Russian ice dance pair Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin continue to irk Aboriginal peoples in Australia, this time at the Olympics, with their controversial outfits and music.
The dynamic duo debuted their “indigenous-themed dance at last year’s European Championships where it … soon sparked outrage” for its minstrel-like appearance and casual use of didgeridoo music.
Hearing the complaints, the pair claimed to have fixed things by modifying their outfits. As Shabalin put it: “We changed it a little bit to make it more authentic and less theatrical.” Yeah, that was the problem: its theatricality. See if you can spot the difference.
And yet, despite the skaters’ best efforts, “You can’t be 100 per cent authentic” when it comes to “pay[ing] tribute to the culture of South-East Asia,” according to their coach.
She’s off by a continent, but hey, when you’re riffing/ripping off someone else’s culture, what’s a few thousand miles of ocean?
I am offended by the performance and so [are] other councillors. Aboriginal people for very good reason are sensitive about their cultural objects and icons being co-opted by non-Aboriginal people — whether they are from Australia or Russia. It’s important for people to tread carefully and respectfully when they are depicting somebody else’s culture and I don’t think this performance does.
Even the director’s name hits the right note with this documentary about Hollywood stereotypes. Yep… Neil Diamond. I think I might have met this James Bay Cree director at the Moose Hotel in Val D’Or around closing time. But that’s another story for another time.
This one is about how Hollywood first exploited stereotypes about North American Indigenous peoples, then stamped them onto the cerebelums of generations of people all over the world. Today, we Indigenous types have a tough time sifting through all the garbage Hollywood put there – garbage about ourselves.
For a nice collection of reviews about this documentary, you might want to saunter over to two places with very different offerings. For a Canadian slant, complete with knock at the good old CBC, check out Paul Wineberg’s take on “Reel Injun” at rabble.ca
Then, why don’t ya just mosey on over to Newspaper Rock, where Rob Schmidt does a fantastic job of collecting and analyzing and just plain being there when you need him – like when you want to find out what folks think (mostly American) about this documentary south of the 49th.
Now move it, pilgrim, before my trigger finger gets itchy.
God knows, there are plenty of reasons to take issue with the Vancouver Games, some of them alluded to here.
What’s got me in a squirmy place goes back to the opening ceremonies. Particularly the part featuring the aboriginal dancers.
Now, I love the dancers. And I’m mesmerized by the drum. But when I saw all those people, I wondered to what extent the performance reproduced the stereotypes spoken of by filmmaker Neil Diamond in his new documentary Reel Injun.
It’s all there. Feathers. Face paint. Moccasins. And yup, it’s a special occasion, so that explains the celebratory presentation. But it also feeds the stereotype.
Some of that is true. But where does it leave the contemporary native man? Are such occasions simply a way of continuing the saga of the Wild West shows of days gone by? Do they inform or do they mislead?
I’m not saying, stop dancing. I’m saying, the expected depiction of native people as artifacts who exist outside the realm of the contemporary world may carry its own baggage.
The way I see it, a large part of the struggle we all face is trying to exist between two worlds. Not giving up tradition. Taking our place in the twitter world. Maybe they’re not incompatible. But I wonder about the effect of contributing to the stereotype.
While the eyes of the sporting world are focused on Vancouver as the Winter Olympics pick up speed, the Vancouver School Board has passed an interesting motion urging school districts across British Columbia to ban sports mascots that promote Aboriginal stereotypes. The trustee who introduced it cited a statement from a continent-wide movement to kill such mascots that “trivialize and humiliate” Aboriginal cultures and experiences:
It explained that in some cases the sacred practice of becoming a warrior is associated with high school pep rallies or royalty in homecoming pageants, which carry racial overtones of “playing Indian” at high school events. It also criticized using native dress, tomahawks, feathers, face paints and symbolic drums and pipes inappropriately and using generic names such as Indians, Braves or Chiefs or specific tribal names.
This movement isn’t new, and it may be an attempt by the Vancouver School Board to foster good public relations at a time when Aboriginal people across the country are debating the validity of the Olympics taking place on traditional territory. But it’s clearly still an issue that divides fans and schools, and worse, offends Aboriginal people on a lot of levels in many cases.
There’s a substantial list of examples at the high school, collegiate and professional levels. If you’re unfamiliar with a lot of these, Wikipedia has a decent entry about it, but I’d also recommend checking out websites from the groups linked to this aforementioned “movement”, like The Alliance Against Racial Mascots and the American Indian Movement’s National Coalition on Racism in Sports and Media. Native advocates first started billowing smoke (no pun intended) into the mainstream airwaves about some of these offensive images, names, and practices back in the early 1990s, but clearly that smokescreen of awareness has never really scrubbed the attitudes of the people behind them.
People who think it’s okay to use Native mascots argue it’s done respectfully, that teams and schools have valid ties to an Aboriginal heritage that they honour, or that anything offensive has been altered to be more politically correct. Granted, many schools have made changes, and in 2005 the NCAA even restricted using Native American mascots at tournaments. But in the big leagues, this “tradition” is alive and well.
Chief Wahoo of the Cleveland Indians
As long as these mascots and monikers maintain at the professional level, kids of all colours will grow up thinking it’s okay to trivialize Aboriginal culture. Chances are, most kids in the United States are oblivious to the Aboriginal plight to begin with. Chief Wahoo will always come to mind when their teachers mention “Indians”. They’ll grow up thinking “Redskin” is a legitimate term. And they’ll bust out the Tomahawk Chop the next time they cheer on the Braves. So school boards across the continent can keep trying to sweep these mascots under the rug, but until the pros set an example they’ll never die.
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