OP/ED

“Why You Don’t See Indians on Television.”

DAN JONES

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Seen any Indians on TV lately? Probably not, and you’re not likely to. Here’s why: The FCC has allowed the American television Industry, which I like to call “a content provider,” because the Internet has changed everything. They don’t know what to call themselves either. The federal government, through its oversight of the FCC, has allowed the content providers to do three things with us and our image. These will have a devastating impact on American Indians economically, and we don’t yet know the negative social and psychological impact to generations of American Indian children.

First, the FCC allows the content providers to call us a minority, which really chaps me because the government knows we are not. We are social and political entities—separate and distinct from America.

So, now we have to compete with all the real minorities—blacks, Latinos, Asians and gays—for the scraps. We don’t even get a bone.

The second screwy thing the FCC allows the content providers to do with us is to determine that we don’t matter, since in the world of television, it’s all about numbers. When television moguls look at us, they see only a tiny percentage of the United States. They think in terms of much larger groups: such as age groups, women and large minority groups such as blacks and Latinos. Marketing and advertising makes the TV world go round, so the more numbers you have the louder your squeak and the more grease you get. We don’t have the numbers that advertisers desire.

My partner Sonny Skyhawk and I have been running our heads into those slamming doors for years. It wouldn’t bother me so much if it weren’t for two things: being on television is important for us as a people—and their demographics are a damn lie!

The third thing that the FCC allows the content providers to do with us is the sickest of all. They allow them to determine who is an Indian. This is why you’re children don’t see people like us on TV. Here’s what I think we need to do about it:

The FCC has dumped us into the minority diversity pile within the media industry and the content providers don’t have the experience or knowledge of the complicated U.S.-Indian relationship to know that we are not a minority. This is very important. We share a government-to-government relationship with the United States, a classification far more detailed and complicated than with any minority. American Indians are the only racial, ethnic or religious group in America to be addressed in the American Constitution. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 reads: “The Congress shall have Power to … regulate commerce … with the Indian tribes.” This clause forms the basis for Congressional lawmaking authority regarding the tribes, and the unique tribal-federal government relationship. The concept of the Indian desk has been established throughout the U.S. government, and the private sector has long been mandated by Congress to the needs of American Indians when it comes to economic development in the form of set-asides. This logic should apply to the content providers.

Television can open new doors to “Commerce” between American Indians and main-stream America; a relationship that would greatly help tribes to help themselves. So where is Congress, the Supremes and the FCC when it comes to helping Indians with Commerce and the respect we deserve by the TV Providers when it comes to television?

The Bureau of Indian Affairs’ mishandling of our mineral management was a hellish fiasco (Cobell), but it’s just the tip of the iceberg if you consider how much revenue we’re losing because we’re not part of mainstream America and its commerce. This is where the FCC’s role to serve the underserved falls apart. Natives are the bottom of the group and we get nothing—no channels, no programming, no advertizing, no jobs. Indigenous people in America are left out of the picture with too few numbers for the content providers to be bothered, and the FCC is not correcting the situation. The correction will cost the content providers greatly, but not as much as it has cost us.

What’s at stake? We are being denied a powerful tool that would allow us to confront and correct misconceptions about us. We also lack a national platform to share with one another critical information and solutions to problems. Television is a powerful tool in addressing these problems! Another critical issue is one of our images itself. Who has controlled our image(s), who controls our image now and who will? We have watched others lay out and define issues about us, and it’s about time we take control of our own image. Television would be a good start.

We need American Indian media visionaries on an FCC committee. The FCC has no Indian experience, and hey, why would they? One or two tribes are making plans to spend millions on their reservation to get a small percentage of their membership hooked up to television in rural and remote places; in reality this is a pork project. After spending millions they will find they have the cart before the horse, because they have no Native-oriented content to broadcast. So even after these tribes get their televisions, they still won’t see Indians on them. But they will see plenty of what white people think Indians are.

Dan Jones is a filmmaker.

Pasted from <http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/opinion/why-you-don%E2%80%99t-see-indians-on-television-107987>

“Who’s an Indian? Johnny Depp.”

DAN JONES

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Of all the sovereign authority tribes once held, the least compromised by Congress is the tribe’s ability to determine who is a member of the tribe or who is an Indian. The US census of 2010 determined there were some 3 million American Indians belonging to tribes, a number that can easily be disputed. Not all American Indians care if they are counted. There’s a tribe in Florida that has never been recognized by the United States for one reason: They won’t hand over their rolls to the government. They don’t believe the enemy should know how many of them there are. To this day, they prefer to be a non-federally recognized tribe of Indians, though they still make and hand out tribal identification cards to its members, something all tribes do. Which brings us to this recent hot-button topic: What’s wrong with Johnny Depp playing an Indian? Nothing now, because he is an American Indian. If the Comanche say it, then it is so. He has received some expert advice on Indians from none other than the political and cultural genius of LaDonna Harris. No one can argue with the fact a tribe has the right to determine who is an Indian. If the Comanche Nation wishes to adopt a space alien, it would not be in any tribe’s interest to criticize. Another tribe would only be limiting their own authority to do the same. From some of his statements, I don’t think Depp really knows enough about us to have come up with this brilliant way of eliminating all the questions about his being Indian. Again I take my hat off to Harris and the Comanche Nation for walking into the middle of what could have been a nasty long-term debate and putting an end to it. Johnny Depp is an Indian. I really do hope that Depp has a good experience out of all this Lone Ranger business. He can do a lot to help us by shining a light on all kinds of issues in Indian country, and now that he is one of us, he carries the spirit and the responsibility. I think he might have been blown away by all the criticism, but he did ask for it. I was reading some of his interviews and the problem became very apparent—he doesn’t know much about Indians. Not that he has to, he just has to be able to act like an Indian, but check out what he said. Speaking about the painting he took his inspiration from for Tonto said this, “It just so happens, Sattler had painted a bird flying directly behind the warrior’s head. It looked to me like it was sitting on top,” Depp revealed. “I thought: Tonto’s got a bird on his head. It’s his spirit guide in a way. It’s dead to others, but it’s not dead to him. It’s very much alive.” It sounds like Depp didn’t know Indians wore birds on their head. In most tribes, the medicine men who wear bird headdresses. Now that he’s one of us, he’ll need to learn more to help us. When you get down to it, the original Tonto and the Long Ranger were developed in a very racist time in America by a non-Indian. There were lots of stupid folks with stupid ideas (kind of like today), with black face and racist comics everywhere. A sit-around-the-fort Indian runs with a masked man and they fight for justice. It was a figment of someone’s imagination for the period it was set in. Nothing profound or deep about it. You can put a medicine man in it and the result will still be a shallow, unrealistic plot. Many Indian actors have not worked in a while and likely won’t until Hollywood starts buying screenplays written by Indians. Mr. Depp can be a real help in this area. I think he should have played The Lone Ranger and Gary Farmer should have been Tonto—that would have gone a long way to dispel stereotypes. Depp himself suggested that he had intentionally attempted to address the stereotype of Native Americans in society with his role. “The whole reason I wanted to play Tonto is to try to [mess] around with the stereotype of the American Indian that has been laid out through history, or the history of cinema at the very least—especially Tonto as the sidekick, The Lone Ranger’s assistant,” Depp told Entertainment Weekly. “As you’ll see, it’s most definitely not that.” So what is an Indian stereotype? One of the most common is that we are all some kind of mystic or medicine man/woman. We have seen that play out very recently when James Arthur Ray, a man playing a medicine man, killed some people in a sweat lodge. So, inadvertent as it may be, Johnny Depp is playing into the stereotypes of American Indians by playing one as medicine man, Tonto. All this because he really doesn’t know what he is doing, so I suspect it will end up a dark comedy. So now, with advisors like Mrs. Harris and the Comanche Nation, I think Johnny Depp is well on his way to mainge some positive, needed contributions to our world. I hope it is not all make-believe, and that the spirit finds him worthy. Dan (SaSuWeh) Jones is the former chairman of the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma. He is a filmmaker and Vice Chairman of the Oklahoma Indian Affairs Commission, appointed by former Oklahoma Governor, Brad Henry.

Pasted from <http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/opinion/whos-an-indian-johnny-depp-114756>

Oklahoma Skins: ‘Red People’

DAN JONES

JUNE 12, 2012

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The history of Oklahoma—a Choctaw word meaning “Red People”—has done everything it could to finish the job the U.S. started in destroying American Indian government, politics, jurisdictions and economics, while at the same time exploiting our culture.

What is now Oklahoma was originally divided into two parts: Indian and Oklahoma Territories. In the early 1900s there were two movements to create two new states, both Indian. Indian Territory was to become the State of Sequoyah; Oklahoma Territory, while less developed, was to be the state of Quanah. The Sequoyah Constitutional Convention of 1905 was led by the Five Civilized Tribes, whose efforts were blocked by Theodore Roosevelt for political reasons. He believed it would create another two Democratic states and tip the balance of power in Congress. On June 16, 1906, Roosevelt signed the Oklahoma Enabling Act, which ruled that the Indian and Oklahoma territories would be granted statehood only as a combined state. The following year the Five Tribes joined the Constitutional Convention and brought with them not only the experience, but the Sequoyah Constitution that is the basis for the constitution of the state of Oklahoma today. The tribes had already designed and constructed a great seal that became the seal of Oklahoma in its entirety.

You would think Oklahoma would be rich in American Indian politicians and cultural knowledge—but you would be wrong. Shortly after the establishment of Oklahoma the leadership went about a task of systematically removing American Indians in state government. Oklahoma strongly supported separation of the races with 18 Jim Crow laws passed from statehood until 1957. Oklahomans didn’t want to only suppress Indian politics, they were out to oppress Indians. Two laws were passed that restricted voting rights for people of other races. In 1908 the Education Statute passed, whereby public schools within Oklahoma were to be operated under a plan of separation between the white and colored races. There were $10 and $50 fines for teachers for violating the law, and their certificate canceled for one year. Corporations that operated schools that did not comply with the law were guilty of a misdemeanor and could be fined between $100 and $500. White students who attended a colored school could be fined between $5 and $20 daily. And the state legislature didn’t just stop at politics and education; in 1921 Oklahoma passed the Miscegenation Statute, which prohibited marriage between Indians and Negroes.

The attacks on American Indians continued. Thousands of acres of tribal lands were lost when the state transferred titles of from United States trust status to simple-fee state status. The state of Oklahoma had declared all-out war on American Indians, in what appeared to be an attempt to finish the job the U.S. government had left undone. Oklahoma never embraced any of the 35 beautiful cultures here. Oklahoma had gone out of its way to diminish any form of American Indian culture and history. So, the following news was a surprise:

In 1986 Oklahoma declared it will now enter the pow-wow business, starting with the Red Earth American Indian Festival. Needless to say we were all dumbstruck! We knew that American Indian culture was becoming of interest to people around America and the world. Oklahoma was going to exploit that fact regardless of their history of trying to destroy us. We saw it as a shameless act of exploitation. After 26 years, it is one of the more successful events in Oklahoma. It spawned the Red Earth Museum and the art show that draws major national talent and art buyers worldwide. One might that this success would cause the powers that be in Oklahoma to attempt to get along with Indians and build something special here. Well, they don’t think that way.

Red Earth gave Oklahoma its decision to expand its Indian show business by building an American Indian Cultural Center like no state has ever seen. Again most American Indians didn’t support it and I was against it, knowing how Oklahoma had exploited our culture. But the designers invited me to visit it while it was being built, and I have to say I was blown away! I was impressed with the planned exhibits; they were beautiful and respectful. I walked away jealous, but this was something the tribes of Oklahoma deserve: A place where future generations could learn the truth about us and see and experience our beautiful cultures collectively. Hopefully, those old perceptions and lies will die forever. I knew it in spite of the powers that be, this is a beautiful spirit building this thing, and Oklahoma finally had it right!

Last week the Republican senate killed the Cultural Center—it’s now a white elephant. After the measure failed, the senators—no more than spoiled children—celebrated. The bond issue failed by only one vote—it seems even the wiser and more knowledgeable Republicans knew this was something Oklahoma was dying for. Oklahoma has shot itself in the foot without a gun, and maybe that’s a good thin. Hey, this is Oklahoma what should we expect?” Check it out here.

Dan (SaSuWeh) Jones is the former chairman of the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma. He is a filmmaker and Vice Chairman of the Oklahoma Indian Affairs Commission, appointed by former Oklahoma Governor, Brad Henry.

Pasted from <http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/opinion/oklahoma-skins-red-people-117659>

“An Open Letter to Kimberly Craven, Esq., on the Appeal of the Cobell Settlement.”

DAN JONES

AUGUST 13, 2012

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To attempt to appeal the Cobellsettlement decision as unfair was an honorable and brave thing for you to do as far as I am concerned. Not a very popular position in the face of the government announcing they intend to blast money across Indian country with cannons. That’s the government’s strategy for hiding accountability.

After reading your appeal and the press around it, let’s start with the attorneys who were representing us in Cobell. They sent your address and phone number to as many of the 500,000 class members as they could, saying they should ask you what your motives were in appealing. Was that a new low, as reported? Your appeal would limit the attorney fees to $50 million instead of the $235 million they will receive. That seems fair to me for people who basically lost the case. Was there a conflict of interest in this case as the attorneys had full control of the settlement? As you ask, “Why was the case settled for $3.4 billion when there was an offer by the government for a 7 billion dollar settlement four years ago?” Was it that the attorney fees were limited in the larger settlement? Your appeal speaks of the fairness of the attorneys taking so much of the pie: “This is especially true here, where class counsel brought litigation they claimed was worth tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars, but settled for pennies on the dollar: that is a loss, not a win, and class counsel is not entitled to a windfall for their lack of success.”

Your appeal also says this case is unfair because the U.S. hid the fact that people had the right to opt out. You stated, “The notice did not give class members a fair opportunity to opt out. The notice failed to provide a meaningful opportunity to the sprawling trust administration class to knowingly exercise an opt out right because that notice did not disclose the additional rights granted to opt outs.”

You made it clear the reason the government didn’t want people to know they can opt out was because if enough people did, the whole settlement would be voided. The government has to do individual accounting for each person who opts out and sues the government on their own. That’s how this whole thing came about in the first place: The government not being accountable for individual Indians.

The historic accounting of the opting-out factor would have been a very important option to my tribe and us as individual IIM account holders. The Ponca have been submerged in the oil business starting in 1918. The oil barons tied up contracts approved by the Bureau of Indian Affairs that were called “perpetual leases” with most of our grandparents. Many who spoke little or no English and signed agreements that froze the amount of our own oil at a single price forever, at 1/8 of 25 cents per barrel. At that time a barrel of oil was going for 0.66 cents. So about 3 cents per barrel is what my Grandmother, Mother and Father received until about the 1970’s when those contracts were deemed unethical. We watched our white neighbor’s progress and becoming very well off from their oil royalties as their payments grew with the price of oil but not ours. Just think the government used tax payer money to give us hand outs while they gave our oil profits to the oil companies. We could have used our own resources to improve our lot in life but instead we stayed in poverty. Unfair hell, that’s immoral.

Another point you make is how unfair it is that the class action treats everyone the same, using the example used of “Allottee 1997.” Because of a mistake, his oil revenues went somewhere else from the high production wells on his land back in the 1930s. Unaware of this, his son received nothing his whole life. The son should have been worth millions from his percentage but now will only receive the same as someone who only owns a fraction of a percent of unproductive lands. A historical accounting would have corrected that.

But this gets to the point. As one who lives at home in Oklahoma I can tell you people are hurting for money now. There has not been a time when we weren’t, but today with the economy things couldn’t be worse. My people are counting on that money and counting the days. Their general feeling is they know they are getting screwed. I would say now another appeal would create a fire storm across my reservation as it is a tender box of depression now.

This is not just about being cheated out of our resources for many of us. It’s about the horrible side effects that oil production has brought to our lands. The environmental consequences and the health issues we face today because of it. Nowhere did this suit even address those issues. We have paid a dear price for the theft of oil from our lands and none of it has been fair or has in anyway been addressed by this case. At best I would suggest to you “For the sake of our history if nothing else…. don’t let it be HIS story” I truly believe from what you know about this case the only way you will find any justice for us is to write a book about it, for the real record and for the world to see what the United States has done to us once again.

These are my words of encouragement.

Dan (SaSuWeh) Jones is the former chairman of the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma. He is a filmmaker and former vice chairman of the Oklahoma Indian Affairs Commission, appointed by former Oklahoma Governor, Brad Henry.

Pasted from <http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/opinion/an-open-letter-to-kimberly-craven%2C-esq.%2C-on-the-appeal-of-the-%3Cem%3Ecobell%3C/em%3E-settlement-128564>

“Poarch Creeks Should Reconsider Digging Up Graves to Build a Casino.”

DAN JONES

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“YOU’LL MOCK DEATH BUT ONCE!”

I ask the Muscogee Creek Nation of Oklahoma to excuse me for speaking about your relatives. I was asked by Indian Country Today Media Network, and I am moved to do so prayerfully. The act of tampering with the graves of your ancestors affects us as well, and we support you. I am deeply bothered by it, I want to know things and I want to say some things from what I heard and read.

Why are the Poarch Creek Indians of Alabama digging up Creek graves at Hickory Ground so they can build a casino? This is an insult to everything we stand for as American Indians, and it affects my people in in its insensitivity and ignorance. It gives our enemies the ammunition they need to discredit all of us and our attempts to preserve and protect our sacred graves. When the Creek Nation were forced out of Alabama onto their Trail Of Tears, like many tribes, groups of them scattered and were not removed, but had to fend for themselves and hide from the government. To their credit, after many years they held together and fought the government in court and reclaimed federal recognition against all odds in 1982. The toll this takes on a tribe cannot be fully understood by most of us until something like this happens.

When is an Indian no longer an Indian? When he no longer hears his past relatives speaking in his own language, when the music of his people past has been replaced with the noise of another culture, when he has replaced the bones of his own people with a casino! Where are your voices of reason? Have you not noticed there is a huge movement in Indian country now to save sacred sites? How could you not know that the graves of your ancestor go to the heart of your culture? They tell you who you are, they tell your children who they are, and they are the key to your ties to this earth, to the past and the future. They are literally the identity of your nation, those who fought to keep their way of life together and sacred for you. These are not hollow words—these are the very beliefs that make us unique people.

How does your action affect my tribe and culture? Our enemies will only credit one tribe for anything they consider a good deed, mainly if it affects them in a positive light. On the other hand they will condemn all tribes when one tribe does something they consider respectable or normal to them. When one tribe blows it, they blow it for all of us. That’s how it works. Now they will use you as the example of what all tribes do. When we tell them our graves are sacred they will turn to us and say, Well why did the Poarch Creek tribe dig up their ancestors and move them to build a casino? Yes, you become the standard they will judge us by. If you have lost the voices of reason in your own tribe to do what is best for your own culture, then it becomes our responsibility to inform you that what you are doing is wrong and unacceptable for the best interest of all of us.

The Muscogee Creek Nation of Oklahoma are telling you to stop moving their relations from their resting grounds. You are making old wounds new again. But now I am here to tell you stop it on behalf of my loved ones as it is also insulting to our culture and counter to the struggles we are now having to preserve the dignity of our loved ones and their graves. You don’t live in a vacuum and your actions hurt all of us.

I see a greater problem related to these casinos when it come to preserving our culture and making the all-mighty dollar. Too many are being operated by non-Indians who have no understanding of our cultures. Too many times decisions are being made that should impact Indians but don’t because the decisions are being made by non-Indians. But the worst case scenario would be if non-Indians are making decisions that could negatively impact a tribe to other governments. Even to degrade their culture because these decisions were made by non-Indians under the nose of who are supposed to be Indian and the watchdogs of a culture. Where is your cultural conscience and cultural integrity? I believe the Muskogee Creek of Oklahoma have full right, a moral authority and a responsibility to stop you from yourself. Don’t you know that even the trees and the grass that grow where we bury the dead are full of the life force of the forefathers? We believe and know that when you walk on ground you carry the ghosts of your past into your homes on the soles of your shoes. Be responsible to them for us and mainly for yourselves for your future lies in the graves you disrespect.

Dan (SaSuWeh) Jones is the former chairman of the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma. He is a filmmaker and former vice chairman of the Oklahoma Indian Affairs Commission, appointed by former Oklahoma Governor, Brad Henry.

Pasted from <http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/opinion/poarch-creeks-should-reconsider-digging-up-graves-to-build-a-casino-130073>

“Disney: Fantasy American History.”

DAN JONES

NOVEMBER 26, 2012

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At Walt Disney World you can have the world at your convenience, cultures of the world with many native cultures from abroad. At Epcot Center you can have the American experience of history with one exception: contemporary American Indians. The view they present of American Indians shows the lack of understanding prevalent in mainstream American society.

I first went to work at Disney in Imagineering. The Disney America project was to be a giant theme park in Virginia located near the old Manassas battlefield. The new theme park was to tell American History as only Disney could. We hardly got started before an outcry began from scholars, historians and academics. They argued that Disney, given its history with American and world history, had no damn business in the American history business!

This project started in the early 1990s and was canceled in 1994. At first, we were free to use any research or source and as many books by as many authors on American Indian history as we wanted. We could bring in consultants, so we started with Indians like Scott Momaday (Kiowa); Joy Harjo (Muscogee Creek); and many others. Michael Cywink (Anishinabe) and Dr. John Pohl, were on staff. Dr Pohl is one of the leading authorities on Mesoamerican culture. When we had finished the storyboards to show the concepts we were working on, we brought in Michael Haney (Muscogee Creek) of the American Indian Movement for his opinion. We wanted this to be something special, something all American Indians would be proud of.

Even though the critics had never seen our designs, our historically correct works were cast into the lot with the rest and shut down. Our project was caught in Disney’s well deserved reputation as a purveyor of culturally inadequate and historically misaligned interpretations. Disney is not what you think it is. It’s not about building something to educate your children; it preys on your children to get into your pockets, which is a great American shame. We scream about American Indian studies or history being a part of the American school system, but it’s not even in the mainstream. They say history belongs to the victor but that’s just not true—history belongs to the future so we collectively can build a greater union, to learn from the mistakes of the past. It’s a deliberate and shameful thing Disney has done to history and more pointedly to a whole people, namely American Indians. Without our participation, Disney will always be a hollow experience.

One day we were notified that a Japanese team from Tokyo Disney was in our shop; they had heard what we were doing and wanted to talk with us. We met with them through an interrupter. They explained to us that recent visitors from America had complained that the Indian portion of their river ride was offensive. They had 8×10 photos of the Indian automatons and the exhibits they were in. Michael Cywink (Anishinabe) and I poured over the photos. We noticed the regalia was sloppy. We tried to identify the tribe, but it was a hodgepodge. What was most offensive was what the Indians were doing: dragging a white woman off into the woods, while another group burned the house with occupants still inside. So we told the Japanese team that yes, some Indians may be offended by these things. The regalia was one point, but mainly this is only one side of a story. Indians were not the antagonists in every situation; there were atrocities carried out by both sides in war. We suggested some changes and some research they needed to make it fair and more historically correct so it would be educational as well. We didn’t think much more about it after they left. Until another Imagineer who had been listening made the comment, “That’s the same ride we have at Anaheim.”  Cywink and I had the same expression, that blank look. “Yeah, same thing!” he echoed.

Cywink and I got on the phone and made arrangements with security at Disneyland in Anaheim to visit the exhibit. So we cleared the visit with Imagineering. When we arrive at Disneyland, security escorted us through the back lot to the river ride. The first person we met outside the ride was a man in suit, who immediately informed us that the ride had been closed down. We told him all we wanted to do is see the Indian exhibit and that the ride didn’t need to be operating. Nope, no way—the ride was shut down! Cy told the guy it was working an hour ago when we called. His only response was, “It happens.” That was a major disappointment, when reality hits you in the head like a sack of bricks. So what the hell was this all about?  To this day I have no clue. Disney America was shut down in 1994 and all our work was packed away to Disney archives.

In 1997, Disney, after the fray had settled down, restarted the Disney America Project. We didn’t get a call back. No Indians did. Disney had decided to use their non-Indian Imagineers to develop the new Indian section. They beefed up the river ride with one side of the story and with the shabbily dressed Indians attacking the white women. Disney failed again and their 1997 Disney America was shut down again, which was just as well for American Indians. Disney learned nothing about us from our efforts.

At best all I can say is, boycott Disney, all of it. Not just American Indians, but the millions of our allies as well. With so little on American Indians at Disney, it would be a disappointing trip for the young America Indian family that wakes up one morning, looks at one another and says, “Honey grab the kids, we’re going to Disney World!”

Dan (SaSuWeh) Jones is the former chairman of the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma. He is a filmmaker and former vice chairman of the Oklahoma Indian Affairs Commission, appointed by former Oklahoma Governor, Brad Henry.

Pasted from <http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/opinion/disney-fantasy-american-history-145879>

“Red Man Films Goes Continental”

LORRAINE JESSEPE

MARCH 08, 2011

Filmmaker Dan Jones vividly remembers his first movie experience. He was only four or five years old at the time. “My older brothers and sisters dragged me to see Frankenstein when I was a child,” he says. The classic horror film left an indelible imprint on him. “It scared the bejesus out of me,” recalls Jones, a former tribal chairman of the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma. “I was made quite aware of how powerful the film medium can be.”

Today, Jones is an accomplished artist, poet, producer and director with 30 years of filmmaking experience. A member of the Producers Guild of America, he received the Muse Award for filmmaking from the American Association of Museums in 1993. Over the years, the power of Indian images on film also made their mark on him—from savage to noble warrior, to the clichéd themes of the Western narrative in films like Dances With Wolves, to what Jones sees as the current trend of less flattering topics. “We’re seeing a lot of that negativity coming from our own filmmakers,” Jones says. “It’s not something I care to do.”

Now he is teaming up with actor, producer and director Carlisle Antonio, Northern Cheyenne/Lakota, founder of Red Man Films, a production company he founded in 2010 that specializes in making films that cross international borders. Antonio, who was raised in Great Britain and trained at the BBC, has worked with Disney Television, Miramax Films, Turner Network Television and the American Indian Film Institute. His award-winning 2008 documentary, Coloring the Media, is now being shown across the world.

Jones says the goal of Red Man Films is to make story-driven, commercially viable films with high production values written, directed and starring American Indians. “Hollywood is a tough business,” he says. “Very few people make it, not just American Indians. They have no open doors for anyone.”

Frustrated with the limitations of Hollywood and seeking a new avenue for Native Americans to take control of their own stories, Red Man Films has signed a multimillion-dollar deal with the Latina Film Commission to make three feature films shot primarily in Latina, a provincial capital in central Italy. Ultimately the filmmakers want to open the doors to establishing trade and commerce between Italy and the American Indian nations. The filmmakers are also seeking investment and support from the Indian nations who have the means to do so. “The number one obstacle is money,” says Jones. “It’s really important that our own people support this.”

Red Man Films Carlisle Antonio

Their first feature in Italy will be a comedy, The Indians Are Coming, written by Jones. It will be the first major film feature by an American Indian writer-director to be filmed in Europe. The film’s plot revolves around Indian filmmakers making a movie about Hollywood making a movie about Indians. “Humor is just so important to our culture,” Jones says. “I’m getting to say what I want to say, and I’m saying it with satire and humor.”

Jones and Antonio say that with just a few million Indians in America, Hollywood doesn’t see big dollar signs when it looks at American Indian films. “That’s always the argument,” says Antonio. “Who are you going to sell it to?” Jones has a rebuttal to that argument, pointing out that there are some 30 million to 40 million people who claim some Indian ancestry.

Despite a precarious U.S. economy, Antonio noted that the entertainment industry consistently performs well during economic downturns, and Hollywood had some of its best years during the Great Depression of the 1930s, as people sought a respite from their troubles in movie theaters across the country.

As the United States (and the rest of the world) struggles with yet another not-so-great Depression, the filmmakers sat down to talk about what Europe has to offer American Indian films, and how they want to change not only what stories are being told in films, but how the stories are told.

Indian Country Today Media Network: Was the move to Europe made out of frustration with Hollywood or was it simply grabbing an opportunity?

Antonio: For me, it was a bit of both. America has never realized the significance of its true history. I mean mainstream America. Europe opens the door to an exciting future and a world audience that can be the celluloid bridge that connects people from all four directions and in so doing, enables the telling of stories from a Native perspective. What could be better?

Jones: It was both for me as well. I have long realized there was more interest in Europe for American Indian content than there was in America. I just didn’t have the means to do something about it. Working with the Latina Film Commission has opened those doors. There has always been a frustration in America when it comes to making and distributing of films made by Indians. The movie people in America assume the films are made just for Indians and that is such a small market for them that we don’t even count. That’s what they think, even though history has proven them wrong many times.

For every American Indian, there are one hundred people who have some sort of connection to American Indians—I’m part Indian, my great grandmother was Indian, my father fought in the war with an Indian, my sister ran off with an Indian—just joking. That is a huge potential audience worldwide. It is ironic that the first images recorded on Edison’s new invention—the camera—were of six American Indians dancing. You would think we would be a part of this industry by now!

But I think it has worked out for the best because Hollywood does not control our image. They tried and failed, so now they

Red Man Films Dan Jones

don’t control the potential revenues either. So it is up to American Indians to tell their own stories and there is a whole world waiting to see them.

How did the deal with the Italian Film Commission come about?

Antonio: I received an invitation to attend a conference in London by the Latina Film Commission. I contacted them and really connected with their head, Rino Piccolo, who had worked on some big films such as Star Wars, Mission Impossible and others. Both Dan and I were keen to impress upon him that we have the opportunity to rewrite history by forging a relationship that would be of tremendous value to all of us, especially in dealing with sovereign Indian nations.

Dan, you’ve talked about studying the Western narrative as a screenwriter and how it has affected you as a filmmaker. Can you elaborate on this?

Jones: I am really talking about two separate things here, narrative structure and theme. The Western narrative simply refers to how people of Western Europe and the peoples they have influenced learned to tell a story and more important, how people are trained to hear a story. It typically goes like this: You have a protagonist that an antagonist pushes into a dilemma. You have character development based on some kind of conflict, and in the end, there is a resolution. Generally all of this falls into three acts and that is how the Western mind has learned to not only tell stories, but how they listen and recognize a story as well. But not all cultures use this structure. We want to be able to tell our stories that come from a different structure with the tools that the audience we want to reach understands.

In Westerns the theme has always been civilization versus nature. In most of those Westerns, we [American Indians] have been considered the nature part of that theme, the antagonist or the unfortunates—or even worse, being relegated to irrelevancy, so inept at leading ourselves that we need the white man to step in and do it for us. The recurring theme in a great number of films based on Indians is exactly that: The white man becomes disconnected from his people, moves in with Indians, and the next thing we know he’s the chief. There are several coming to mind now, including A Man Called Horse and Dances With Wolves.

Antonio: We have to move forward. We’re in a new place now. I think we’ll get there eventually. The talent is there.

Filmmaker Chris Eyre was recently quoted as saying, “We have yet to realize what Native American cinema is.” Can you share your thoughts on Native American film as a genre?

Antonio: I think that we have been forced to define our own genre, but we still have to realize our potential by making stories that have entertainment value, free of geographical and creative limitations that people the world over can relate to, regardless of ethnic makeup. Whether this becomes a “Native” genre is yet to be determined. As far as I’m concerned, I am going to make movies that have Native leads, played by Native people that are entertaining and free of race and gender issues.

Jones: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is an Indian film for me simply because of that memorable role, Chief Bromden, by Will Sampson that forever made that film one of ours. Cinema is a powerful tool. Unfortunately Native American cinema has only been made by a few Indians. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a body of work out there. It just needs to grow. Eventually it will take over the placeholder we now have for so-called Indian film, meaning more work, more experience, more Indian people involved and broader markets. Now is the time for tribes with the means to support this natural progression. As ready as the world is to experience the work of American Indian filmmakers telling our own stories, it is as important to our tribes’ sovereign authority to control their own history as it is to control one’s membership or land base and therefore secure their peoples’ future through these tools.

Authenticity is a big issue among Indians. Now we have Johnny Depp claiming to be part Cherokee and set to play Tonto. How do you think this is going over in Indian country?

Antonio: I read that the director of The Lone Ranger, Gore Verbinski, wanted to make the Tonto character more like Sancho Panza from Don Quixote, a quirky character acting as the Lone Ranger’s voice of sanity. From that point of view I can see why he would cast Johnny Depp. This may mean that the Tonto stereotype may be coming of age. I guess we will just have to wait and see.

Hollywood is not a moral bank. Hollywood is an industry, a film-marketing industry, not a filmmaking industry. Their bank is a financial one, so all they care about is making money, and Johnny Depp happens to be their cash cow of the moment. I think the real issue here is not Johnny Depp. The real question here is, How do we take control of our own media?

Isn’t the whole idea of Tonto a negative stereotype, the subservient Indian as the white man’s flunky?

Antonio: Absolutely. I think that the legacy of Tonto is more far-reaching and is probably the Indian image that most people around the world associate with. I cannot even imagine what Jay Silverheels must have gone through playing that role way back then. The name Tonto is almost a verb in the English language now. But with The Indians Are Coming we are not that far from when we can take control of our own media.