i am a little late, i blame this silly thing called work that gets in the way of my blogging, on sharing this news, via Ojibway Migisi Bineshii:
The U.S. Board on Geographic Names voted 11-2 on Thursday to rename Squaw Peak in Arizona for Lori Piestewa, the Hopi woman who died in action in Iraq.
which is, to say the least, a pretty great change, and a great memory for the first Native American woman to have her life claimed by Dubyah’s war. if you read the links i post in the blogroll just for my health, you should give this one a read. very informative on Native issues. i have learned quite a bit there so far, but most surprisingly, though it shouldn’t have been, this:
so, thank you, Ojibway Migisi Bineshii. thank you for the blog you run, thank you for keeping me in your blogroll, and thank-you for teaching me something i didn’t actually know.
also, this little tidbit of information reminded me of the thing that completely ruins what might otherwise have been one of my favorite disney movies. i LOVE the story of Peter Pan, and though i completely forgot about it until i bought it for the Kid, and we watched it together, i always get a little worked up about this:
it takes what i probably think is a charming story and pushes it to a level of racism and sexism that i think a lot of people who buy these movies have learned to laugh off as “only a joke”.
ya know, for a lot of my family, this isn’t a joke. it is completely degrading and hurtful. it paints my family as savages, and creates an image where sexism is OK, and even enforced by other women. there are so many things wrong w/ this scene that i don’t even know where to begin. as soon as i read the quote above from OJB’s site, i immediately thought of the Native woman calling Wendy a squaw. it has always bothered me that it was used to describe Native women, and i didn’t even know what it meant.
so, thank-you, Walt Disney pictures, thank-you for furthering this horrible stereotype. thank-you for showing anything other than european based white man culture as savage. thank you for making us look like a bunch of uneducated, sputtering idiots. thanks for forgetting that WORDS MEAN THINGS and denigrating women. thanks for making us something for children to laugh at.
this is one squaw who is a little pissed off.
Ouyang Dan
The Guy
On the plus side of things, Wendy does stick up for herself (there at the end). Maybe a statement that one should never merely do what one is told to placate others even in the case of encountering other cultures; that one should respect the other culture, but still maintain a sense of integrity?
I mean, it doesn’t make up for the ethnism, no. But Wendy’s spirit reminds me not a little of Ariel’s (who’s pretty awesome, I always thought. Way cooler than that lame-o Prince Eric).
What’s really fascinating is that Peter Pan is still watched (and celebrated), but Song of the South is all but banned. I mean, try getting that shit anywhere.
But finally, I kind of look at this kind of thing as being as worthwhile as documents concerning the Holocaust/anti-Semitism. It’s horrible. And no one should be denigrated as these bits of media do. But at the same time, it’s extraordinarily worthwhile as a snapshot of what not to do, or how not to act/view other cultures. I guess it’s a bit like the Shylock character in Measure for Measure.
Fascinating post, and subject.
Yes Will, it’s very like Shylock.
My question, should the film be banned, as in Song Of The South*, should the offending part be edited out? (see my post here on the subject), or should a “disclaimer” be inserted?
I understand different times, different values, but hurtful is hurtful.
btw - I only learned the etymology of the word “squaw” about 7 or 8 years ago. Before that time, I wrongly assumed it meant woman in some Native American language. Ignorance is still rampant, I’m sure.
*This is available online. Mine came from Hong Kong and is a crappy transfer, but I have it.
very interesting post on that, BSR.
(i don’t know Measure for Measure, if that dates me, i apologize)
i agree on a point you made, i think it’s important to have the originals to show the kinds of stereotypes that used to be so common. a friend of mine from Murfreesboro, TN (i have no idea if i spelled that right), and we were talking about Song of the South. i used to LOVE Uncle Remus and Zippity Doo Dah when i was a kid. we were talking about how you couldn’t find it, and why we were pretty sure it was for obvious reasons, that it was extremely racist, and i remembered the book my Nana read to me as a kid w/ the story of “Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby”. i had no idea as a child just how not OK that story was, just as how i didn’t know until two days ago what “squaw” actually meant. i think it’s important, like w/ the WWII WB cartoons, to remember what we used to think was OK. however, w/ WB, it’s important to remember that cartoons weren’t made for children, they were originally for troop morale during war, if i remember correctly. that doesn’t excuse it, just shows that we didn’t start out making offensive things aimed at children.
i don’t think it should be deleted or changed, b/c i think it is an opportunity for teaching. i also think it does more harm to pretend it never existed than to see it. we should not have the luxury of ignoring what we used to accept w/o a thought. it still makes me righteously indignant, but we need to keep in mind how we used to behave. and, as Will said, it’s a great example of what NOT to do.
Quite interesting. I think even as a kid something seemed odd with this scene. I knew Native Americans weren’t actually like that. I do think certain things have improved.
Thank you for linking up my blog! I will keep my blog going, just updated today! I am glad you like my blog!
This video is pretty racist and sexist. First of all they say, “Injun,” which is highly offensive! “What makes the red man red?” They way the answer this is really offensive too!
Things have change but I am still about changing consciousness around issues affecting Aboriginal/First Nations/Indigenous/Native peoples worldwide.