#native things

Seeing Native people used as a prop in a movie not about Native people is…gross. Generally speaking. 

It wasn’t awesome and I didn’t enjoy it, but it also wasn’t as…shittily done as in the book, if that makes any sense. I’ll explain a little. 

I have personally participated in a sweat lodge ceremony. Only one, with no medicines/plants/etc involved to induce visions. However - and this is from a generally not religious person - it was a very spiritual experience. It is a very sacred thing, especially when Indigenous medicines are involved. A bunch of nonnative kids in the 60s making a smokehole out of their clubhouse is disrespectful, especially when Indigenous peoples were not legally allowed to practice their religions until 1978 (see: American Indian Religious Freedom Act). 

Going from that, Mike going and actually speaking to Native people and being invited to the ceremony was better. HOWEVER, Mr. Hanlon, stealing a religious artifact? Uncool. Using a sacred root to drug your friend without his consent or without the oversight of an elder with the knowledge and permission to handle that medicine? Uncool. 

I feel that I could ramble about this for a long time, and I kind of feel like doing so, but I have an errand to run soon. I might add more later, esp if someone asks me to elaborate. 

Long story short, it was a little better than in the book, but still uncomfortable. It was an expected discomfort. I expect discomforts in horror movies. I shouldn’t have to expect this kind of discomfort. Amid plots of sexual assault and racism and homophobia - and all of those being presented clearly as evil acts - we are handed insensitive and racist treatment of Indigenous people and it is fine because Indigenous people in horror, as a genre, are nothing but an excuse as to how you learn to defeat the villain. Because, often, we are seen just as mysterious and not real as the alien they’re fighting.