Native representation in the film industry is a fucking joke. Half the writers are white, directors self identify can't tell you where their people are from and nobody gives a fuck. What the fuck am I doing with my life?

Listen, if you can't draw a fucking line between representation on screen and the person's community they proport to represent then that person should not be listened to. They should not be representing ANYONE.

Because there's no one there to hold them accountable for said representation. Everyone whines about cultural appropriation. What the fuck does that mean really? Really what does that mean, where is that line drawn?

Let me step out of my Mi'gMaq skin for a second. Is it ok for me to write about ALLLLL tribes because I self identify, I can sit there and say "oh this person in my family is native so I know why the cage bird sings, I'm the voice of indigenous representation!!"

500+ tribes you know what makes them all tick? You got some Crystal ball somewhere? Some magical mathematical formula that divides all those tribes to a collection of base needs, we're all the same?

You don't need more like me. I've been here for 20 years dealing with the nepotism of cosmopolitan self identifying indians that have know fucking idea what goes on in rural communities and make material sanitized for white audiences.

What you need is the ability to tell the fucking difference between someone benefitting from the pan indian commodification of native culture by engaging in the same fucking commodification to get a paycheck to say "DURR colonialism BAD."

And the artist who knows what it's like to be ignored because they know exactly what it means to come from a community that's lost it's way, lost its language. Knowing what it's like to bury someone who drank themselves to death, or hung themselves.

Or fucking disappeared into thin air, or who caught a beating because they're native. To put it bluntly, you need to do better as an audience to spot the bullshit.

You know if Windriver proved anything is that any asshole can go out there and victimize native people for entertainment, unpack what it means to be native through colonial engagement. But what does it mean to native people now?

Anybody who has an answer to that has solved one of the biggest dilemmas of colonialism. How do you engage with your culture while obviously being assimilated into something that has long since turned you into product.

It sucks being native in a culture that hates you man. Anyone doing stands with a fist pitching eagle sacred speak at you is ignoring the vast swathe of indigenous people that absolutely can't stand being in their own skin.

Where do those voices fall in the midst of all that positivity porn, academic circle jerkery and praise for "telling stories that need to be heard" by people who never chewed that rez dirt or slept on a park bench or in a drunk tank or in a ditch.

Anyway, it feels like none of this film shit matters so long as you have white executives calling the shots, white show runners running the shows white institutions dictating the method of consumption, tribeless indians doing an intertribal to the tune all those fuckers play.