Question: Identify and discuss two of King’s “acts of narrative decolonization.”Please read the following quote to assist you with your answer.The lives of King’s characters are entangled in and informed by both the colonial legacy in the Americas and the narratives that enact and enable colonial domination. King begins to extricate his characters’ lives from the domination of the invader’s discourses by weaving their stories into both Native American oral traditions and into revisions of some of the most damaging narratives of domination and conquest: European American origin stories and national myths, canonical literary texts, and popular culture texts such as John Wayne films. These revisions are acts of narrative decolonization. James Cox. “All This Water Imagery Must Mean Something.” Canadian Literature 161-162 (1999). Web April 04/2013.
If the intended mission of the novel’s Four Indians—The Lone Ranger, Ishmael, Robinson Crusoe, and Hawkeye—is, as they repeatedly announce, to “fix things,” it is really intriguing to consider the things which King employs to fix and the ways they go about doing so. “Acts of narrative decolonization” — or rather, the ways in which a Native Canadian writer revises national, historical and cultural myths and texts run rampant through Green Grass Running Water and it is through through these revisions I believe that the Four Indians begin to, or at least make an attempt, to fix what is wrong in the world.
One of the most obvious, and hilarious acts, of narrative decolonization that this novels offers its readers is the scene in Bill Bursum’s shop when the ending of the John Wayne film ends in an unexpected and unprecedented way. Western films have been a formulaic and successful genre since the dawn of Hollywood and John Wayne stands, even today, as one of the most identifiable and renowned figures in this cinematic tradition. From 1903’s The Great Train Robbery to 1956’s The Searchers—which featured Wayne in arguably his most iconic role, the Western genre was built upon several conventions, but always seems to revisit some variation of conflict between Cowboys and Indians or Cowboys and Mexicans or Cowboys and Cowboys. To a contemporary audience, and an Aboriginal audience in particular, there is an undeniable act of discrimination act in these limited narratives. The video below goes into further detail on the history about these misrepresentations:
The question begs to be asked: “Why do the Cowboys always win?” Another question to ask: “Why are Indians always the villain?” To these, I have no answer. The film industry, however, exacerbates Indigenous perceptions in film by hiring practices and derogatory portrayals which pander to stereotype can be summarized by one word: backward. Nonetheless, they have proved commercially viable and it is only until the mainstream audience stops condoning these issues by speaking with their wallets that they will stop. Interestingly, this is not only a contemporary notion—as early as 1973, members of the Hollywood community were aware of this problematic representation and spoke out against it. I have included another clip, from the 45th Annual Academy Awards, that offers a famous example of discontentment in regards to Indigenous portrayals, typecasting and disregard within the film industry. Watch the response Sacheen Littlefeather receives when she explains that actor Marlon Brando refuses his Oscar for The Godfather due to the “treatment of American Indians today by the film industry and on television and on movie re-runs.” The boo’s are quickly silenced by the applause but it is striking that this conversation is over forty years old yet issues remain.
So what King masterfully does in this scene is take back agency in storytelling for the Indigenous people. He robs a white man’s medium of its triumphant conclusion and rather than the expected—and justified—massacre of the Indians, it is the White Man who loses. The Four Indians revel in this joke while Bill Bursam watches on, gobsmacked.
Another notable revision King makes in the text is his spinning of the traditional Judeo-Christian story of creation. In contrast to what he does to John Wayne and the Western, King does not use this purposeful act of narrative decolonization to point at the flaws in mass cultural race perception but paints gender as arguably more restrictive than race. In the story of Creation in Genesis, it is Adam who is first formed by God and only later on does God form Eve out of Adam’s rib. Immediately, there is an imbalance in gender dynamics from this relationship. So rather than telling the same story, King has Woman come first. And rather than making gender static, this First Woman in King’s story will later assume the roles of four famous men: Robinson Crusoe, Ishmael, The Lone Ranger and Hawkeye. So not only is King assaulting the patriarchy in this literary move, he is assaulting conventional delineations of gender. He is both employing the mythology of Iroquois and Huron people who believe that the Woman Who Fell From the Sky is a primal ancestor, and discarding one of its key elements: gender. In King’s genderless revision, the focus is not on who came first or who holds the power now, it shifts to what this primal ancestor does with its primal position.
Together, these two instances of revising cultural and biblical conventions enable King to craft a story that is distinctly non-white and non-Indigenous. It is a powerful step away from safely identifying within a larger group so that he might poke fun, like the Coyote, at neither group but at mankind as a whole.
It is a truly effective device that lends itself to a destabilizing read but one that certainly leaves readers reflecting everything they thought they knew. As one reviewer expresses, upon reading Green Grass Running Water he thought “This makes absolutely no sense.” I believe that is the exact reaction King is striving for. The only way we can confront something so giant as the damaging narratives of domination and conquest—of both race and gender—is to laugh and I took a great deal of pleasure in laughing at the mess King makes with his acts of narrative decolonization.
Works Cited
Framesinmotion2007. “How Hollywood stereotyped the Native Americans.” Online video clip. Youtube. Youtube, 31 Oct. 2007. 4 Apr. 2016.
Oscars. “Marlon Brando’s Oscar win for ‘The Godfather’.” Online video clip. Youtube. Youtube, 2 Oct. 2008. 4 Apr. 2016.
Taylor, Drew Hayden. “Green Grass, Running Water—Thomas King.” Literary Review of Canada. Literary Review of Canada, n.d. Web. 4 Apr. 2016.
Wente, Jesse. “Opinion: The Ridiculous 6 proves Hollywood still has an Indian problem.” CBC News. CBC Radio-Canada, 17 Dec. 2015. Web. 4 Apr. 2016.
