For this week’s assignment I would like to compare the ‘spaces’ and themes in Clements’ “The Unnatural and Accidental Women” and Tailfeathers’ “A Red Girls Reasoning”. Although I was not able to find the Tailfeathers’ video in its entirety, I was able to watch the trailer and do a bit of reading on the film, so I do apologize if I leave out bits and pieces.
A strong spatial (or geographical) similarity between the two texts is that they both take place (primarily) in cities. In the trailer for “A Red Girls reasoning” the main character brings up how absurd the story of Pocahontas is. This got me thinking about the Colonial lens, and how Colonial thoughts and/or images of Indigenous communities are relegated to the past, highly romanticised, and reduced to a simple pre-occupation or connection with the environment. This romanticised reduction, however, completely ignores the everyday experience of Indigenous communities, as many Indigenous Individuals increasingly re-locate to urban centres.
Similarly, Clements’ “The Unnatural and Accidental Women” also takes place in a city. Clements unveils the harsh reality of life in an urban centre, where many Indigenous women have gone missing as the law turns a blind eye.
Each author’s illumination of Indigenous city life reveal the dangers of re-inscribing the ‘Pocahontas-like’ Indigenous stereo-types mentioned above. In so far as it could be these very stereo-types that perpetuate violence against Indigenous women in urban centres, while the privileged class, clinging to false ideas of indigeneity, remain unaware of, and insensitive to, such violence.
I really enjoyed your write up. I compared these two ‘spaces’ as well so it was interesting to see what someone else thought about them. I also had trouble finding the full film, however like you did I watched the trailer and read a bit about it and found that I could understand quite a bit about what this movie was about. I never really thought about the Pochohontas idea that you brought up. I really like that comparison and how it attributes to the colonial idea. I completely agree that it has a lot to do with the colonial lens because it affected the indigenous people so much, and still has quite the effect on them to this day, unfortunately. I also agree with the fact that Clements’ story does a good job of showing us what life was like for indigenous women in a city centre and how there are so many crimes against these women and how the city and police unfortunately don’t really care and they do just turn a blind eye, which is quite damaging to the cities image and of course to these women and their families.
I too wrote on Clements as one half of the comparison. And I share a lot of similar opinions about her portrayal of Aboriginal women. I enjoyed your analysis of the urban nature of her work, pertaining specifically to native persons. Why do you think she does this? Is it a result of her background or does she view urban indigenous issues as more prominent than rural or international debates? I’d be interest to hear your thoughts 🙂