Cultural Mediation and the Possibility of a Native Counter-Cinema (Critical Essay‪)‬

I was recently planning a syllabus for a 100-level course on Native Literature at The Pennsylvania State University and, as my planning progressed, I ran into the age-old problem of what to leave in and what to leave out. Particularly difficult for me was the decision over what "texts" I should include in a final unit on Native drama and Native cinema. I heard many suggestions from colleagues who were more familiar than I with global cinema, but less well-versed in Native Studies. The problem, as I saw it, was that many of their suggestions were great films, but in the end they lacked the authentic imprimatur of a genuine Native hand. Like any instructor who is sensitive to the politics of ethnic representation, my impulse was to simply dismiss those suggestions outright, as they would seem very out of place on a syllabus otherwise constructed only of Native artists. I reasoned that teaching a genuinely Native film, as opposed to an Anglo-mediated text, was the more responsible option. In the end, I chose to include Sherman Alexie's The Business of Fancydancing (2002) primarily because it seemed to fit the bill of authenticity and also because Alexie has always been my favorite writer, Native or otherwise. I do not regret the decision I made in that regard, but when I reflected on the process that brought me to that choice, it occurred to me that I might have been glossing over some very salient cultural complexities in my unabashed enthusiasm for an authentic and unmediated Native film. The central question that emerged was whether there actually was such a thing as an unmediated text of any kind, and especially whether we could usefully speak of an unmediated cinematic text. I wondered, quite simply, if it was possible at all and, if so, what such a liberated artifact might look like.