, yeah, so wonderful. I hadn't seen this one before.
I had heard about it for years. I think when
I first tried to watch it, it wasn't streaming anywhere
now if you're watching in the US at least, I
don't know how it will cross over, but it's streaming

(10:26):
for free on two B right now. And I would
really recommend if you haven't watched it yet, pause the
episode and watch the doc. It's so wonderful and yeah,
I mean, I really enjoyed it. I learned a lot,
and I think that there was other elements of Native
cinema and like the history of Native cinema that I

(10:49):
had heard about and knew but didn't have like it
put fully into context. And this movie is incredibly I mean,
I know it can't be completely comprehensive in the space
of ninety minutes, but I really, really really liked it.
And I also feel like I left with a list
of movies that I'm really excited to watch. Like, yeah,
so it was my first time seeing it and I

(11:11):
really loved it. Caitlyn, what about You?

Speaker 1 (11:12):
Same for me. I hadn't seen it before. It was
on my list of things to watch, and this episode
gave me a great excuse to finally see it, and yeah,
I think it makes a lot of sense for us,
even though it is a doc and we normally don't
cover them on the show because we you know, examine

(11:33):
narrative film and then discuss the representation therein. This documentary
also examines media from a representation standpoint, and then it's
specific to how Native people and cultures are portrayed in Hollywood.
So it's doing something similar to what we do on

(11:53):
the show. So I'm really excited to talk about it
and get into it in more detail.

Speaker 3 (11:58):
It's like this, I mean truly this documentary maybe want
to maybe want to watch a bunch of movies, which
is not unusual, but it also is like, oh, I
also want to read several books, which is scary, scary feeling,
but so so cool. I mean, I I can't wait
to sort of keep watching. What is that? I wait,

(12:19):
I'm I just lost my place in my notes. I
was thinking of a specific movie that I had not
heard of before that I was really that I'm really
excited to watch.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
For me, it was The Fast Runner.

Speaker 3 (12:30):
Yes, that was what I was thinking of, which I
just had I mean, most or many of the movies
that they recommend throughout the documentary. I'd heard of it,
just not seen yet. But the Fast Runner I had
no idea existed, and it seems unfucking believably good. Like
I just am really excited to see it.

Speaker 4 (12:47):
Yeah, it's you know, it's interesting to me because this,
again is you're witnessing this narrative that Neil Diamond puts
down of you know, watching movies through an indigenous lens, right,
and how like I don't know if you guys want
to just jump into it, but like the thing that

(13:08):
gets me is like within the opening scenes, there's just
these kids sitting in a basement watching shoot them Up
cowboy movies and h and Neil said something along the
lines of we didn't realize we were the Indians, like
we were the bad guys. And that's like definitely a
thing I find for myself as somebody who grew up

(13:29):
relatively isolated in the mountains of Treaty six Territory in
so called Ilberta, Canada, that that was the outlet, you know,
So seeing yourself philified on screen but not even realizing
that it's the same thing but different, you know, Like
it was such an interesting experience to grow into myself

(13:51):
and then just be like, oh, that's absolutely not right,
and that speaks to a larger narrative, which I'm sure
we'll talk about today.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
Yeah. Yeah, uh, let's take a quick break and then
we will be right back. So, yeah, let's get into it.
I will go through a recap as I as I
always do, just kind of like going through the different beats,

(14:20):
the points, the eras that this documentary covers. So we
meet the narrator who is also one of the directors.
His name is Neil Diamond. And it's not Neil Diamond,
the musician. It's Neil Diamond, the Cree Canadian filmmaker.

Speaker 3 (14:39):
I was such a dufist and completely forgot there was
a different Neil Diamond that existed because I was telling
my boyfriend that. I was like, I watched this incredible documentary.
It's so good, you have to watch it. It's made
by this guy named Neil Diamond. He's like, am I
missing something? As like, what do you mean.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
The musician Neil Diamond.

Speaker 3 (15:02):
The superior Neil Diamond. As far as I'm concerned, because
I forgot the other one. Fuck it existed.

Speaker 4 (15:08):
You're gonna make You're going to make all like the
middle aged women really upset rape, saying that.

Speaker 3 (15:14):
Then Neil Hive is gonna come us.

Speaker 1 (15:19):
Okay. So Neil talks about how he was raised on
a reservation near the Arctic Circle, which was one of
the most isolated places on Earth. He grew up watching
movies like you were just talking about essay. He grew
up watching movies that depicted Native people in often very
negative ways, and this inspires him to embark on a

(15:43):
journey from his reservation to Hollywood to examine Hollywood's representation
of Indians and how it shaped the cultural perception of them,
and of course Indians in this context referring to Indigits
and First Nations people who were here pre colonization of

(16:06):
what became known as North America, specifically the US and Canada.
Oh okay. So Neil's first stop is at the Black Hills,
once the domain of Chief Sitting Bowl and Tshunka wheat
Coo aka Crazy Horse. He goes to the place where

(16:28):
Crazy Horse outmaneuvered General Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn,
which is something that has been depicted in several Hollywood
movies and which turned Crazy Horse into a legend as
far as like white America having a better sense of
who he was.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
That was.

Speaker 3 (16:49):
Yeah. As I was watching the doc, I was trying
to square with like what I had been taught in
Massachusetts public schools, like how much history had I actually
learned and how far away from the truth. And it's
about as far as you could imagine, which but I
think Crazy Horse is one of the few indigenous figures

(17:11):
that I do specifically remember learning about incorrectly. But I
was like, oh, okay, bad job school, but also.

Speaker 4 (17:21):
Like really good job school, because you know, the erasure
is part of the narrative that keeps this like American exceptionalism.
You know, we deserve this land, we came here, we
fought for it. Yet yea such and so forth, And
that's clearly displayed in some of the movies that the
doc outlines that you know, definitely.

Speaker 3 (17:41):
Absolutely yeah, well we'll get to in the in the
like john Ford section in particular, but it's there's like
such a great quote that perfectly well we'll get.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
There, yeah, yeah. Yeah. There's also a mention of the
descendants of Crazy Horse and of the warriors who fought
alongside him present day live in pretty extreme poverty on
Pine Ridge Reservation. So just kind of like an examination
of this icon, this legend, and because of systemic racism

(18:15):
and oppression, the descendants living in poverty.

Speaker 4 (18:19):
Yeah, a system set up by designed dismantle entire nations
of people is also working and the thing behind that
that kind of speaks to you know, even with Neil
going to the Black Hills is interesting for me as
a Cree person and seeing him as a Cree person.
You know, we're told certain stories we're not even like

(18:41):
in school, we weren't even told stories about our own people,
you know, like we were. This is why this movie
is so amazing to me, is because it really caters
to this like like romanticization of like the Great West, right,
and you know, all of these noble natives, but we
had so many within our own nations. Like there's so
many different nations and so of Native people across these lands.

(19:02):
And the fact that he went to go talk about
this particular story because that is what the narrative is
in every single Hollywood movie up and to that point.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
So yeah, I'm excited to talk with you about that
because I think that like Neil Diamond being so forward
about that and being so forward about like being connected
with his history to an extent, but also have to
having to like unlearn and relearn in that whole process,
and also having like this attachment to the media you

(19:33):
grow up with and like, how do you you know,
unwire that and rewires? It sounds just like Herculean.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
It's yeah for sure, Oh okay. So the documentary then
starts to go through era by era how Hollywood represented
Native people, starting with the silent film era, and while
that was happy in the late eighteen hundreds, where you know,

(20:03):
some of the first moving images ever to exist were
of Native people. While this was happening, the US Army
open fires on the last free community of Natives in
revenge for Little Bighorn, and three hundred Lakota people were
massacred at Wounded NY in eighteen ninety, and this tragedy

(20:27):
becomes fodder almost for the type of like drama and
myth and mythology that Hollywood loves to romanticize and make
movies about. So Neil discusses how Indians, for example, in movies,
are always shown as expert horseback riders, even though many

(20:49):
tribes and nations never rode horses, though there are some
who were expert and are expert horse riders, such as
as the Crow. And so Neil goes to the Crow
Agency in Montana and meets a crow stuntman named Rod Ronde,

(21:11):
who is an expert horseman and one of Hollywood's top
stunt people.

Speaker 3 (21:15):
And just like the most charismatic person on the face
of the earth. That's so fucking cool.

Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yeah, he talks just about how important horses are to
Crow people. We go back to examining the silent film era.
Native characters were prominently featured in a lot of Silent
era movies, often as the hero, and many of those
films were written and directed by Native filmmakers.

Speaker 3 (21:41):
I genuinely did not know that. I wish I had
been taught that in fucking film school.

Speaker 1 (21:46):
I know.

Speaker 4 (21:46):
Yeah, that's such a uh, that's a point of like
contempt for me for sure. You know, you see these
beautiful silent films that are depicting life and honesty, and
you see these people within the film, within these silent
films being authentic, and then all of a sudden, another

(22:08):
narrative needs to be written to back again the American exceptionalism,
like some already used that term, but like to be
like no, no, this is ours, you know, we need yeah,
this so we can't humanize the people that we need
to dehumanize to maintain our lie for the lack of a.

Speaker 1 (22:29):
Better term, No, that's exactly what it is.

Speaker 3 (22:32):
Yeah, Yeah, And it just like felt like such a
clear I don't know, like it's just such a clear
example of like media representation being very nonlinear and like,
I mean, you, fifty years after these early silent films,
native representation is far worse, and like, I don't know,
it was fascinating because I want to watch the watch

(22:54):
the silent films, but also discouraging to you know, just
see such a clear example of that.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
Yeah. The movie also mentions a prominent actor of this era.
His name was Chief Buffalo Child Longlands. He was the
star of a film called The Silent Enemy, among others,
and his life ended very tragically. He had disguised his

(23:21):
racial background. He was Native black and white, and when
people found out he was part black, he was shunned
by Hollywood and he died by suicide.

Speaker 3 (23:34):
I had not heard of him before, and that's just
the intersectional racism in.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
The US is astonishing. Then the documentary examines Hollywood creating
this magical, mystical idea of what it is to be native,
and how a lot of people, especially white people, romanticize
the idea of being native. And Neil tells us about

(24:01):
this certain type of like summer camp in North America.
I did not know that these existed, Oh I did,
It's I yeah, I don't. I just did not know
about this where it's mostly white kids go and adopt
this like perceived persona of what a native person is.

(24:23):
While they're at these camps, they play these like quote
unquote tribal games. It's all extremely appropriative, and it keeps
the idea of an Indian as a you know, quote
unquote noble savage alive and well. And Neil goes to
one such camp and he wonders if any of these

(24:44):
kids have ever even met a Native person, or if
their image and idea of natives only comes from what
they've seen in movies. And I would guess it's probably
the latter for most of them.

Speaker 4 (24:57):
Yeah, well, you know that lovely Austrian guy, I thank
you was Austrian. He was like, I basically learned everything
I needed to know from watching two to three films
about natives. I was like, oh that he got the
mentality of the natives through watching those movies, that they're
just like I understand them. Yeah, they're like these people

(25:19):
who love their community, but they can be savage when
they need to or whatever. And it's just like super cool.
I love this.

Speaker 3 (25:25):
I love this for us And you can really tell
that that guy thinks he's doing something. Yeah, like thinks
he's being respectful. So I unfortunately, I never you know,
I think that because I grew up in Massachusetts. Your trip,
your like field trip is going to Plymouth Plantation. I

(25:47):
don't know how or if it has been updated whatsoever
in the you know, like twenty plus years it's been
since I took this field trip. But one of the
places that you're taken is to Camp Squanto, which is
very much in step. I don't because we were only
there for a day. I don't. The extremeness that you

(26:10):
see in the dock was not something that I experienced.
But I'm sure that that is the model that that's
built on.

Speaker 4 (26:16):
There's so many too, and like I attribute that fully
to like the boy Scouts. You know, there's actually so
like the Kansas City Chiefs. The chiefs are actually named
after a man who Now I can't remember the name
of the tribe because I've like blocked this out of
my brain, but it's like a camp and it's a
tribe of Indians. I'll probably think of it later on
as we're talking about something completely different, but basically, it's

(26:41):
people who dress up and like non natives who dress
up and wear headdresses and go through all of these
protocols because they just revere our natives so much, right,
And it's so is there. I don't know if there's
a word for it, but like barfinduce is the term
that I'm going to go for. Yeah, fucking gross, it's gross.

(27:05):
But it's just like it's like it just turns my
stomach to see people dressing up and creating this narrative
of again, like this concept of what they want natives
to be and they want to play that, you know,
and it's just so vile, like.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
Yeah, refusing to learn anything about actual Native people and
culture and just like assuming some stuff and being like, well,
I'm probably right about that.

Speaker 4 (27:32):
Well, I mean again, you know, like every native is
a plain's native wearing a headdress in the great Southwest
of this noble country.

Speaker 3 (27:42):
I know, and to see that like still pretty uncritically
presented to children who, to your point essay very well
may have never met a Native child before, and being
taught that this is what Native culture was, and not
just that, but the fact that like it felt like
especially in at the camp where Neil went to and

(28:02):
I'm sure where I went to on that field trip,
like you're taught that this is a very respectful thing
that is being done. And meanwhile they're like this camp
Squanto exists in the middle of the miles standish you know,
state forest, and you're like, you know, I'm it's just
so clear what is happening. But like growing up, you know,

(28:23):
indoctrinated in that it the amount of unlearning is it's ridiculous.

Speaker 4 (28:27):
But and it's just attaching a name. And that's the
thing that really gets me. It's like even the history
of Squanto, you know, the people don't take the time
to actually understand anything. They just want the culture without
the struggle, right, absolutely, whatever it's worth.

Speaker 1 (28:41):
Yeah, definitely, Let's take a quick break and then we'll
come back and go through the rest of the film. Okay,
so we left off talking about out these type of
summer camp then The doc examines films of like the thirties, forties, fifties,

(29:08):
where representation of Natives shifts from what it was in
the Silent era, where the movies where the Natives were
heroes were not box office successes. Generally, white audiences were
not interested in those stories. The stories they were interested

(29:29):
in were westerns where white men playing cowboys were the
heroes and Natives were portrayed as quote unquote savages, marauders,
you know, the enemy. So movies like Stagecoach starring John Wayne,
directed by John Ford.

Speaker 3 (29:50):
Food to both these John's.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
Yeah, a movie that was incredibly damaging for Native people,
but like Hollywood used it as a blueprint more or
less for what a Western movie should be for years
and years to come. And so there's a discussion of
these movies representing Native people as uncivilized, you know, bloodthirsty killers.

(30:18):
It had people not speaking real languages. Often it was
English ran backwards. Clothing that the Native characters were wearing
was extremely inaccurate, not regionally or culturally specific.

Speaker 3 (30:35):
Yeah, I'm I'm interested to talk about the side quest
that Neil Diamond takes to talk to I think his
name is Richard LaMotte. The costume designer who is sort
of tasked with, yeah, with presenting presenting Native people over
the years and being like, yeah, this is like a
load of shit. The way that we that sequence was fascinating.

Speaker 4 (30:57):
Again, it comes down to like this fetter cessation of
the plains India and the Indian and like the last
real conquest for like America, right, so like this is
the last true effort towards genocide. Like I mean, we
still are dealing with an ongoing genocide as Native people.
You know, racure is still very much a real thing.
And but I think about, like with some of the

(31:20):
filming by one of them, John's, both of them, John's
in the Southwest, I'm like, that's the home of like
the din people, the Navajos or like you know, Hope people,
and like they're all wearing headdresses and you know, to
your point, Caitlin, like it makes me l L because
there's these elder Navajo people talking about how they didn't

(31:42):
they would go off script and say things in the movie.
I like, I like live for this. I'm like, because
again I don't speak every language, I like barely speak
three four, but like I barely speak four. I'm really
trying you guys, but yeah, it's uh, it's one of

(32:05):
my favorite like delicious nuggets to just think, like in
some of those movies, how they were responding to these
white actors that were so serious about their craft.

Speaker 3 (32:17):
That was such a wonderful sequence when yeah, when Neil
Diamond goes to visit two actors who had been in
John Wayne movies but had never seen the movies, and
we're telling him, you know, the behind the scenes details
of like how poorly they were treated, how dismissively their
culture was treated, but then translating what the native actors
were saying, You're a snake crawling in your own shit.

Speaker 4 (32:40):
I love it so much like a sixern.

Speaker 3 (32:45):
And then cut back to the white actor being like, no,
we will not Yeah.

Speaker 4 (32:51):
You are wrong, We are not great. Can I tell
you guys a story, like just to kind of a
side off of that, just so people think I'm a
really nice person or a main person either way.

Speaker 3 (33:04):
Perfect.

Speaker 4 (33:04):
People ask me all the time, how do you say
this in your language? Or like how do you how
do you say that in your language? Like so, how
do you say hello? Or how do you say the
color blue? Right? So people will ask me and I'd
be like I always say like namulia and patakoa, and
they're like, okay, cool, cool, right, that's how you say hello.
And then somebody would be like, hey, how do you
say frog Namulia and pataka wa? Or like how do

(33:25):
you say thank you? Oh na mulia and patacoa? And
this is an on running bit I just have for
myself to bring me joy because I just have a
feeling that one day one of these like well meaning
white people will go to like a neheio cree elder
or like a machif may tea elder and say namulia
and pataka wa and that translates to that is not

(33:49):
a potato. And I just really like, I know that
that elder is gonna laugh, like I know that the
person they're saying it to you is just gonna laugh.
And I'm like, this is me too, my part to
help with language resurgents that that's technically in machif, but
like machiff is a makeup of like nehioiwin on a

(34:12):
Shanabic Scottish slang in French, because it's like our people
were an amalgamation of these fur traders and the indigenous
people coming together and creating our own language and protocols,
and it's a beautiful thing to me. But I also
like the idea of just somebody walking around saying that
is not a potato.

Speaker 1 (34:30):
It's a great bit.

Speaker 4 (34:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (34:32):
It's just also like the perfect like a perfect amount
of disarming as it's.

Speaker 4 (34:38):
Like, I'm not it's not mean, like.

Speaker 3 (34:39):
It's so stupid.

Speaker 4 (34:44):
Language is important, you guys. Yeah, that's a.

Speaker 3 (34:48):
Top shelf bit. That's great.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
Okay. So the documentary is also exploring how in a
lot of these Westerns from this era of like thirties, forties, fifties,
you had white actors playing native characters. Often their skin
was painted.

Speaker 4 (35:10):
Full brown face.

Speaker 1 (35:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (35:13):
I like when the whites of the eyes are so white.
Oh my god, my favorite.

Speaker 3 (35:18):
It's it's disgusting. And I also appreciated when someone's like
it's just like you have to laugh.

Speaker 4 (35:25):
Yeah, You're like, you're like, this is what they did.
This is the best they could do, and good for them.
They tried so hard.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
Embarrassing.

Speaker 3 (35:33):
I was on the fact that Clint Eastwood shows up
in this documentary and like sort of like sir, I.

Speaker 1 (35:39):
Found that surprising, wo, because his politics are.

Speaker 4 (35:43):
I think this is like this, Well, given this is
thirteen years ago, this is pre Hymn thinking. I think
there's a certain era in the last decade that we
can all kind of lean to that allowed all of
these really cool people to have their really cool opinions
out loud.

Speaker 3 (36:01):
True, it's true. A lot of people have been really
laid bare, not gonna lie it was. It is a
jump scare to see Clint Eastwood in a documentary where
you're not prepared. I mean, I'm just never prepared to
see him.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
But right, you also have you know, white characters, cowboys
killing Native characters being glorified and celebrated in these movies.
Native women are more or less absent in westerns and
Hollywood cinema in general, with the exception of the you know,

(36:35):
young Indigenous princess epitomized by Pocahontas. Then the documentary talks
about one of Hollywood's most famous Native actors, Ironized Cody,
who turns out was not Native. His parents were immigrants
from Sicily, but he adopted a Native persona both on

(36:59):
and off screen, and lived his entire life like that,
and adopted Native children as well.

Speaker 4 (37:06):
He was married to a Native woman and had adopted
her children. I believe I don't know a lot about
him other than you know, our protocols are really different
in each community, and so like you know, if he
was adopted into whatever tribe whatever by those people, those
are their protocols. That's their sovereignty, sovereigntry, it's their sovereign right. Sorry,

(37:30):
it's hard for me say that, to break him in
and adopt him as one of their own. For me,
I have a really hard time wrapping my head around
these things, just because a lot of Native people aren't
given that same proximity. And he was an actor, and
he was acting Indian. But you know, to be that
obtuse to believe that you are that. You know, he

(37:52):
sought out the he sought out the trauma as much
as he sought out the victories that he received in
his career. I was actually just in la and I
went to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery and I saw that
he was buried there, and I was just not, Yeah,
it's a point of anger for me personally, because while

(38:13):
I want to respect the protocols of the people that
may have adopted him in or believe him to be
one of them, his son included who's featured in the documentary.
It's something that you know, is a very nuanced topic
when it comes to cultural protocols and who is an
indigenous based on our individual communities and our sovereignty. So

(38:40):
but I still don't like him. So I just you know,
that's my prerogative. And I might get hate for that
from some people, but I don't really care about that
because I'm just like super frustrated the fact that it
does still take away opportunities from people. And he also
catered to the fetishization and the romance cessation of this

(39:01):
specific type of Indian And I mean, I understand it
certain eras in history of this nation that Italian Americans
were treated very poorly, but they got Columbus Day.

Speaker 5 (39:12):
So it's like you, I think it's like you can
hold the discrimination that he experienced as a Sicilian and
be like it doesn't make anything he did afterwards.

Speaker 3 (39:26):
Like especially because to your to your point essay, like
I think one of the at least for like my parents' generation,
one of the most you know, iconically false images of
indigenous people they have is Ironized Cody, the single tier.

Speaker 4 (39:41):
Commercial And I mean I cry every time I see
someone litter, so.

Speaker 3 (39:46):
Like, oh my fucking like getting into twenty thousand stereotypes
all at once, and then on top of that, for
the actor to have not been native at all, Like.

Speaker 4 (39:58):
It's a bit of a gut punch. But again, like
that's the thing with like being native and being from
particular nations. You know, we have our own protocols when
it comes to adoption or recognition. And I mean, my
people didn't adopt him, so I don't really like I
still get to have my my free space to be like, well,

(40:19):
I believe in their sovereignty, but I respect native protocol
and native law. I don't respect people who take advantage
of it. Put it that way.

Speaker 1 (40:28):
Yeah, and that's very.

Speaker 4 (40:30):
Fair, especially for monetary purposes. And yeah, the fact that
in the documentary they even say that, you know, in
his home it was all just pictures of him dressed
up as an Indian and watching his own films, and
like that's a certain type of narcissist and like yeah,
and like that's to the level of like that's that
I think there might be like I'm not diagnosing, but

(40:50):
there might be some like mental health needs that aren't
being met there either. When you want to believe that's
so bad that you surround yourself by it, right.

Speaker 3 (40:59):
Yeah, I mean, and we it started to feel I
don't know. I was reading his he passed in ninety nine, Yeah,
and I just wanted to read how he was represented
in you know, big public. What's the article they write
when you die?

Speaker 4 (41:16):
Obituary?

Speaker 3 (41:19):
Yeah, that's it. Anyways, fuck the New York Times. But
the New York Times wrote what felt like kind of
a shady headline ironized code ninety four an actor and
tearful anti littering icon So no mention of indigenous lineage,
because that was not true. I don't know that was Yeah,

(41:41):
I did not know.

Speaker 4 (41:43):
I was.

Speaker 3 (41:44):
I knew his again. I think like speaks to why
this documentary is so valuable, Like I knew his image
and I didn't know that story.

Speaker 1 (41:54):
Yeah. Well, speaking of non native people, appropriate iconography and culture,
perfect transition, Thank you so much. The documentary then moves
into the nineteen sixties and seventies, where the idea of
Native people became a symbol in the hippie movement, where

(42:18):
there was lots of appropriation by mostly white people dressing
like Native people, adopting the kind of like perceived free
spirit quote unquote mentality, but of course doing all of
that very inaccurately. And then also around this time, some

(42:39):
movies that were coming out seemed to be more sympathetic
to the plight of the Native people. In some movies
we see Indians fight back against injustice, which was also
happening in the real world. Where at Wounded KNY in
nineteen seven three, the American Indian Movement faced off against

(43:04):
the FBI and help came from an unexpected source, Hollywood.
And then Neil meets Sashine Little Feather. We hear the
story of how Marlon Brando arranged to have her accept
his Academy Award for The Godfather as a statement to say,

(43:28):
look at all the harm Hollywood has done against Native people.
And so Sashine received this award on stage, she was
planning to give a longer speech. The producer of the
Academy Awards prohibited it and said, like, if you go,
if you talk for longer than a minute, you will
be arrested and taken away in handcuffs.

Speaker 3 (43:50):
I'm sorry.

Speaker 4 (43:51):
So fun fact about that is it took years, years
and years, decades for Sashin to be apologized to for
being put in that situation. The amount of hate that
that woman received in her years of life is astronomically high,
and I couldn't imagine having to carry that for so long.

(44:11):
But the rumor is that John Wayne was so pissed
off when she was up there that he went to
rush the stage and people had to hold him back.

Speaker 3 (44:21):
Oh yeah, I also read that, which is just like,
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (44:27):
It's jarring, you know. And the thing is, she did
refuse the award on behalf of Marlon Brando. That's the
other side of things, right, So it's such an insult
to this very prestigious community of Hollywood, you know, actors
and elitists.

Speaker 3 (44:43):
It's I mean, it's it's fucking disgusting. Though I don't
know everything I've heard about John I had no attachment
to John Wayne whatsoever, because I think that was one
of the rare points my parents were like, no, these
movies don't just fucking suck. They're also really boring and
we're not watching them. But I mean, just everything attached

(45:04):
to his image feels entrenched in hatred and violence, like
just a really vile icon.

Speaker 4 (45:12):
Even the clip that they showed of one of the
movies and he refers to a man and like, I
don't even repeat it because it's so vulgar, but like
he he refers to another brown man as a blanket head,
like it just made it makes me sick, like you know,
and I'm just like, and this was this was normal?
Like when did this? When was this normal? Like why

(45:33):
is this normal? And again it was vilifying into humanizing
entire demographics of people to ensure that white Americans were
deserving of this.

Speaker 3 (45:45):
Land absolutely vile, fucking gross, and then seeing the I
thought it was really smart in that it just makes
this community look so foolish. When Neil Diamond stops off
at like whatever the John Wayne fan club, oh group,
because there's like all the userstic old men being like

(46:08):
there's no such thing as a bad John Wait, You're like,
oh my god.

Speaker 4 (46:11):
And they're all doing their impression and the walk, and
I'm just like like, if that's your hero, like I'm losers.

Speaker 3 (46:22):
It really is, like it was a really spectacular display
of fucking losers with no critical thinking skills.

Speaker 4 (46:29):
So though I did really enjoy when Neil like just
real hard cut for this documentary, When Neil Diamond was like, yeah,
I'll take the draw with the fastest shooter and he's
like count to four and Neil just had four. I'm like,
that's my guy right there.

Speaker 3 (46:46):
He's not going rocks. I really. I just love when like,
communities that are so removed for reality are I'm just like,
I'm not even going to provoke them. Let's just let
them talk and they will incriminate themselves just by being themselves.
Gross gross, gross loser shit.

Speaker 1 (47:02):
Yeah. Okay, So also around this time in history, the
documentary examined that some movies portray Native characters as being
more multi dimensional than they had been previously represented. Some
of them even start to dismantle some of the stereotypes.

(47:25):
Some of them show the humor of Native people. Some
examples include Will Sampson as the character of Chief in
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Chief Dan George in
The Outlaw Josie Wales. There's discussion of how humor kept
Indians alive, and you know, just levity and being able

(47:50):
to laugh and experience joy that help them keep going.

Speaker 4 (47:54):
Yeah, that's honestly one thing that I think is synonymous
with Again, you know, I don't know everything about every
Native nation on these lands. But one thing I know
that brings us all together is laughing. And there's no
better sound than making an auntie or an uncle just
gut laugh.

Speaker 1 (48:11):
You know.

Speaker 4 (48:11):
And that's what we strive to do. It's just tease
and make fun and all of that and finding humor
and things is like honestly paramount to our thrival as people.
It's the one thing that's pulled us out of the
darkest times, you know, and seeing that conveyed on screen
is such an incredible thing.

Speaker 3 (48:31):
Yeah, I really loved I'd seen his the set that
they show of Charlie Hills from the seventies at the beginning.
I'd seen it before, and like, I just I really,
he's so cool. And it also it like is feels
like demonstrative of all of this prejudice against Native people
that he didn't have a fucking gigantic career and like

(48:53):
it wasn't you know, like Eddie Murphy, like Steve Martin
Lovel's of famous because he's so talented, but just like
the you of his work and then also in like
clips of him at the time throughout or just like
he's just so funny. He's such a good comic.

Speaker 4 (49:09):
And it's it feels gentle too. Like that's the other
thing too, it's like gentle humor where it's like silly
but also like a little like pokey. But still you
know it's in jest. It's good, like it's not you know,
I think that's special. Wasn't it on the Richard Pryor
Show or something?

Speaker 3 (49:26):
I believe?

Speaker 4 (49:26):
So, yeah, yeah, he gave him that space to be
able to come and do that. I love that so much.

Speaker 3 (49:32):
I thought, yeah, God, I want to learn more about Charliehill.
But yeah he did. He Richard Pryor sort of put
him on for the first time, and then he went
on to do SATs on Carson and then Letterman and like,
but Richard Pryor got and started, which I was like,
fuck yeah, Richard.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
Love it. Thanks. Then the documentary is like, now it's
time to talk about Dances with Wolves.

Speaker 3 (49:55):
Come to to the table. Children. I still have not
seen Dances with Wolves.

Speaker 4 (50:02):
You only need to see it for the incredible force
that is Graham Green, absolute childhood hero. He's touched every
level of entertainment that I enjoy. He's hosted like Cold
Case File shows like he's done all sorts of stuff,
and I'm just like, I could just listen to that
man talk forever and also look at him because he's

(50:22):
a cutie.

Speaker 3 (50:24):
He's so damn handsome, relious. He's real, he's real handsome. Yeah,
Dove Charger. I think I first saw Graham Green and
die Hard with a vengeance question Mark.

Speaker 1 (50:36):
Oh so pride that you have seen that movie, Jamie.

Speaker 3 (50:41):
I think it was on TNT and I was sick
or something. I don't know how else Diehard this is happening,
but that was that was my intro to Green.

Speaker 4 (50:54):
Oh so good? Yeah, no, that is it's for Dances
as Wolves, like definitely worth the Graham greenism so there
at his facial acting and just how talented he is.

Speaker 1 (51:05):
The doc talks about how this was a movie told
from a white lens about a white man, where Native
characters are still you know, mostly like periphery backdrop characters,
but those characters being more nuanced and fleshed out than

(51:25):
had previously been seen in Hollywood, and again calling particular
attention to Graham Green's performance, and because Dances with Wolves
was a box office success, from that came similar movies
that kind of ushered in more positive representation of Indigenous

(51:47):
people on screen, followed by a renaissance where the voices
of Native filmmakers and artists were finally allowed to be
seen and heard in Hollywood. So this is where you
have movies like Smoke Signals, directed by Chris Ayre. We
covered it on the podcast Not Long Ago. And then

(52:11):
Neil Diamond arrives in Hollywood. He meets with actor Adam Beach,
who was one of the stars of Smoke Signals.

Speaker 3 (52:20):
What a fun final destination too, right, And then I
went to Adam Beach's house, right, Hell, yeah, that sounds.

Speaker 4 (52:26):
Great, Like just like, and I can tell you the future,
you will be slipknot in the really really bad Suicide
Squad movie for five seconds.

Speaker 3 (52:34):
Oh my gosh, that was him.

Speaker 4 (52:36):
No. I was so bummed because like he hit a
woman in that and I was like, ah, we can't
have anything. Like. I was just so upset.

Speaker 3 (52:44):
I didn't know that was him. Oh no, it was
my god. I still haven't seen the Power of the Dog,
but I know that was that the last big thing
he was in. I still haven't seen it. I'm bad
at watching movies, So you guys.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
It's okay. And then Neil Diamond returns to Igluluk in
Northern Canada, talks about a revolutionary Inuit movie called The
Fast Runner from two thousand and one, which was very
much a Native movie told from a Native perspective. Neil

(53:21):
meets with the director, Zacharias Kunik, and there's a discussion
about how that movie ushered in a new wave of
film where the gaze and perspective was fully indigenous. And
that's pretty much where the movie ends, where it's just
basically ending on a positive note of like things are

(53:44):
looking up and representation continues to be more and more
meaningful and prevalent and positive and.

Speaker 3 (53:54):
The last I mean. According to scholarly journal Wikipedia, Neil
Diamond and Zacharias Kunuk hit it off to the extent
that I'm like, I don't know if it's going to happen,
because it says as of April twenty eleven, Diamond is
developing a project with Inuit filmmaker Zacharias Kanok about the
eighteenth century conflict between create an Inuit which lasted almost

(54:15):
a century, which I hope comes out someday. I would
really like to see that. Yeah, But I like that
they connected and are collaborating.

Speaker 4 (54:24):
Yeah, that also like speaks to something that you know,
as Native people, like we probably hear more often than not,
like with when it comes to war or like taking
the land. Right when people were coming here that weren't
from these lands, It's like, well, the Native people fought
with each other. I'm like, yeah, we did, Like we
weren't these like peaceful beings just wandering around, you know,

(54:45):
doing whatever. But I really appreciate that, you know, even
the stories of our nations are being shared to where
we are now. Like you know, I have a cousin
who's Blackfoot and Korean Blackfoot. We had a few battles
kick their one time, real good. But like, you know,
other than that, I'm like, it's like these these are
formative to our relationships now. And that also draws a

(55:11):
point for me that I kind of wanted to bring
up today, is I love history. I love history of
Native people. I love people understand I love non natives
and natives of course, learning the history of these lands
and how the people interact with them. But I crave
and pine for contemporary cinema. I'm so tired of the

(55:32):
rhetoric of like natives as a thing of the past,
like I have not yet seen Killers of the Flower Moon.
I don't know if I'm going to see it. I'm
so glad that the Osage had to say in that movie,
and from what I've read, you know, like the actors
did such a phenomenal job in it, and it is
what it was supposed to be for a movie directed
by Scorsese. That that being said, it's a history lesson.

(55:57):
Where's the modern day lesson of why Native people or
in the situations therein? Why are they still living on
reservations or reserves? Why are they still experiencing poverty? Why
is there a reservation in Canada that's decades in of
not having clean water? You know, like there needs to
be something modern to tell our story, not.

Speaker 3 (56:16):
Just the history, which seems like is being done more
in the TV space absolutely then in film. Right now,
it would be like that should be represented across mediums.
I think that there is. I don't remember if it
was like Chris Ayir talking about his own movie, but
like Smoke Signals being successful felt like such a huge

(56:39):
deal because there were so few movies about contemporary Native
life that actually became national successes.

Speaker 1 (56:49):
There's a chunk in the documentary where because again it's
going through sort of like decade by decade of like
here were the trends of Native representation in Hollywood in
each decade there's voiceover where it's like in the nineteen eighties,
Westerns went out of style, and so it wasn't until
the nineties again when with Dances of Wolves the Western

(57:12):
came back, and it's just like, oh, Hollywood just couldn't
think of any other genres that Native people could be
in because Westerns went out of style for a decade
or so that they just Native people were not included
in like Hollywood movies, and it's like.

Speaker 3 (57:31):
The eighties, you're just like what I was.

Speaker 4 (57:34):
Born in the I was born in the eighties, and
Natives were still there in the eighties.

Speaker 1 (57:44):
I mean, this is actually something I had to unlearn
because every Native person I saw depicted in a movie,
like when I was watching them as a kid, even
into my teen years and stuff like that were movies
either about first contact, the settlers coming in making first contact,

(58:06):
or like westward expansion times. Either way, it was like
centuries ago, nothing in the modern era, which like does
so much to erase Native people from the modern world
to the point where I was like, Native people exist
alongside me right now, and like for a long time,

(58:27):
like growing up in a very like homogeneous white, like
conservative small town area not being around or seeing any
Native people, I was like, Oh, they must be a
thing of the past.

Speaker 3 (58:41):
Which, weirdly, Jim Jarmush made that point, Okay, I was like,
why is Jim Jarmush here? It wasn't clear on it,
but I was like, I like what he's saying. But
who invited him?

Speaker 4 (58:54):
He just shows up? He's just like he's.

Speaker 3 (58:57):
Ready, did he just wander in? Like what? But he
had like a kind of a good quote that when
he was but he was talking about the coming out
of the Silent era of how particularly once native directors, writers,
actors who were portraying their own stories, once that was

(59:18):
phased out pretty effectively during the Great Depression, that there
was this distinct sort of cultural shift moving into the
John Wayne years of portraying Native people as if they
no longer existed, and that that was like a distinct moment.

Speaker 4 (59:32):
Or if they were in the way, they were in
the way of progression. And that's really like what I
think most of the John Wayne era movies just did
or they had to fulfill a trope. That's the other thing,
you know that really gets me is like we can
kind of dissect some of these two, but like everything
from Pocahontas to like billy Jack. Still have such a

(59:55):
week I have, like I have such a soft spot
for that movie, and I need.

Speaker 3 (59:59):
Someone to explain billy Jack to me.

Speaker 4 (01:00:01):
It's a cool kung fu Indian. Okay, where's some really
big hat with a great cat band and that's all
you need to know.

Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
I don't understand billy Jack conceptually.

Speaker 4 (01:00:12):
But it's I don't know why I love that movie
so much. I'm just like, it's because it's so terrible
that I'm like, Okay, this can pass, Like this passes
my checklist of like just ridiculousness. But the thing is
natives always have to fulfill a trope, right because if
we aren't performing the way that people want us to perform, act,
look speak And that even goes back to like they

(01:00:36):
talked about the Tanto speech like talk them speech that
stuff like I still can't remember. It's like on the
tip of my Miko s tribe. If y'all want to
do a Google search at some point, yeah, it's run
by like it's an offshoot of the Boy Scouts and
they actually have a podcast called like Talcum or something
like that where it's like we make them talk like

(01:00:57):
they do that type of garbage, Like that type of
speech is like if we're not fulfilling these compartments of
what people think natives should be, and it's like so
difficult to differentiate tribes or it's so difficult to whatever.
We don't exist to you, right, And that's the part
that makes me really sad, is like it's too much work,

(01:01:22):
I think part of it. And not to get super
deep on y'all today, but like the acknowledgment by Hollywood,
that's why all of the movies made by white directors
are still things of the past, is because the moment
that that acknowledgment happens, that we were genocided, continued to

(01:01:43):
be victims of genocide, modern day genocide, with erasure and
disclusion in so many things. The moment that any powerful entity,
even Hollywood, acknowledges who we are as people outside of
their lens is that we exist today, acknowledges all the

(01:02:05):
atrocities they committed against us, and then completely severs their
their self appointed right to land. What do they call it? Resources?
Like people? Like again people, and that goes back to
even like Pocahontas, Like you know, her name wasn't even Pocahontas.

(01:02:28):
It was like as starts with the ms like Matoka, Makota,
like I can't say again, I don't speak all the
other languages, but you know, it's it's expected that she
was between nine and eleven years old. She died twenty one.

Speaker 3 (01:02:41):
Yeah, like after being essentially kidnapped like yes.

Speaker 4 (01:02:45):
And human trafficked, you know, Like but again this concept
I'll never forget actually talking about cinema with my Like
my dad he had picked me up after your's personal
stuf after a visitation right with my mom when I
was a kid. She lived in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and
we lived in Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, Canada. And my

(01:03:08):
dad had picked me up and he took me to
what task go in? Also crea name there you go.
He took me to Task go in after he picked
me up to go take me to the movies because
like I always had a hard time leaving my mom's
and it was always very interesting dynamic growing up. But
we went to go see Poconnas. And I will tell
you my dad was like a BFI, which I actually

(01:03:30):
call a big fucking Indian. Like he was just big
and brown and he was when you got a BFI angry.
It was hilarious. But he he was so mad. He
was mad. He's like, she they made it seem like
she was a trader to the people, and they made
her sexy and all of these things, and he was
all upset about it. And I'm just like, go home
and mad. Did I get a lecture on the way home?

(01:03:50):
Like not to be like that? Wow, it was pretty surreal.

Speaker 3 (01:03:56):
That's fine. I'm twelve, Like, but I mean, I I
that movie. God, that movie came out when I think
I was like two or three years old, with the
first movie I remember seeing, and I was fucking obsessed
with it, and it like in a formative way that

(01:04:16):
like certainly was not challenged in the way that I
was schooled or grew up. I didn't grow up knowing
Native kids or Native families. And that movie. I think
that that movie, I think it's interesting. It seems like
every generation there is a hugely successful movie that wildly
misrepresents and insults Native history that has a huge, huge

(01:04:41):
impact on just media in general, and Pocahontas was certainly
that movie for me. And so then when I think
I was in high school, when I had a great
history teacher who sort of spoke to all of the
wild historical inaccuracies that are presented in at that point

(01:05:04):
extremely famous movie, that was sort of my first indication
that you know, this story that I literally was like
one of my first conscious memories was completely false and
not just and falls in a dangerous way.

Speaker 4 (01:05:20):
There's like a I think there's a level of discomfort
too with again, like these these movies being portrayed the
way that people want us to be or want to
see us as natives. And I have a lot of
empathy considering the things I've experienced in my life, but
one of them is like I can't imagine what it
feels like to know that everything you believed is bullshit.

(01:05:43):
And that must be really difficult because you're like, wow,
like starting from ground zero to learn things. And while
it's a super beautiful process, there's a lot of people
that get stunted in that and decide that they don't
want to actually put in work or listen or change
that narrative shifted even a little bit in their brains

(01:06:04):
because there's discomfort associated with that and the discomfort that
people feel from realizing that. And again I'll just talk about.
What we're talking about is movies that the way that
natives have been betrayed is not true or not necessarily true.
Like it's just a fragment of the discomfort we have
felt as people since the onset of colonization. So like,

(01:06:29):
I mean not that you know, tit for tad. I
would never wish real negative things on anybody because I
don't want to put that out into the universe. But
what I would say is with discomfort comes growth, right,
and so like reevaluating our lens, no pun intended, as
we see people through this like talking box, like there's

(01:06:52):
my Indians speak for the day talking box Like so
I'm gonna be I'm gonna be blacklisted for that one.
But like, but no, like through any talking box, whether
it be your phone, whether it be your TV, whether
it be your computer, how we see things portrayed is
somebody's narrative. If they haven't experienced it, how genuine can
it be? You know? And so that's why I'm so

(01:07:13):
glad with this, like again regaissance that they're talking about
thirteen years ago. At the end of this documentary, we're
seeing it happen slowly but surely, Like a great film
came out recently called Slashback, and I'm obsessed with it.
I will watch that movie like so often because it
touches on everything that I would want it to touch on.

(01:07:35):
And I'm not like a knook. I'm not from there.
I don't experience those things. But to see like syllabics
and to see language and to see face markings, it
all like just makes sense to me, Like they went
to that village and they taught kids how to act.
Like that's so great, you know. I'm so glad that

(01:07:56):
things like this are happening now that we get to
tell authentic versions of ourselves. And it might make people uncomfortable,
they might not understand it, but that's okay too, because
again it doesn't have to be for everyone. But it's
also going back to what I said, like there's going
to be discomfort and knowing the things that you believe
to be true.

Speaker 1 (01:08:16):
Aren't and I mean speaking more to that. This episode
is coming out the week of Thanksgiving, if not on
the day, and the narrative that I learned in history
class in elementary school about what Thanksgiving was just being
so bogus and so rewritten to favor the colonizer's side

(01:08:42):
of the story and to say, oh, no, there wasn't
a genocide. It was us all getting along and that's
there was a feast and it was nice.

Speaker 4 (01:08:53):
But then the Indians turned on us.

Speaker 3 (01:08:55):
Right, literally what I learned and right that myth includes
like five different popular stereotypes around Native people, Like in
one story that a lot of kids learn when they're
two three years old, it's fucking ridiculous, And I like,
just like conditions you into a colonizer mindset when you're

(01:09:18):
too young to even realize what that is or what
that means. And I feel it is like especially because
the I mean, the Internet is fucking evil, has great
potential for you know, it like has surely ruined our
mental health forever. However, it is like I feel like
speaking to your point essay about like it's like your

(01:09:40):
responsive I don't know, like if if you were brought
up with a colonizer mindset, you have the tools to
unlearn it in a way that like no other generation
or point in history that has it been more true
that you have the tools to be able to unlearn it.
And it's I feel like it's like your responsibility to
do it, even even if it's uncomfortable. Who gives a shit?

Speaker 4 (01:10:01):
Like it's and I think too. And one of the
things that I've come up against in a lot of
my like whether I'm doing like community work or supporting
people or I don't know, like get it. Like I
hate to say what I do is work because like
I don't consider it work. But in education, like I
feel really bad sometimes when people are like, you know,

(01:10:21):
I want to talk to Native people, I want to
find things out, and they're very apprehensive to talk to me.
I'm like, well, rightfully, so, you know. But at the
same time, I'm like, there's got to be a level
of like, I don't mind talking to people about my experiences.
I can only speak to my own experiences. And that's why,
you know, I specialize in very specific areas of Native

(01:10:42):
history and then how that affects us in modern times
with you know, residential schools and the scoop and all
of that. Actually that reminds me just to go back.
There was one of those Thomas Edison Films was Indian
Day School and it was like in right before nineteen hundred,
and it was about Natives being taken away from their
families and like you know and being forced assimilated. You know.

(01:11:05):
So I can only speak to those experiences. But what
I like to do is still makes space that I'm
capable of to tell people about the hurt that we've
experienced and still experienced by methods of TV and movies.
But it's going to take time. We can't undo what's

(01:11:26):
been done, but we can learn new ways of being.
And so yeah, I like to make space for people
to educate, just again from my experiences and in hopes
that they're not just seeking out like I guess, like
would it be a trauma bonding or like trying to
live vicariously through the trauma, right, so they could feel

(01:11:47):
some proximity to it without experiencing it. But yeah, like
I think that the more we can share and the
more that people realize that they have access to information,
you know, like there's going to be stuff online that's
going to support either opinion, right, and that's that's part
of the problem with people not having a direction to

(01:12:10):
go in So like a little bit of compassion. If
somebody doesn't want to talk to you, don't force it
out of them because you know you'll get you'll get
an earful I'm sure. But there's got to be space
for education, and there's got to be space for Native
people to be able to tell their own stories, for
people to participate in that by even just watching m Absolutely,

(01:12:34):
I'm trying to think there's so much that we could
talk this This documentary is so like wonderfully dense.

Speaker 3 (01:12:42):
Say, are there specific movies or points covered in the
doc that you wanted to cover? I mean, I feel
like I wrote down a million quotes of speaking to
There was one I wanted to share about Pocahontas. I
didn't write down who said it. I believe it was
Jesse Windy, who's in Ojibway film critic, who said about

(01:13:04):
Pocahontas in a way that again, just at many points,
this documentary just like really clearly distills what the issue
is with a tremendously famous movie that misrepresents Native people,
and this one was we imbue in her all of
the wrong notions about what we want to see in
a mythical princess, and she becomes the embodiment of what
we want to see, not in Native society, she becomes

(01:13:26):
an embodiment of what we see in American society and
of American desire. And that's I mean, that's the white
millennial's journey With the movie Pocahontas. I think that one
of the first things that I recognize outside of the
wild historical inaccuracy then you know, going into film school

(01:13:49):
and media, you know where there's all these issues of
erasure in academia as well, but just finding how much
more significantly sexualized Pocahonta was. Not only is she aged
up to seem to be an appropriate romantic interest, not
only is there all of this implied consent, not only

(01:14:09):
is there this implied betrayal of her own people, all
of which is untrue, but the way that she's physically
presented is as far more sexual than any of the
white Disney princesses that you would see. And the historical
context that comes with that of overtly sexualizing and you know,

(01:14:29):
alternatively sexualizing and erasing Native women from media entirely.

Speaker 4 (01:14:34):
That that makes me think about some of those old
westerns and like when the women would be in brown face,
you know, it was always like the white man would
be seeking out you know this I cat like it's
such a it's a slur, so I can't even say it.
But like the sq word, right, and like if anyone
wants a piece of homework, go look at what the

(01:14:55):
actual origin of that meaning is. It's incredibly vulgar. But
I think about it's always about like and going in
theme with the podcast here, it's all about like being
available to men, right, It's the use use of buying men, right,
even you know, not to like go off too far

(01:15:15):
off course here, but like even with like the school marm, right,
like the white women in it are just there to
be of use for the men and to take care
of the children and that sort of thing. Like there's
no dimension, right, So when you see these native women
in whether it be Westerns or even like the contemporary
Western like Dances with Wolves, her purpose was to serve

(01:15:36):
the man, right and be this like caricature of indigenity,
when like ol stands with a fist was actually just
a white woman, you know, who was stolen by these
savages but then raised by them, you know, and it's
this whole story and I really like that it was
brought up that she looked like she was disheveled, and

(01:15:57):
she looked all these ways, and like if she was
actually living with them, she would have commune. Like so
they had to make her look savage, right and like,
and it was the white man that saved her from
you know whatever. It's just because like, also, heaven forbid
this white man end up with a It's like she
had like two she was a two dimensional character. Like
she wasn't one dimension, she had two dimensions because she

(01:16:17):
lived with natives but was still white. You know that
heaven forbid he would have ended up with a Native
woman at all, you know, Like and so there's still
a level of like, what's the word for it. It's
like just if it's like misogyny, racism, and again back
to the fetish station of like what women are worth, right,

(01:16:38):
and then you add, you know, add in that she's
native or brown or anything, you know, and that's adds
another level of like just utter dismissal of any any worth.

Speaker 1 (01:16:51):
For sure. Actually, if I had one criticism of this
documentary is that I would have loved to hear more
Native women, Yeah, talk about what they've experienced, what they've seen,
as far as the representation of Native women and fems
in Hollywood and just their thoughts on it, because we

(01:17:14):
have a there's a few women who were interviewed, but
definitely more men.

Speaker 4 (01:17:20):
I mean. And that's that's the other thing too, Like
I look at timeframe, and I look at like, you know,
we always have to take an account of when things
are made, right, because like A, I don't believe in
the thing that people didn't know any better. They just
choose not to expand, right, you know, or have like
like the time frame can explain it, it doesn't necessarily

(01:17:42):
excuse it, right, Does that make sense?

Speaker 5 (01:17:45):
Right?

Speaker 3 (01:17:45):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 4 (01:17:46):
But I look at the timeframe move when this was made,
and there weren't a lot of major motion pictures being wow,
just said the words major motion pictures, the brave, I
thank you, it's nice to be here. But there weren't
a vast amount of major motion pictures being made with

(01:18:10):
Native actresses, right, like in roles that weren't like, you know,
freaking like Legends of the Fall, like one woman for
a few minutes, and of course, oh what she was
serving Brad Pitt's character, you know. Like, so, I mean
I think that this documentary like kind of subtly without
maybe knowing, really helped shed light on that because yeah,

(01:18:32):
there wasn't any even in something that was so progressive
at its time. You know, we're at the point where
we could have Real Engine part two and like, look
at where we are now, you know, and what we've learned.

Speaker 1 (01:18:46):
I mean, there's a there are five Twilight movies that
came out since okay, progress is not linear all the
time and moving forward, and because like you know, the
movie ends on this like really you know, positive note
of like representations seems to be getting better. But then

(01:19:07):
all these Twilight movies came out.

Speaker 4 (01:19:09):
But also like just another fun you probably already know this,
but like fun movie fact is that Taylor Latner improvised
Loca and they just kept it in there. So that
wasn't even no.

Speaker 3 (01:19:20):
I did not know that.

Speaker 4 (01:19:22):
Yeah, that that is. That is one of the only
parts of those movies I've ever watched, And I just
enjoy it because I'm just like him in his big
white teeth just saying Loka just does it for me.

Speaker 3 (01:19:33):
Those Loatner veneers, nothing like them, spark sparkle just yeah,
I would be that was I would love to see
a sort of an update. I guess I don't know,
I as someone that is always frustrated by like the
idea of being like, oh that thing you did a
long time ago, do it again for me? But I

(01:19:57):
but I would love to see sort of an update
in this format. Maybe it exists and I just don't
know about.

Speaker 4 (01:20:03):
It, but maybe if it does, I hope I didn't
miss it, you know. Like again, not to dismiss Neil
Diamond like I and this is going to sound really
silly to say it out loud, but like people like
him make me proud to be free because it is
something that is so authentically indigenous to who he was

(01:20:24):
and the environment he grew up in what he saw right.
He wasn't pretending to be a type of native that
he wasn't. Right, So I appreciate everything he's done with
that film and how he narrated it and how he
story told through it. And again, like I said at
the beginning, you know, when I was kind of talking
about my experience with the film, it's it's literally the

(01:20:47):
movie that I give for people as a stepping stone
to understanding why their perceptions are the way they are
of us. Bite size breakdown, you know. Yeah, it's a
positive catalyst movie. That's what I think of.

Speaker 3 (01:21:01):
Yeah, ooh ooh, that's a great description for like a
genre of movie.

Speaker 4 (01:21:06):
That's cool, Like I love things that are thought provoking,
but it's a positive catalyst to Like again, both of
you said, like, oh, we have to watch these movies
from it or whatever. This is like thirteen years ago.
There's so much since then, but like those movies are
your little snack of Maronis on your way to understanding
Native people through cinema.

Speaker 3 (01:21:24):
Yeah, so absolutely, Yeah, is there anything else that you
both wanted to touch on?

Speaker 4 (01:21:32):
I mean, we're at the point now where we realize
that we're all a Native land, right, and the best
way to understand where people are now is by understanding history,
and so knowing where you are is a really good
step forward. You don't know any like I encourage people
to not feel overwhelmed when it comes to understanding where

(01:21:54):
they are. So, like, you know, you live somewhere they're
like native land. You can find out who's laned you're on.
Start doing some research, you know, just find out where
you are and find out who's laned you're on. Find
out if that tribe is doing anything, find out how
you and support is such a broad word, but encourage
other people to learn, understand the initiatives being taken, support

(01:22:16):
them when they're trying to change legislation, get land back,
et cetera. You know, it can be very overwhelming. Again,
like I said, to find out that most of your
existence in knowledge is built on lies about people and
this false sense of security in what the United States

(01:22:39):
and Canada stand on. But I mean, I promise it's
worth it's worth learning about, definitely. So that's that's all
I got. Oh and not every Indians and planes Indian
we don't all where headdresses and war bonnets, I mean
like by people do.

Speaker 3 (01:22:54):
But you know that was that was the last thing
I wanted to actually because we started talking about the
costume design. But just how there was a great quote
I think also from Oh my gosh, I have so
many does Jesse WENTI? Yeah, for you know how the
use of the what am I thinking of? Around the neck?

Speaker 4 (01:23:19):
Are you talking about breastplates or the finger necklace or
the finger It was like the headband.

Speaker 3 (01:23:26):
Sorry, my brain no longer works. No, the use of
the choker being strictly practical to hide like wires and
different things where they're like, yeah, we completely manufactured the
image of native people to the point where it was
to hide ship. That was just movie shit.

Speaker 4 (01:23:45):
Yeah, the headband to hold on, the wigs and stuff
like that. Yeah, yeah, I think that that's one of
the biggest like takeaways for this movie. The first time
I saw it as as somebody who is a Plane's Indian?
You know, I I was like, yeah, I was like this,
they need the identifiers. So like suddenly everyone's wearing a headdress,
everyone has a breastplate on, everyone has these long braids

(01:24:08):
or whatever, and it's just it was so it's so lazy,
Like it's just feels so lazy. But the thing is
they just needed this like identifier, and like, while I
get it, like I think planes natives are beautiful, and
there's so many tribes, Like there's so many tribes that
live in the Great Plains, I mean, like why them,

(01:24:30):
you know, like again like they're like but I again,
I wouldn't wish that fetishization on any other group, you know.
So it's just it's it's very interesting to see that
that was it was it's a caricature of indigenoity. You know.

Speaker 1 (01:24:46):
Yeah, And what that does is just lumps all Native
people into one monolith culturally, and they're in Hollywood. For
most of these films made no attempt to include any
like specific cultural signifiers for different tribes and nations, and

(01:25:09):
it also just strips natives of specific cultural identity. And
Hollywood was just doing that for decades, and white audiences
were none the wiser. They were just like, oh, this
is on screen, this just must be it, right, yeah,
And then that just brings us back to the point

(01:25:30):
of like taking the initiative to learn and actually do
the work, put in the effort.

Speaker 3 (01:25:37):
To You may have to read a book.

Speaker 4 (01:25:39):
Or you can do you can do the other thing
that I do, because again, reading is not my friend.
I just can't focus in, so I just like use
my delicious little apps on my phone or even highlight
text on my contutor. Yes, they said contutor and I
and I haven't read it to me, you know, yeah, exactly.
Everyone learns different ways and there's so many applications to

(01:26:01):
be able to facilitate that now.

Speaker 3 (01:26:03):
Yeah, which is yeah, just like another of all the
elements of being alive right now that are fucking awful.
That is a good thing, take advantage of the few
good things we have. Yeah, Yeah, I just wanted to
share those quotes from Richard Lamont because I feel like,
I mean, it's very much what our show is about,
or has become increasingly more about over the years, which

(01:26:24):
is that, like I think it's very easy to you know,
like I don't know argue that, Like, I mean, I
just think we still I still see this among people
that I like, know and like and respect and all
this stuff. But they're like, it's just a movie. It's
not that serious. It's just a movie. Which it's it's
very rarely just a movie, especially when you're talking about

(01:26:47):
or erasing entirely communities who are rarely have ever given
the opportunity to represent themselves with the same budgets, with
the same sort of institutional support, and all of this shit.

Speaker 1 (01:26:59):
It's it.

Speaker 3 (01:27:00):
It is as goofy as so much of it is.
It is like extraordinarily important, and.

Speaker 1 (01:27:07):
Whether we notice it or not, it is altering our perceptions.

Speaker 3 (01:27:11):
And that Jesse went to quote that I really really
kind of stuck with me during the costuming segment, was
that the way that you know, all of indigenous culture
was just sort of turned into this also false representation
of a plane's native. He says, it's an ingenious act

(01:27:32):
of colonialism, robbing nations of their identity and grouping them.
And that just feels like this story, even when it's
you know, seemingly well intentioned, you have this like brief
moment in the seventies, but even so it's majority by
white directors who are showing Native characters in a more
empathetic light than film has in many years, but through

(01:27:56):
the white character's lens.

Speaker 4 (01:27:57):
Always well, it's the outward racism. For me, that is
just like portraying John Wayne as the real American, right,
and you know, natives not being right, and that's just
so yeah, yeah, that's something that still like it's I

(01:28:22):
think it was like John Trudell actually who said the
words in that even he's an incredible poet, but he
in the documentary he talked about how like when they
got off the boat, they didn't recognize us, you know,
and I think that that is still the rhetoric that
you know, came through in cinema over the last hundred years.

Speaker 1 (01:28:43):
Yeah. Something also that he said that really stuck with
me was the word Indian had never been.

Speaker 4 (01:28:50):
Uttered a sound had never been made yet.

Speaker 1 (01:28:52):
In this hemisphere pre Subtler colonialism, and like the idea
of name of American in the sense that like America
was a concept that was also brought over. And he's like,
my people are older than both concepts. Yeah, but we're
still fighting so hard to defend that identity.

Speaker 4 (01:29:16):
And that's the thing, Like even the word Indian, there's
a lot of like I'm indifferent to it, and everyone
is entitled to their own standard with it, Like I
don't really like I identify as Indian slang now as letters
and d end, you know. And it's just like a
cute way of kind of like like you know, vernacular

(01:29:36):
changes in certain demographics and groups of people. You know,
there's something that's like he said, like we're the people
and this is really cool, just as like a kind
of a nugget is I have a lot of friends
of a lot of different tribes, and like most of
the time their names just translate to the people right

(01:29:56):
or something about the people of right, like so it's
always just people, and so like same thing with Nichio.
It's we're people, right. And it's interesting because I don't like,
unless I'm hanging out with like my Nie Cheese, which
are like my friends and stuff like that. Like, you know,
using the word Indian isn't really a thing that I do,
because it's a point of like both, Like I just

(01:30:21):
I'm appalled by it. By the same time, I'm like,
it's how I identify. It's a really weird too true
truths can exist at the same time, for like how
I feel about being an Indian because I don't want
to be a Native American again, Like America is not
what I want to be a part of.

Speaker 5 (01:30:38):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:30:38):
I prefer to be referred to as First Nations because
my people were of the first nations here. But I
am like when I introduce myself, you know, I'm not
an Indian. I'm Mitchif and I'm Nechio and I'm German.
Thanks Dad for having a thing for skinny white women.
But you know, like just what it is. That's the

(01:30:58):
other thing too, is like because I'm like I acknowledge
all parts of myself and like I got to grow
up with some pretty rich German heritage too, and that
was pretty neat. And that's the other thing that was
touched on the movie, which actually is really important, is
that John Tredell said, He's like, you know, they're just
trying to find themselves, these hippies, right, because you know,
they were part of tribes, they were part of nations

(01:31:19):
at one point, and they're just searching for that piece
of them that's lost. That's why they latch on. And
I felt that because colonization has done a number on everybody,
and just because we're the most recent, you know, we're
feeling it in such a drastic way. I feel bad
for people who appropriate Native people here because I know

(01:31:42):
that they're just searching for something in themselves that they
don't have an answer to and probably never will. So
not excusing what they're doing, but again explains the behavior,
doesn't excuse it exactly.

Speaker 5 (01:31:57):
So much.

Speaker 4 (01:31:58):
There's so many nuggets in that.

Speaker 3 (01:32:00):
I feel like we keep being like, okay, the episode
ever time.

Speaker 4 (01:32:05):
But yeah, people watch the movie if you haven't, and
ask questions, and ask questions about where you are, and
ask questions if those people have made films or have
been in TV shows, or have participated in anything to
do storytelling. That's what Native people are known for. We're storytellers,
you know, like every Native nation has their stories of

(01:32:28):
how we got to be here why we shouldn't do
certain things, and there's protocols around that too, which I
guess also varied by nation, because again, not an infallible
fount of all things indigenous. But yeah, take time, learn
and explore, and it's gonna make us better as people
understand where folks are coming from, because we can undo

(01:32:50):
what's happened, but we can always learn new ways of
being absolute.

Speaker 1 (01:32:54):
You mentioned slash Back. Are there any other movies you
would recommend people check out by indigenous filmmakers.

Speaker 4 (01:33:03):
I mean there's just there's so there's so many, Like
just as a side note, there's so many incredible like
short films like the Gosh what it was It? Like
the Native American there's one that I gotta look it
up right now. It's gonna it's gonna kill me. But
there's these like short films that I've been seeing recently

(01:33:24):
and they're pretty amazing. Did I delete it? I deleted
that of course. But like the Native American like Film Festival,
they have so many up and coming Native artists doing
like five minute films, you know, like just to see

(01:33:47):
things again through an indigenous lens is so important. There's
so many talented native musicians and I know, like the
dirty word like TV shows, but there's so many TV
shows now that authorated bite sized pieces for lack of
a better term, you know, like where you can just
step away for thirty minutes and just experience proximity to

(01:34:09):
somebody else, you know, through their language and their their
their lens.

Speaker 1 (01:34:16):
Yeah beautiful. Well, I say thank you so much for
joining us, for discussing this movie with us, and for
helping us make history on this show. Yeah, covering a
documentary for the first time, Who's history? But it was
such an enlightening conversation, And yeah, I loved this discussion.

Speaker 3 (01:34:39):
Yeah, I'm so glad that you encourage us to cover
this one specifically because I just I feel like I
have like a list of wonderful movies to watch. I'm
so excited, and.

Speaker 4 (01:34:52):
Honestly, I appreciate it because for me, again, I don't
want to speak as anyone other than like a mature
for Nahio person to not really talk about like a
film that you know wasn't created or through the lens
of like these people. It's hard for me to speak
to that because I haven't had their lived experience and
I don't speak their language, and I don't know their stories,

(01:35:13):
so I can't speak to like the beauty that's behind
some of these films and TV shows and even music
that's coming out. So to talk about something that I
feel comfortable speaking on, which is how natives have been portrayed,
I really appreciate and value the space to be able
to do that, and for you guys to bend your
rules a little bit and make space for somebody that's

(01:35:35):
so important. And not a lot of places do that,
even though we'd like to think we're progressive. So thank
you for making space for me. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:35:42):
Gosh happy to do it.

Speaker 3 (01:35:44):
Come back and cover any movie like drop Dead fread
Hell yeah, truly like whatever that's it. I can't imagine
the rich feminist discussion around Drop Dead Friend.

Speaker 4 (01:35:58):
I turned out fine shod all the time.

Speaker 1 (01:36:03):
You know what's mild. I always get the title of
that movie confused with Freddy got fingered because they both
have fred in it.

Speaker 3 (01:36:10):
Oh my god, I'm realizing that I was doing the
same thing.

Speaker 4 (01:36:13):
No, No, that that is a different one. That's the
Tom Green one that the dropped Dead fred is the
like special Friend. I don't what are they called imaginary
fan that's way too creepy.

Speaker 3 (01:36:27):
God, is there any movie with starring a character named
Fred who is not scared? Five Nights Five Nights of.

Speaker 1 (01:36:35):
Freddy's Wish Finger. I had a reservation to go see
it on my amc A list stubs and uh then
I looked up it's rotten Tomato score and I was like, oh,
it's low.

Speaker 3 (01:36:49):
I don't think that anyone should ever trust a Rotten
Tomatoes score, especially a movie of a horror movie, especially
I have a horror movie directed by a woman. I
was really I was really stoked to see. This is
the biggest goofiest thing to start talking about the at
the end of this episode. But it's yeah, directed by

(01:37:10):
a woman named Emma Tammy who I haven't seen her
work before, but she negotiated in a percentage of profits.
Then the movie has made over two hundred million dollars.
I was like, you know, I just like, well, so,
even though it very well may fucking suck, everyone's seeing
five Nights at Fred Dropped Dead Fred.

Speaker 4 (01:37:32):
Five Nights at Freddy Krueger's Justice for Fred's No John's
and Fred's are out. I'm sorry, true, It's twenty twenty
three almost twenty twenty four, I'm like, are.

Speaker 3 (01:37:49):
We if and ultimately this is this very well may
revive Josh Hodgerson's career, And how do we feel about that?
I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:37:58):
Fine with me?

Speaker 3 (01:38:00):
Are we? Do we in two twenty twenty three need
to revive Josh Hunterson's career? A fair question.

Speaker 4 (01:38:07):
Let's ponder that one and then get back to each
other through yes.

Speaker 3 (01:38:12):
Email as I thank you so so much for joining us.

Speaker 1 (01:38:19):
Does the Bechdel test and the nipple scale even apply here?

Speaker 5 (01:38:25):
Well?

Speaker 3 (01:38:26):
I think, I like, like you were saying earlier, essay,
it does app I mean, I don't think we can
really do a nipple scale for this because it's like you,
but all three of us have kind of alluded to
the fact that this documentary is incredibly valuable. I'd never
seen anything like it. I learned a ton, and I
think we all sort of seem to feel that women

(01:38:47):
were not the way that Native women are portrayed, and
the number of women included in the documentary left something
to be desired.

Speaker 4 (01:38:57):
Yeah, yes, I mean, there's always room for provement. We
can never think that the thing we do is finite
and perfect. You know, so again catalyst. Right, Let's take
it as a catalyst and think about if any of
the young Native female directors out there saw this at
some point and said, hey, I want to I want

(01:39:19):
to change things up. You know, That's that's all we
can hope for for a film like this to educate
and inspire.

Speaker 3 (01:39:26):
Definitely.

Speaker 4 (01:39:27):
Yeah, so no nippies, but not yet.

Speaker 3 (01:39:32):
Yeah, this is this is a this is a this
is an n slash a as far as I con
certainly not applicable.

Speaker 4 (01:39:40):
Although there are I will say that it's uh, there
are some graphic scenes, especially with the photos and stuff
like that, that are quite triggering or agitating. With some
of the imagery of natives being harmed or like from
both film and then the photos that were shown that
those always can be jarring.

Speaker 1 (01:40:00):
Yes, yes, indeed, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:40:02):
Jenna Side is daring y'all.

Speaker 1 (01:40:06):
Where can people check you out on social media? Check
out your work, et cetera.

Speaker 4 (01:40:15):
On the interwebs. You can find me on Instagram at
at Lawrence Welch and w And then I have one
of those invaluable link trees with all of the other
things on them that you can find stuff about creepy
teepee which is.

Speaker 1 (01:40:34):
Yeah, tell us more about it.

Speaker 4 (01:40:35):
Yeah, creepy Tepe is kind of amazing. Talk about native storytelling.
So my friend I Vana yellow Back, and I get
together through the Internet and do live streams where we
tell spooky stories from our nation. We're both Cree, so
we'll still tell stories of our people and the spooky
stuff that goes bump in the night, and then our

(01:40:57):
own personal experiences. And we're looking to do a series
next where we have guests on that we'll be telling
spooky stories from their nations, keeping it creepy, putting the
Kree and creepy, I guess.

Speaker 1 (01:41:12):
Perfect.

Speaker 4 (01:41:13):
And then yeah, and that's a lot of fun, and
we're building that up slowly but surely. And then yeah,
with traditions. Again, I've said a few times that I'm
not an infallible fountable things indigenous. I don't really like
pen indigenity. As we've seen from the way I've spoke today,
not all natives are the same. We're not a modelith

(01:41:35):
and so I created this art project to really showcase
the differences in tribal nations through art as the outlet.
And so yeah, be doing shows and different events with
that to just kind of celebrate the diversity of indigenity
on this land mass. So that's pretty cool. But yeah,

(01:41:59):
you find me on Instagram, I'm at Lawrence Welsh Northwest
NW and then online at tradish Hyphenish dot com and yeah,
that's that's where I'm at.

Speaker 1 (01:42:12):
Amazing. Thank you again so much.

Speaker 3 (01:42:15):
This has been We'll see you on the drop Dead Fred.

Speaker 4 (01:42:20):
It's like we just did just do like snippets of
like every Fred movie ever, like just include Fred.

Speaker 1 (01:42:30):
Fred Molina.

Speaker 3 (01:42:32):
Okay, oh that's true. Who goes by Freddy? Sometimes it's complicated.
You can find us on Instagram, still on Twitter sometimes
when we remember to post there. At Bechtel Cast, you
can join our Patreon aka Matreon, where for five bucks
a month you can get two bonus episodes as well

(01:42:53):
as access to our back catalog of about one hundred
and fifty episodes. And so yeah you can. You can
find us there.

Speaker 1 (01:43:01):
And you can also grab our merch at teapublic dot com,
slash v Bechdel Cast, grab some you know, T shirts, pillows,
et cetera. Everything's designed by a one Jamie Loftis.

Speaker 3 (01:43:12):
It's true. It's getting to be the holiday season, so
get your sexy baby Grinch s merch. There's really powerful plug.
We've exited wet scab dry scab season and now we're
heading into baby Grinch wearing heels. Yes, our merch store
is fairly cursed, but we do have it.

Speaker 1 (01:43:34):
It is there, and you can buy the stuff if
you so choose, and we'll be back next week. So
sure well, then bye bye bye. The Bechdel Cast is
a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftus,
produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mola Board. Our theme

(01:43:58):
song was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Katherine Voskresenski.
Our logo in Merch is designed by Jamie Loftus and
a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about
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