Screening Culture: Constructing Image and Identity (review)

This collection of essays is a major step in wrestling with the themes of identity and image making in multicultural societies such as the United States and Canada. The various authors attempt to offer explanation for the different views held about Native Americans in North America. The Native Americans carry different descriptions in the United States and Canada, where they are variously known as "Aboriginals," "First Nations," and "Native Americans." The work highlights the mean opinion white Americans hold about the Native Americans in North America. The authors point out that Native Americans are perceived as inferior, uncivilized, and unenlightened. These views resonate with the majority of white Americans, and they are manifested in the types of legislation and policy positions that politicians adopt in the United States and Canada. In fact, these are views also represented in the media, television screens, filmmaking, and videos. The authors argue that Aboriginals now use the same tools that have been previously used against them to challenge the opinions of white Americans. These tools include films, videos, television, and electronic media. Aboriginal film directors use the film industry as a vehicle to convey positive images about Aboriginals/Native Americans in Canada and the United States.

Ted Palys's chapter encapsulates this point better. He argues that the history of Indians in North America have undergone several interpretations by white settlers. He claims that when the white settlers needed the assistance and services of the Indians, who played host to them centuries ago, the white Americans hailed them; when the services were no longer needed, the Indians were abandoned. He notes that these views have been reproduced in films in Canada and the United States. Palys argues that from 1920 to 1945 the films shown on television screens about Aboriginals portray them as inferior to the white settlers. These films justified the massacres of Aboriginals and their dehumanization by putting a positive spin on the historical facts. These films authored by white Americans have affected the images of Aboriginals for a long time, and they continue to have a negative effect on their interaction with other ethnic groups, particularly in Canada. Palys also contends that between 1945 and 1970 films produced in Canada about Aboriginals indicate a rethinking of official policy on this subject. Many of the Canadian films in this period now portray Aboriginals in positive lights. The rethink in policy was also seized upon by Aboriginal film directors, who continue to screen positive images about themselves. Palys notes, "A century of filmmaking about Aboriginal peoples has finally reached the point where there is filmmaking by Aboriginal peoples" (31). Mary Jane Miller reinforces this point strongly. In her piece, she notes that the Natives in the Canadian film and television industries are no longer subjected to receiving ideas, instructions, and directives from white Canadians; rather, they are now being included as part of the filmmaking process. In short, the first part of the book clearly argues about the agency of Native Americans in the film and television industries in North America; a role they hitherto lacked.

In the last section of the book, Thibault Martin's captivating piece is striking. Martin uses sociological tools to examine the case of preserving the image of what he calls the "Other." He argues that when it comes to representing the images of other people there is no universal representation. Outsiders who portray the images of others normally have their views shaped by their interest and agenda. Therefore, Martin argues, "to look at the Other is to look at oneself" (202). In the case of the film industry in Canada, the outsiders can no longer represent the views of the Aboriginals effectively; this is the case because, Martin notes, there are insiders within that community who are artists, writers, and musicians; they are now equally competent to represent their own images.

Heather Nicholson's examination of the film In Whose Honor? speaks to the issue of how bias and ignorance produce entrenched attitudes and...