By Arturo R. García
In the midst of not only the fight to change the Washington D.C. pro football team’s name but the San Francisco Giants’ embarrassing display during “Native American Heritage Night,” This is a Stereotype couldn’t come along at a better time.
Billing itself as “a free and alternative narrative to addressing possible causes and effects of Native American stereotypes,” the project was inspired by Stereotype: Misconceptions of the Native American, an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA) in New Mexico last year by artist Cannupa Hanska Luger and furthered through the work of filmmakers Dylan McLaughlin and Ginger Dunnill. The film successfully raised just over $10,000 on Kickstarter this past August.
“It’s all about getting our voices and getting our faces and our images and our designs out there to challenge those stereotypes,” Native Appropriations’ Adrienne Keene says in the teaser above. “We’ve been so invisible for so long, and now we have a new opportunity through social media.”
Last month, the creative team posted that, in addition to conducting interviews for the feature, it had reviewed footage from communities including the “Nambé, White Mountain Apache, Ojibwa, Inupiaq, Shoalwater Bay, Yakima, Kiowa, Ohkay Owingeh, Coeur D’Alene, Lower Sioux,” among many others.
MoCNA is scheduled to host the film’s first screenings on Aug. 23 and 24. Two more teasers can be seen below.
[Top image via “This is a Stereotype” Facebook page]
[h/t Native Appropriations]
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