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NAFPS Reviews of Nuage Related Films

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educatedindian:
I set up an IMDB account and decided to add truthful reviews to any Nuage or Nuage-themed or influenced films. This thread will be a record and reference to those. Anyone wishing to add their own reviews on IMDB, repost them here. Add as much information as you can that will discourage anyone from enriching exploiters. Or at least let them know these films are not accurate.

This thread can also be for reviews of accurate and worthy films. I included Spirits for Sale.

Finally one can add information in Trivia on these films. One can also try to correct the rare fraud who has a bio on the site. Expect them or their PR people to push back. I corrected Kaya Jones's fraud claim of being Native and Black, pointed out her "Native" father was an Italian immigrant, her "Black" mother an English immigrant living in Jamaica. Took only a few weeks for her people to pull that down.

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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1586568/?ref_=ur_urv
Spirits for Sale
American Indian activists and their allies put together a strong award winning documentary on the danger of New Age imposters who pretend to be Native medicine people. The film was made and narrated by Annika Banfeld, who has over two decades of working with American Indian causes. The revered Arvol Looking Horse, the most respected of Lakota holy men, leads the charge against these abusers. How effective this documentary is shown by the vitriol of one reviewer who has never made a review before or since., and includes nothing but falsehood. One might even suspect he's one of the ones critiqued by the film.

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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367508/
The Artist and the Shaman

Sad to see someone so victimized this way. Paul Davids had some success as writer, director, and painter. His father's death left him very vulnerable. In is grief he went to the worst place possible, Sedona, and fell for an obvious con artist.

Enter Rogelio Rodriguez, a Mexican American raised in Iowa, cut off from his own culture who fell for a series of imposters:
Vincent Laduke, a cowboy actor who called himself Sun Bear, denounced by the American Indian Movement no less.
Carlos Castaneda, the original New Age charlatan, cult leader who abused women.
Oklehueva, a drug church made up of whites who pose as a Native American Church.

Rodriguez has become very wealthy selling this mess posing as Native shamanism to gullible whites in Sedona. This includes an obvious Finnish sauna he pretends is a Native sweatlodge. Remember that last Sedona sweat seller who killed people? This is a tragedy waiting to happen again.

Davids is obviously so weakened and distraught. One truly feels for him. One also wishes that Rodriguez were jailed for his con games rather than rewarded with a documentary made by his most famous victim.

educatedindian:
Posted a review of Education of Little Tree.

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ETA: Review is now on the site. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119052/
Anyone looking for a simple thumbs up or thumbs down, look elsewhere. I'm also aware that most of those who love this film will go into denial. They'll likely downvote my review without reading it, as will racists. This review is for the thoughtful and open minded only.

Education of Little Tree was written by Asa Carter AKA Forrest Carter. Carter was NOT, as one review suggested (hopefully with sarcasm) simply "a little prejudiced." And he was not just "alleged" to be a segregationist writer. It's proven beyond all doubt and widely accepted by historians and journalists. Anyone doubting this can read the Salon article "Education of Little Fraud." Or the research by Henry Lewis Gates. Or the NY Times notice of Carter's death.

Carter was not just a KKK member, he was a chapter founder and leader. He was also clearly a violent psychotic. He bombed several Black churches. There's clear evidence he actually beat a civil rights demonstrator to death with a club. Finally, he led an attack on famed singer Nat King Cole when Cole tried to tour the south.

But his greatest fame came from his writing. He wrote George Wallace's notorious "Segregation Now and Forever" speech, given when Wallace tried to block Black students from enrolling in the University of Alabama. Carter broke with Wallace a few years later, feeling that Wallace while still white supremacist was now "too moderate" because he wanted to avoid violence.

Carter invented a new identity. He wrote not only Little Tree, but also The Outlaw Josey Wales. He wore tanning makeup and would go into mock "Indian war chants" in public. None if it worked.

Little Tree was exposed as pure fiction. Natives and academics denounced it and Carter as phony the same year it was published. That didn't matter to Hollywood. Clint Eastwood made Josey Wales into a film. Disney did the same with Little Tree. Both enriched the Klansman and made him into a household name until his death.

The more naive would like to believe that Carter changed his ways or beliefs. No, both books are deeply racist. As Native author Sherman Alexie argued, "Ultimately I think it is the racial hypocrisy of a white supremacist." In part of Josey Wales, the author seriously claims Native women have sex with horses. In Little Tree, Carter claims that making moonshine is part of Cherokee tradition.

What Carter tried to do in both books was make public admiration and sympathy for American Indians serve the white supremacist, and especially the white southerner and KKK causes. Josey Wales is a fantasy of a Confederate guerilla as being just like the best Native warriors. In Little Tree, Carter tries to claim white southerners were heartbroken to see their Cherokee neighbors removed the Trail of Tears.

This is as false as can be. White southerners were the ones pushing for forced removal. They wanted Five Tribes' land. They elected Andrew Jackson to force Natives out of their homelands. Jackson was himself a southerner and supremacist, the most racist president alongside Andrew Johnson and Donald Trump (who admires and paid tribute to Jackson.) White mobs cheered Cherokees being forced out. Racist vigilantes and Georgia state militias took part in rounding up Cherokees being put into concentration camps. White racist southerners looted Cherokee homes, businesses, even graveyards, and murdered Cherokees who tried to resist.

But according to Carter and Little Tree, whites shed tears. No Natives did, because white racists believe Natives to be stoic and show no emotion. This is all pure nonsense. It was Cherokee who named this "The Trail Where We Cried." Anyone Native and anyone whose ever been around or known Natives knows the stoic stereotype is false.

Both Carter books were deeply racist, and openly so. Were the films? Josey Wales the film kept the "Indian women sex with horses" smear. The film is derogatory in spite of Native actor Dan George's efforts to make the film less insulting.

Little Tree is still offensive in parts, but less so than the book. One can compare the book and film to the changes Gone With the Wind went thru. The book GWTW is nakedly proudly racist. It glorifies the KKK, showing Scarlet's first husband as a member. It has extended passages defending slavery and denigrating Blacks. The film GWTW leaves out the worser more blatant racism. But the film GWTW still is racist. Butterfly McQueen's character is still a stereotype, and it shows all slaves as happy being slaves.

The same is true of Little Tree, less racist than the book but still racist. It softens the tragedy of the Trail of Tears. It tries to shift the blame from racist white southerners' greed for land and blame only the federal gov't. Of course most southern racists today are strongly anti gov't, as was Carter.

The film also, for supposedly being about Natives, has almost no Natives. Just two tokens, Greene and Cardinal, who are given almost no lines and no scenes. The film obscenely insists on having a white man tell about the Trail of Tears. It also features an "Indian boarding school" with no Indian students. All of them are played by white children.

The film also invents a fictional Indian boarding school and makes it far softer than the real experience. There were no such schools near Cherokee lands in GA or NC. Students were routinely beaten, locked in closets, chained to work stations or desks, made to work 14 hour days, and sometimes sexually abused. They were banned from speaking their languages and practicing their religions, and punished harshly for either.

The death toll was high. Many died from disease and poor medical care. Some of the beatings resulted in deaths. There was a high suicide and alcoholism rate among former students. Many were alienated from family and community by forced assimilation.

Students fought back. Most ran away or tried to. Many spoke their languages or practiced ceremony in secret. Older students tried to protect the younger ones. Some students protested with letters or editorials. Many ex students led campaigns against the abuse.

Absolutely none of this is in the film. Viewers get the impression these are ordinary boarding schools. In Canada and Australia there were similar schools. In both nations they recognize these schools as outright genocidal. Both nations have gov'ts that issued apologies. Australia actually has National Sorry Day.

Is the film still any good at all? It's still a nice enough sentimental child's story. It still has a little OK bits about a child feeling lonely at a new school, and growing up with grandparents in the woods.

Absolutely no one should take the film as a true or accurate view of Cherokees, Natives, and especially not Indian boarding schools or the Trail of Tears. There are far far better, more accurate, and frankly better films all around on Indian boarding schools. And yes, most of these were written by actual Natives, not KKK imposters.

Please see them:
Indian Horse
Older Than America
The Only Good Indian
Rhymes for Young Ghouls
We Were Children
Windigo Tale

The Cherokee Nation also made their own documentary, The Trail of Tears.

The mini series Into the West also has quite good parts of it on both the boarding schools and Trail of Tears.

Thanks for reading this far.
Dr. Alton Carroll
US, American Indian, and Latin American History
Northern Virginia Community College

Sparks:

--- Quote from: educatedindian on April 15, 2018, 06:41:21 pm ---Posted a review of Education of Little Tree.
--- End quote ---

That film is here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119052/

I cannot find your text among the 20 user reviews. The newest one is from 2014.

Sparks:

--- Quote from: educatedindian on April 15, 2018, 03:57:14 pm ---http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1586568/?ref_=ur_urv
Spirits for Sale
[…] How effective this documentary is shown by the vitriol of one reviewer who has never made a review before or since., and includes nothing but falsehood. One might even suspect he's one of the ones critiqued by the film.
--- End quote ---

There are only 3 user reviews. The other two are quite favourable, too. I see nothing that fits your description. So I wonder if the one you refer too here has been reported and taken away, or something?

Sparks:

--- Quote from: Sparks on April 16, 2018, 01:30:58 am ---There are only 3 user reviews. The other two are quite favourable, too. I see nothing that fits your description. So I wonder if the one you refer too here has been reported and taken away, or something?
--- End quote ---

Yes, it must have been deleted. I wrote this:


--- Quote from: Sparks on May 08, 2017, 02:42:40 am ---Here is this 2007 film on the IMDb database: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1586568/
Only two reviews; one ten-star rating and one one-star rating.
Those of you who have seen this film, please add your rating!
--- End quote ---

After that, a 7-star rating and educated indian's 10-star review have been added.

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