At the Golden Globes this year, you, Leonardo DiCaprio delivered a heartfelt speech saying you wanted to “share” your award with all the First Nations people represented in The Revenant, and all the indigenous communities around the world. As a Metis youth with a grandmother who went to a residential school, we Indians really don’t need you to share your award with us. Although it’s great that you voiced the Indian struggle, I can’t help but suggest the possibility that people are going to think: “Oh, that’s great. Look at Leo fighting for Natives and environmental issues. He’s such a great guy,” then move on to the next two-minute video that’s on their Facebook newsfeed.
People shared your acceptance speech, and you presented yourself as the embodiment of progressiveness and social justice. The message is forgotten, however, and forgotten fast. Social media is quickly distracted by the next trendy social issue. Leo, you do not embody the Indian struggle. You did not, and do not live the Indian struggle. So, how can you voice it? How can you continue to voice it? The simple answer is this: you cannot. We need an Indian to fight and speak for the peoples that he or she represents. The people he/she knows, loves, and resonates deeply with.
Now, I’m not trying to deter you of doing good things for Native communities; I’m just trying to voice a frustration with the entertainment business for their representation of my people. Or rather, the lack thereof. Throughout film history, Indians have played a minimal amount of roles, and have always been represented from a colonial perspective. In The Reverent, the protagonist is a white colonialist, and Indians in the film are used for narrative and storytelling devices, but it is not their story. Similarly, in Kevin Costner’s Dancing with Wolves, Indians are used in Costner’s narrative to help the Caucasian protagonist, and it is again told from the colonialist perspective. Or Johnny Depp’s role as Tonto in The Lone Ranger, where he serves as an American cowboy’s trusty sidekick and helps the cowboy in his crusade for revenge and vigilante justice. (Not to mention, that Tonto is played by a white actor.)
Indian youth are the greatest victims of this whole ordeal. Their history is condensed to when their people aided the colonist in his adventures, or when their people are used as the backdrop of a Western narrative. In an article for the CBC, Jesse Wante wrote in an article that “First Nations have to be present in Westerns in order to disappear, and for America to be born.” Once the Indian disappears from the grand-narrative portrayed in Westerns, he is thrown into the throes of cultural genocide, restrictive laws, and poverty across North America. The Indians who aided the colonizer are then displaced culturally, physically, and spiritually following the rolling of credits, or the closing of a Western narrative. So where are the narratives that tell our history in the twentieth century? Why aren’t these voices being heard in Hollywood? Why are you, Leo, saying “we” need to protect our lands when our spirits have been robbed and beaten, and our connection with the land uprooted and detached from years and years of cultural genocide and lies.
So, it is a nice gesture when you want to share your award with Native communities, Leo, but it does not help Indians be properly represented in film. Even more egregiously, it does not help Indian youth realize that they can be raised on a reserve and still be on that stage, like you, accepting that award. It does not help them realize that our people’s story could be voiced. If anything, they are told that their voice should be singing the same tune: help the fallen white man claim his revenge.
You reduce us to a living, breathing, and feeling symbol for environmental issues, void of a history of genocide, substance abuse, and poverty.