A Critical Analysis of the Film “Fire Song and Songs My Brother Taught Me”

GNDS 125

Gender, Race and Popular Culture

Blogpost II

Written by: Kinzy Omar

A Critical Analysis of the Film “Fire Song and Songs My Brother Taught Me”

 

With the weight of his home problems shifted onto his own shoulders viewers pry into the life of an Anishinaabe man and how he fails, succeeds, and grows in the film Fire Song and Songs My Brother Taught Me. Our protagonist Shane is two-spirited and has grown up in the reserve which serves as the setting of the film. Shane is in a relationship with another man who is the reserves medicine man, someone who carries traditions in the reserve throughout their life. In order to hide his sexuality Shane is publicly in a relationship with a woman who he cares about dearly. The remaining two people in his friend group are composed of another couple who they are shown in the film casually drinking with late into the night however tend to remain having surface level conversations. The film begins with a tragedy within Shane’s family leading his mother into depression. As the film progresses we learn of Shane’s aspiration to attend university in Toronto and bring his boyfriend with him. Fire Song is a one of a kind film in that the cast and crew are composed First Nations people producing an art piece portraying the raw aspects of living on a reserve and what it means to be First Nations in modern time. The drama incorporates issues such as alcoholism, depression, rape, suicide, class, gender identity and what it means to be two-spirited. From a feminist approach the film successfully presents realistic and raw representations of characters who deal with these overlapping issues. The protagonist himself is an ideal representation of the overlapping oppressions of class, race/ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Shane is two-spirited which can be understood as an umbrella term for what popular culture has coined the acronym LGBTQ for. In the film he makes tremendous efforts to hide his orientation which applies stress to him and his relationship with his significant other. It is made apparent in the community of the reserve to be out of the heteronormative ideals is incorrect. There are scenes in which Shane’s boyfriend has garbage thrown at him in accompany with slurs such as “faggot.”  We see essences of essentialism in the film as Shane chooses to have a girlfriend to instill his status of heterosexuality in his community. This highlights the dangers of the ideas of masculinity and femininity as Shane must go to the extent of dating a woman to prove masculinity and with that heterosexuality. Kimberlé Crenshaw poses questions about gender identity in her work Mapping the Margins. “What does it mean to argue that gender identities have been obscured in antiracist discourses, just as race identities have been obscured in feminist discourses? Does that mean we cannot talk about identity? Or instead, that any discourse about identity has to acknowledge how our identities are constructed through the intersection of multiple dimensions?” Though she ties back into her theme of black feminism she introduces the idea of the relationship between gender identities and other dimensions of our character. Queer theory in itself is as fluid as it hopes for society to view gender. Queer theorists are constantly testing the interrelationships of sexual orientation, identity and sex; not only this, they encourage others to critique the binary opposition we have internalized due to years of hegemony. The idea of gender identity having to be “proven” or fit with other characteristics of a person is exactly what queer theorists oppose and what the masses subconsciously do when sizing someone up. Following the tragedy of his sister committing suicide we learn of Shane’s future plans to study in Toronto and the road blocks preventing him, the most prevalent one being financial problems. With the loss of his sister, Shane’s family now composes of him and his mother, Jackie. Jackie falls into a depression and isn’t well enough to go to work leading Shane to look for work in order to pay bills, buy food and raise money for his tuition. The film shows that many people living in reserves are of low income houses. With this pressure of drawing in income fast Shane turns to drug dealing as it is the only option in the situation he is put in. We see the limits and struggles put on Shane as someone from a low income family and how it is an oppression such as him being two-spirited and as an Anishinaabe man. When speaking of intersectionality, the majority will categorize class as well as it’s counterparts’ sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, gender identity and so on. The problem is risen when people speak as though class isn’t an oppression in the same respect as it’s counterparts because it is not an identity nor a socially constructed ideal.  There is an underlying exclusion when speaking about oppressions and privileges that is addressed in the film Fire Song. We see Shane’s struggles as two-spirited and his struggles as someone who is from a lower class family and they are presented as serious oppressions and of equal importance to the film and Shane’s character. Though the film did a seamless job of portraying the reality of Shane being discriminated against due to his orientation and class there was a lack of presenting how these oppressions overlapped. With respect to him being of a lower class family we see the intersection of this oppression with his race/ethnicity which will be further discussed in the proceeding paragraph. As previously mentioned Fire Song was composed of a cast and crew strictly of First Nations descent. This film brings into our stream of media a piece that truly captures what it means to be First Nations. In popular culture mainstream films and as far as music festivals such as Coachella have incorporated the misrepresentation and cultural appropriation of First Nations people. Painted with the torn brush of racism we’ve seen First Nations people as savages, brute, uncivilized and so forth. The cultural appropriation of First Nations is seen in the holiday of Halloween with costumes of “Indian Princess.” This issue of the cultural appropriation of First Nations people was discussed in the assigned reading from the website www.mediaindegina.com. “It is no coincidence that when I go to indie music festivals, I see a whole lot of Cowichan sweaters and not a lot of Cowichan people.” The journalist is keen on stressing that this is not in any way cultural appreciation; the ethnic group who created the culture are not even present at these events. Fire Song gives depth to the characters and shows the struggles First Nations people face and the issues they are challenged with in reserves such as suicide and alcoholism. There are no statistics or numbers, the film shows real people and the reality of what it means to live oppressed specifically as a First Nations person; and in Shane’s case how this clashes with his sexual identity. In the course pack an article entitled Arguing Over Images: Native American Mascots and Race we see how stereotypes of Native Americans have fabricated the masses views on this ethnic group. “In this light, the ongoing controversy over mascots is as much about conflicting interpretations of race as it is a series of arguments over the appropriateness of Native American images in popular culture.” Mascots and tribal headwear are just a couple of the many ways popular culture has stripped the First Nations people of character to simply stereotypes. Overall the film Fire Song breaks several barriers in it’s existence. Fire Song carries with it cultural traditions whilst sharing the stories of aboriginal youth. The film Fire Song has found it’s place in Canadian cinema and is making waves at several film festivals across the country.

Word Count: 1277

Work Cited:

Gercken, Becca. “Marketing Authenticity: “Real Indians” as Coming Attractions in Contemporary Hollywood.” Race/Gender/ Class/ Media 3.0: Considering Diversity across Audiences, Content, and Producers, 3rd ed. Ed. Rebecca Ann Lind. New Jersey: Pearson, 2013. 167-172. Print.

Crenshaw, Kimberle W.  “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color.” Stanford Law Review. Vol 43: 1993. 1241-1299. Web. [Emphasis on 1241-1245]

Hunt, Sarah. 2011. “An Open Letter to My Local Hipsters” Web. http://www.mediaindigena.com/sarah-hunt/issues-and-politics/an-open-letter-to-my-local-hipsters