Indians

Kelly Branam, St. Cloud State UniversityLarry J. Zimmerman, Indiana University/Eiteljorg Museum

CIC-AISC Faculty Research Symposium: Indigenous Voice in FilmJune 1, 2009, Michigan State University

"What really matters to us is that we be able to tell our own stories in whatever form we choose.“

Beverly Singer, Wiping the Warpaint Off the Lens

Digital technology is redefining agency in video production.

Anyone with a digital camcorder and inexpensive editing software can produce quality short videos.

Expanding availability of broadband internet services is also changing distribution.

Anyone with a decent access to the Web can quickly upload their videos to YouTube and similar video distribution services.

Indian people are able to tell their own stories, without non-Indian intermediaries who inevitably skew perceptions of audiences.

YouTube and other video postings raise nagging questions concerning Native American representation:

•What is being posted? •In what form? •By Whom? And Why? •Were necessary cultural permissions and given to document events and to distribute the videos? •Who is commenting on these videos, and •Who is the target audience?

The questions are familiar, and applicable to many materials on the web.

Key concerns about the impact of YouTube representations :

They have the potential to break-down age-old stereotypes or to perpetuate them. YouTube has expanded Indian voice, but there is still saturation by Hollywood and TV stereotypic images.

In what ways do these native and non-native representations intersect and speak to and against each other?

Videos are left to the viewer’s interpretation based on an erroneous assumption that video faithfully presents reality.

Can providing a “lens” help viewers evaluate what they are seeing and move them beyond the received wisdom of their culture about who and what Indians are?

The Medium is Not the Only Message

Video sharing sites distribute mostly conversational media

Conversation media are driven by give and take between producers and audience

Motive is to spread a message, document events, or solicit/elicit viewer response

Opposite is packaged media, profit driven as with commercials and films, and increasingly appearing on video sharing sites

The goal is to go viral, gaining a huge number of viewers in a short time.

A video sharing site such as YouTube is a complicated medium, and its conversational aspects deliver far more than the video itself.

What’s on a YouTube Page? (in case you haven’t really looked)

Video title

Online name, date posted, and info about poster

Video content summary

Possibly related videos

Number of viewings

Number of comments

Commenter online name, when posted, and comment

Video to play

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3QOM4JxZQo&feature=player_detailpage

The Nature of YouTube

•Video posters can be anonymous or self-identify

adamfilmmaker posted Nike Air N7 shoe (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tcUtknDw0g)

PeterPan Part 6 (Ugga Wugga Wigwam)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpKcSllexag

Commenters also can be anonymous or self-identify.

Comments:•tend to be Twitter length, but some are longer.•can “flame,” include name-calling, use foul-language, and sometimes rational and civil discussion.•provide a new arena for communication and collaboration between natives and non-natives.•Can raise questions concerning authenticity, contextualization, identity, ethnography, and documentary

Peter Pan

Disney-What Made the Red Man Red?

Identity Markers and YouTube Videos

“Synthetic” forms of communication often preserve the identity of a group

Links those who know the communication style but excludes other groups who do not understand the code

Identities are negotiated through interaction with another person or group.

Even synthetic forms of communication, YouTube provides a public sphere where identity is negotiated.

Ideal, feared, “real” and claimed identities of individuals and groups can be found on YouTube.

YouTube - Lakota Hip Hip Gathering of Nations 2008http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-AyvUQ8oWY

Categorizing YouTube Indian Videos

IUPUI YouTube Indians Wiki Categories

Negative stereotypesPositive StereotypesHumor

Wannabes and playing IndianMade by Indians for IndiansCultural activities/information

Categories Specifically Related to Identity Issues

Historical Stereotypes—Hollywood’s stereotypes related to the Vanishing American still keep American Indians removed from the reality of history (mostly non-Indian made)

Wannabes—Non-Indians identify with an image of Indians usually created from positive stereotypes (mostly non-Indian made)

Imagining Indians —Usually about the treatment of Indian people at the hands of Euroamericans at the time of contact and the following years (mostly non-Indian made) Cultural Sovereignty—Native people to tell their own stories, through their own voice (mostly Indian made)

Powwows, Cultural Activities/Information— “home video” of native cultural activities, usually without commentary and filter (mostly Indian made)

Pow-Wow Hip-Hop-Style

An Example from Powwows, Cultural Activities/Information

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erJx-vkFYqo&

•Low production values (likely cell-phone or digital camera video) •Only commentary by poster Nikkitra: “Video taken of the winners of the Hip Hop contest on the Chickahominy Tribe in VA”•344,000 views, 1,525 comments

And More Hip Hop Style Pow Wow (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzPOEgDe2d8)

•Low production values (likely cell-phone or digital camera video)•No commentary from poster Nikkitra except: “Give the girls their props Now it time for the ladies to show what they are working with”•164,400+ viewings since May 14, 2006•Six similar videos, including remixes by other posters have had nearly 440,000 views, essentially a video gone viral.

Some conclusions:

YouTube provides an inexhaustible resource for examining a wide range of issues related to Native Americans.

To know now to what extent native identity or any identity is shaped by representations on YouTube is difficult.

The ability to anonymously comment on any video allows viewers to confront these images.

The ability to speak against or for these images may shape their effects, and provide the ability to maintain boundaries and reinforce specific values.

This technology may be shaping the relationship between natives and non-natives.

This particular cyberspace may be the only public space where some non-natives and natives have the opportunity to interact.

Remaining Questions:

How, precisely, do native audiences react to native film on YouTube?

Are there intellectual property concerns especially when videos show private information such as ritual?

How are wannabes and attitude toward wannabes affected by the videos?

Are ethnic boundaries actually being maintained and can this be measured in some way?

Is YouTube actually democratizing information when it sets up or reinforces ethnic boundaries?

What is the potential for “power struggles” between YouTube videos and professionally produced media?

Self-expression is growing

Osama Likes Frybread2 Sheepherders discover Osama Bin Laden hiding on the Navajo Indian Reservation. Written and Directed by Sydney Freeland.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3w7vAmszm4

Sydney Freeland was born and raised in Gallup, New Mexico. Her father is Navajo and her mother is Scottish.  She is a graduate of Arizona State University with a BFA in Computer Animation, and also received a MFA in Motion Pictures & Television from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.  She was selected as a 2004 Fulbright scholarship recipient, and also attended the ABC/Disney Summer Institute in 2005 & 2006. She is a 2006 Disney Scholarship recipient and a 2007 Disney Fellowship semi- finalist.  Sydney currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

Native American Filmmaking Growsand YouTube is a common place to start

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUtGhqXzOJU

“RezKast is the place where we can create our own tribal shows, our own tribal programming, and our own native content. It is our hope and intent that tribal people will use technology's greatest strengths to preserve their greatest truths.” (http://www.rezkast.com/staticPage.php?pg=rezkastroots)

“Join the movement! Help promote Rezkast by posting this photo to your youtube, facebook, myspace, and even your snaggin' websites!”

What’s Next?

An Interview with RezKast Creators