native americans | the m0vie blog

Can’t Let It Go: “Frozen II” and Grappling With the Past…

Posted on November 19, 2019 by Darren

As far as animated sequels go, Frozen II works well. For better or for worse, it goes bigger and grander, sacrificing a little focus for a larger story.

However, the most striking aspect of Frozen II is the way in which it seems to grapple with one of the big existential anxieties of the modern era. Frozen II spends a lot of time and energy delving into the histories of Anna and Elsa, opening with a mythology-building flashback and offering a few tantalising hints about the source of Elsa’s power. However, this is part of a larger conversation that unfolds across the film’s runtime. Frozen II isn’t just about grappling with Anna and Elsa’s personal history, it is asking more ambitious questions about how the past shapes the present.

Of course, Frozen II is the story of two sisters embarking on an epic quest with an adorable snowman. However, it is also a story about the legacy of colonial exploitation of indigenous populations by nominally more advanced societies, and about coming to terms with the consequences of those historical injustices in the modern era. It isn’t always elegant or perfect. Indeed, Frozen II occasionally seems quite candid that it doesn’t know the answers to the questions that it is broaching.

Nevertheless, it’s fascinating to see these topics permeating popular culture, with shows like Watchmen and films like Thor: Ragnarok grappling with questions of what it means to live in a society built on historical injustice.

Note: This piece contains spoilers for Frozen II.

Continue reading →

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: anna, colonialism, elsa, exploitation, frozen ii, indigenous people, morality, native americans, postcolonialism, progress, the good place, thor: ragnarok, trumpism, watchmen | 4 Comments »

Star Trek – The Paradise Syndrome (Review)

Posted on July 22, 2016 by Darren

This July and August, we’re celebrating the release of Star Trek Beyond by taking a look back at the third season of the original Star Trek. Check back every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for the latest update.

As with Elaan of Troyius, it feels like The Paradise Syndrome casts an awfully long shadow for such a simply awful episode.

Much like Elaan of Troyius before it, The Paradise Syndrome marks out what will become a particular subgenre of Star Trek episode. To be fair, Elaan of Troyius had a much greater influence; it demonstrated that the basic “Enterprise ferries diplomats” plot from Journey to Babel was something that could be repeated, throwing a healthy helping of “our hero falls for an alien princess” into the mix. In contrast, the basic template defined by The Paradise Syndrome is a lot more specific.

Going Native American.

The Paradise Syndrome effectively posits a “what if…?”, wondering what might happen if Kirk gave up adventuring to settle down into a more mundane existence. It is an idea that Star Trek: The Next Generation would revisit to much greater effect in The Inner Light. It is also the basic template employed by Workforce, Part I and Workforce, Part II during the final season of Star Trek: Voyager. It is very rare to point to Voyager and argue that it executed an idea much better than the original Star Trek, but this is perhaps the exception that proves the rule.

The Paradise Syndrome is also (and unavoidably) a clumsy racist misfire of an episode.

“That’ll teach me to hope that the next episode will be better.”

Continue reading →

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: cultural appropriation, gene roddenberry, kirk, margaret armen, native americans, new age, racism, sexism, sixties, star trek, the original series, the paradise syndrome | 8 Comments »

Star Trek: Voyager – Tattoo (Review)

Posted on February 16, 2016 by Darren

This February and March, we’re taking a look at the 1995 to 1996 season of Star Trek, including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. Check back daily Tuesday through Friday for the latest review.

Tattoo is another example of the second season Star Trek: Voyager doubling down on elements that did not work in the first season.

Episodes like The Cloud and Cathexis had suggested that Chakotay might be a problematic character for the show. After all, Chakotay was the first Native American lead character to appear in the franchise, but he was played by a Mexican-American actor. More than that, the first season seemed to draw from an awkward collection of tropes and clichés in its depiction of Chakotay’s culture. The show declined to anchor Chakotay in a single specific Native American cultural tradition, instead drawing from a rake of familiar shallow iconography.

“Oh, here we go again…”

Chakotay didn’t really work in the first season. The problem is that Michael Piller seemed reluctant to accept that Chakotay’s Native American spirituality was borderline racist and offensive. So Tattoo returns to that particular well, with a much greater commitment to patronising and exploiting Native American culture. Exploring the Delta Quadrant, Chakotay comes across a seemingly abandoned moon that turns out to be the home of an ancient alien culture that made contact with Chakotay’s ancestors forty-five thousand years ago.

These aliens were responsible for shaping and molding Native American culture, for putting those groups in closer communion with the land and for fostering a purer spirituality. Not only is the main alien played by white actor Richard Fancy, the make-up design on these “Sky Spirits” emphasises their whiteness. So Tattoo becomes a story about how Native American culture essentially came from a bunch of super-advanced white people. It is astounding that nobody seemed to stop and think about the episode on the way to the screen.

“Oh, hey. That’s a new level of offensiveness.”

Continue reading →

Filed under: Voyager | Tagged: chakotay, Jeri Taylor, Michael Piller, native americans, new age, star trek, star trek: voyager, tattoo, Television, upn | 27 Comments »

Harsh Realm – Cincinnati (Review)

Posted on October 8, 2015 by Darren

This November, we’re taking a trip back in time to review the seventh season of The X-Files and the first (and only) season of Harsh Realm.

Cincinnati finally gives Terry O’Quinn something to do.

Despite the fact that O’Quinn is credited as a series regular on Harsh Realm, he has appeared about as frequently in the first nine episodes as he did during the equivalent episodes of Millennium. With his “and…” credit at the end of the opening title sequence, it felt like O’Quinn might be forgotten by the show. His face might appear on posters and propaganda, but he was not going to play a particularly dynamic role in the events of the first season. After all, Hobbes is trying to assassinate Santiago; there are reasons why the writers would want to keep them separate.

Walk softly, but carry a big stick…

Nevertheless, Cincinnati is a story that unfolds from Santiago’s perspective. Hobbes and Pinochio play a major part in unfolding events, but they largely reacting. The bulk of Cincinnati concerns a conflict between Santiago’s forces and the Native American population of Ohio. When a military strike goes horribly wrong, Santiago is forced to survive on his own terms. He infiltrates the eponymous city and sets about furthering his own agenda with ruthless efficiency.

A lot of Cincinnati is pure nonsense; the plot is barely held together by contrivance and coincidence, hinging on a final twist that manages to be both obvious and completely unearned. At the same time, it is hard to hate an episode that is carried by Terry O’Quinn and offers the actor a chance to sink his teeth into a juicy part.

It’s all in ruins…

Continue reading →

Filed under: Harsh Realm | Tagged: apocalypse, chris carter, counting coup, harsh realm, native america, native americans, omar santiago, santiago, terry o'quinn, virtual reality, war, War Games | 6 Comments »

Millennium – A Single Blade of Grass (Review)

Posted on May 7, 2015 by Darren

This May and June, we’re taking a trip back in time to review the fifth season of The X-Files and the second season of Millennium.

A Single Blade of Grass is one of those episodes of television that skirts a line. It is very much a companion to “subculture” episodes of The X-Files, shows that would see our white heroes wading into the world of an ethnic minority – be the Haitian refugees in Fresh Bones, Chinatown in Hell Money, African immigrants in Teliko or Mexican-Americans in El Mundo Gira. In the case of A Single Blade of Grass, Frank Black is wandering into the world of Native Americans in New York.

It goes without saying that these sorts of episodes have to be very careful. Both Millennium and The X-Files are very white television shows – they have exclusively white primary casts, and the vast majority of their supporting cast are also white. (Also, most of the writers’ rooms.) As such, telling a story about a subculture can be very tricky – it is easy to seem shallow or condescending, trite or exploitative. It is worth noting that some of the biggest misfires on The X-Files occurred when the production team got this horribly wrong – Excelsis Dei, Teso Dos Bichos, El Mundo Gira, Badlaa.

Burial mask…

It is very easy to get caught up in mysticising and fetishising the Other, which can become quite problematic when “the Other” corresponds to a real-life minority that have – historically speaking – never been treated particularly well by those in authority. As such, A Single Blade of Grass feels like a very risky and very difficult story, particularly for a show that was already struggling in the ratings and trying to gain some traction with audiences. A Single Blade of Grass has the potential to go spectacularly wrong in places, and it is to the credit of all involved that it (mostly) doesn’t.

Then again, this is a large part of the appeal of the second season of Millennium – what makes even the year’s failures seem compelling in their own eccentric way. There is a sense that the second season of Millennium is completely unfazed by the possibility of failure, and so commits completely to what it wants to do. While A Single Blade of Grass might be a little muddled and unfocused in places, it retains a raw energy that makes for compelling viewing.

Let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories about the death of worlds…

Continue reading →

Filed under: Millennium | Tagged: apocalypse, buffalo, end-times, erin maher, frank black, horror, kay reindl, millennium, native american gambling, native americans, occult, other, revelations, Ritual, subculture | 1 Comment »

The X-Files – The Blessing Way (Review)

Posted on November 3, 2014 by Darren

This November (and a little of December), we’re taking a trip back in time to review the third season of The X-Files and the first (and only) season of Space: Above and Beyond.

The Blessing Way is the first mythology episode of The X-Files that doesn’t really work.

And it doesn’t really work for a lot of the same reasons that some of the later mythology episodes don’t really work. Its pacing is terrible. It wallows in new age mysticism, allocating characters thoughtful monologues that awkwardly state themes and render subtext as supratext. It plays into the deification of Mulder, trying to bend Mulder’s story to fit into an archetypal “chosen one” narrative. More than that, it is very clearly a holding pattern, an effort to eat up time without moving forward.

Wiping it all out…

However, despite the fact that The Blessing Way really doesn’t work, it is still a fascinating episode. It’s a wonderful demonstration of how The X-Files has developed a fleshed-out world inhabited by compelling characters. The best moments in The Blessing Way are character-focused, with Skinner caught between his duty to the government and his loyalty to his agents, the Cigarette-Smoking Man revealed to be middle-management at best, and the implication that even vast sinister government conspiracies are hostage to chaos.

The Blessing Way is an oddity, a rather strange piece of television that is almost endearing in its stubborn refusal to deliver what the audience wants and expects. That doesn’t make it good, but it does make it interesting.

The truth is up there…

Continue reading →

Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: aliens, anasazi, cancer man, chris carter, cigarette-smoking man, conspiracy, Deep Throat, genocide, memory, mulder, mysticism, native americans, nazis, new age, paper clip, scully, Skinner, syndicate, teena mulder, the cigarette-smoking man, the well-manicured man, the x-files, well-manicured man, x-files | 2 Comments »

Star Trek: Voyager – Cathexis (Review)

Posted on October 14, 2014 by Darren

This September and October, we’re taking a look at the jam-packed 1994 to 1995 season of Star Trek, including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. Check back daily for the latest review.

Cathexis has a vaguely interesting premise, but it gets a little bit too caught up in science-fiction high concepts and New Age mysticism.

Once again, there’s a sense that the wrong writer has been assigned the wrong brief. The New Age spirituality elements of Chakotay’s character were largely championed by Michael Piller; the “romantic period mystery” story for Janeway clearly comes from Jeri Taylor. The only part of Cathexis that clearly comes from credited writer Brannon Braga is the somewhat generic “Invasion of the Body Snatchers“ plot line – and, as such, it seems to be the only thread in which Braga is particularly interested.

So we get a bunch of half-hearted New Age stuff unfolding, with Chakotay’s wandering spirit represented by a camera with a blurry filter swooping through familiar sets. Once again, Chakotay’s Native American heritage becomes a launching pad for some ill-advised mysticism and exoticism, which Cathexis never even bothers trying to explain.

Frankly, I’m surprised Tuvok put up with this for so long…

Continue reading →

Filed under: Voyager | Tagged: Brannon Braga, Brian Markinson, cathexis, chakotay, durst, faces, Holodeck, medicine wheel, Michael Piller, native americans, new age, peter durst, possession, racism, red scare, sexism, star trek, star trek: voyager, voyager | 11 Comments »

Star Trek: Voyager – Emanations (Review)

Posted on October 3, 2014 by Darren

Emanations has a pretty effective set-up and solid premise. It is very clearly one of Star Trek: Voyager‘s “planet of the week” stories – like the show directly before it and the show directly following it – but it’s build around some vaguely interesting ideas. It’s very clearly an episode designed to function as social commentary in the grand Star Trek tradition, hitting on big ideas and bold concepts.

Unfortunately, it’s not the type of script that Brannon Braga is best suited to handle. It doesn’t feel so much an exploration of an important issue as a social treatise. It’s simplistic and heavy-handed while dealing with ideas that require a bit of nuance and sophistication. It feels under-developed, contrived and a little shallow. Despite an attempt at ambiguity in its closing scene, it feels like an episode driven primarily by an agenda rather than a strong story.

Emanations is a misfire, another example of the weird tendency in the first season of Voyager to assign the wrong writers to the wrong scripts.

Harry really got wrapped up in local culture…

Continue reading →

Filed under: Voyager | Tagged: afterlife, Brannon Braga, chakotay, death, emanations, Euthanasia, native americans, old west, Oregon, star trek, star trek: voyager, voyager | 8 Comments »

Legends of the Dark Knight: Shaman (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on July 24, 2014 by Darren

23rd July is Batman Day, celebrating the character’s 75th anniversary. To celebrate, this July we’re taking a look at some new and classic Batman (and Batman related) stories. Check back daily for the latest review.

Given the success of the Batman line in general and Year One in particular, a comic book like Legends of the Dark Knight made a great deal of sense. First published in 1989, the original objective was to tell stand-alone stories that could be positioned at any point in the life of Batman. As such, the book was not tied on any status quo at the publisher or any demands of the on-going Batman or Detective Comics books.

These were continuity-light stories that would allow writers to tell any story they wanted, unhindered by the larger editorial direction of the Batman line. Legends of the Dark Knight filled a pretty great niche in the Batman line. In a superficial way, it allowed the comics to reconnect with the success of Frank Miller’s Year One, giving the company the option of publishing more comics set in the rough early days of the Caped Crusader.

A dark night…

However, the continuity-hopping nature of the title meant that Legends of the Dark Knight could welcome all sorts of creative teams for short runs without tying them down. Batman and Detective Comics were traditionally books where creative teams would enjoy “runs”, with the occasional fill-in. In contrast, Legends of the Dark Knight could rotate through creators, allowing for different flavours at different times.

More than that, free from the burden of having to tie into a larger context of Batman, many of these Legends of the Dark Knight stories were friendly to casual readers who did not care about the on-going titles. Eventually Legends of the Dark Knight found itself tying into events like Knightfall and No Man’s Land, but the bulk of the run was accessible on its own terms. Featuring a varied assortment of creators free to tell the stories that they wanted to tell, Legends of the Dark Knight was a great idea.

I am the lord, your Bat-god!

As a whole, the two-hundred-and-fourteen issue run of Legends of the Dark Knight holds up remarkably well. The run contains a number of genuinely classic Batman stories like Gothic or Prey or Faces or Blades or Hothouse or Going Sane. The first twenty issues of the title are remarkably strong, and there is a very series argument to be made that the anthology nature of Legends of the Dark Knight made it the best Batman comic book of the nineties.

However, when it came to launching Legends of the Dark Knight, it made sense for Batman veteran Denny O’Neil to write the first story. O’Neil had been an essential part of the Batman line since the seventies. He was a prolific creator who had contributed an incredible amount of material to the wider universe of Batman. During a short run on Batman with artist Neal Adams, O’Neil had helped to restore some of the character’s darkness and mystery following the bright and colourful sixties.

The mask comes off…

Continue reading →

Filed under: Comics | Tagged: batman, Denny O'Neil, frank miller, gotham, legends of the dark knight, native americans, shaman, year one | 2 Comments »

Tintin: Tintin in America (Review)

Posted on October 3, 2011 by Darren

In the lead-up to the release of The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, I’m going to be taking a look at Hergé’s celebrated comic book character, from his humble beginnings through to the incomplete post-modern finale. I hope you enjoy the ride.

Tintin in America was the earliest Adventures of Tintin book I read as a child, and I owned the entire collection from this point on (for obvious reasons, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and Tintin in the Congo were not recommended childhood reading). That said, I’ve always regarded Tintin in America as one of the weaker entries in the series, perhaps because my childhood imagination yearned for something relatively more exotic than a trip to North America, or perhaps because the saturation of American pop culture made all the elements Hergé was spoofing seem like old hat. I’m not entirely sure, but I have to admit that the story hasn’t improved too much on re-reading.