Native people aren't a monolith.

Representation is all about humanity and is all about showcasing human beings as they are.

Is it just me, or has the representation of Native women in media made a ton of strides over the past few years?

I mean, you have films and shows like Prey, Reservation Dogs, Spirit Rangers, Rutherford Falls, Dark Winds and Echo.

Yup, I think we're finally starting to see the film and entertainment industry veer away from those stereotypical Western representations we've usually been saddled with.

No pun intended.

And what's even more exciting is the representation behind the camera by Native women writing, directing and producing.

Hi, I’m Cheyenne Bearfoot, a Native Woman in Media and your host of Sovereign Innovations.

And in this episode, we're celebrating the power, the stories, and the brilliance of Native women in film.

If you didn't know many Indigenous societies are considered Matriarchies because, of course, women were calling the shots.

For example, in Lakota culture, the ancestry is traced through the mother's lineage.

In the story of the White Buffalo Calf Woman, she was the one who brought Lakota spirituality and the spiritual pipe.

Today, Indigenous women are using these traditions and knowledge systems to create art that pushes boundaries and rewrites the dominant narratives.

I spoke with the writers of the film Fancy Dance to break down the complexity of Indigenous women on the screen.

Fancy Dance tells the story of a Seneca-Cayuga woman named Jax, whose sister has been missing for two weeks and she's left as the unlikely caretaker to her 13 year old niece, Roki.

The two of them set out on a road trip to try and solve the woman's disappearance.

This is really a story about love and community and relationships and, you know, how we as Indigenous folks lean on each other and our relationships with each other to kind of withstand oppressive systems pushing down upon us.

This film explores Indigenous forms of motherhood and responsibility that comes from the value systems in Indigenous communities to care for our relatives.

Indigenous representation in films wasn't always this thoughtful and complex, though.

One of the earliest depictions was a short by the Edison Company showing Native children walking in and out of the school.

As the years go by, You get fabricated representations like Nanook of the North and Natives, wreaking havoc on the lives of settlers in the many Wild West films and TV shows.

Now, mind you, a lot of the actors portraying Natives in those particular genres weren't Native.

100 years after our first film with the Edison Company, Indigenous creatives were finally going to take back the narrative.

They were going to create stories about their upbringing on reservations or their experiences living in the city, and more recently, Native women behind the scenes have been adamantly kicking butt to change the narrative with the likes of showrunner of Rutherford Falls, Sierra Teller Ornelas, and the creative producer of Molly of Denali, Princess Daazhraii Johnson.

Of course, part of that work for Native women involves bearing the burden of constantly educating and correcting ignorance.

You have to almost have, like a Ph.D. in Indigenous studies, any time you make an Indigenous film, not because it's required to make the film, but because the questions that come after you've made the film.

What kind of research did you do for this?

How long did it take you to research?

And we were like, we just kind of sat there because we were like, this is our lives, there was almost zero research to do.

This is why the example set by films like Fancy Dance is so important.

It gives Native women sovereignty over their stories that they already know.

It challenges the lack of representations of Native women onscreen and behind the screen.

The film doesn't create a narrative that is meant to be educational of what it means to be native.

It operates on a basic knowledge of the native audience already knowing.

This film focuses on how interconnected Indigenous women kinship is to the community and on the relationality of humanity.

It was made by and for Indigenous communities.

The very first kernel of the story came to be when I was doing a three year long language immersion program up in Six Nations.

I was studying Cayuga and we were learning familial words and we learned that the word for mother is Knó:ha, and the word for your mother's sister is Knohá:ah and the “ah” is diminutive, so it means small mother or your other mother.

And it just broke open this very beautiful construct of matrilineal connections and how our communities raised our kids and how your aunt was your other mother.

And that was such a beautiful idea to me.

And I don't have my own children, but you know, my sister has three kids that I have very close relationships with.

And I was really interested in exploring that kind of a relationship.

And an Indigenous mother daughter story can be an aunt and niece story and how unique and beautiful and wonderful that is.

Language, kinship and culture fundamentally shape Indigenous identities.

But with previous representations in storytelling, this has rarely been explored.

Isn't film about exploring all narratives?

Not just narratives that portray Native peoples in one particular way?

Cinema would be so much richer and more nuanced with narratives that explore that true humanity of people and all of their colors.

Not placing an entire community in a limited box of who they can be and what they can explore.

Fancy Dance showcases the true nuance of what it means to be a good relative to your community, and most importantly, your family.

But it doesn't shy away from having the main character, doing bad things.

She steals, but that doesn't take away her humanity.

She's still worthy of being a part of the community and worthy of being loved, just similar to any person that makes mistakes or does something bad.

The best work comes forward.

And I'm interested in finding that truth and humanity in complicated Native women.

And for me, that's exciting.

And for me, that pushes against the tropes of not only the women that are being represented on screen, but myself as an active Native woman working in filmmaking and what my process and what my craft says to the world, I think is you know, you want to get that right and you want to be that representation that's multifaceted and that moves through the world with grace and is also owed a little latitude, you know.

When I was a little girl, I watched a lot of Westerns because my dad liked them, Funny enough.

Native people were always the savages.

As a Native girl, I felt insecure.

But at ten, I wish I'd known the beauty of Irene Bedard.

The humor of Jana Schmieding.

The wit of Paulina Alexis and Devery Jacobs.

Or the bravery of Lily Gladstone.

And this is for every little rez kid Every little urban kid, every little native kid out there who has a dream.

The media that's come out over the past decade, but especially the past four years, has given me so much joy.

And I know this isn't the end.

I know we're going to continue to get more complex and nuanced films about Indigenous people in theaters.

And while Lily Gladstone may have lost, there have been some incredible strides in this campaign and besides it's going to take a lot more than that to discourage Native women.

And as always, thanks so much for learning with me.

Until next time.