If you will forgive a bit of self-promotion, or at least a bit of promotion for this publication’s own website, I have begun a long, ambitious project to watch 100 movies - though it will likely turn into 101 or 102 before the project is complete. That means starting with something from 1917 – Straight Shooting, specifically – and watching one film from each year until whatever is playing at the Tower Theater on the last week of the project. This is my plan, anyway, and I’ve got a lot of movies to watch before we finish.
I bring it up here not just to promote it, though I do want people to read it, but to tie it all to something happening in the Canadian film industry right now. That’s the shooting of Hard Powder, going ahead in BC after Parks Canada denied film permits for the shoot in Alberta, after learning that one of the villains is First Nations.
That villain is played by Tom Jackson. While I am inclined to trust Jackson in his choice of roles, I’m in no position to say whether or not Parks Canada was correct in their impression of the film. I have not read the script, and it’s impossible to judge what the finished product will look like before a frame has been shot. Jackson, for his part, is positive about his character, and I will be interested to see the end result.
The problem is that we are still in a position where a prominent First Nations character is still a bit of a novelty. Parks Canada is gun-shy because they’re not seeing a ton of scripts with prominent First Nations characters, whether they’re heroes, villains or supporting characters. It’s rare enough that the character is going to be viewed as a stand in for every person of that race ever, so they don’t want to be associated with any film that could potentially get that portrayal wrong.
That’s a problem that goes way back to the early silent films, including the one I watched most recently, Broken Blossoms. That film had an Asian man played by a white man in heavy makeup, a choice that hurts the film for modern audiences. One wishes that the film had an actual Asian man in that role. Then again, what’s the last Hollywood movie you’ve watched with an Asian main character? What about the last one with a First Nations main character? The problem is that it’s still rare, even 100 years later. If there were First Nations characters appearing constantly in a wide range of roles, Parks Canada likely wouldn’t be touchy about the subject. But they are rare, so they become representative of an entire people rather than one role in one film.
So the solution is clear. If Hollywood wants to run into less trouble getting permits in national parks, they need to cast more people of other races, more frequently, in a greater variety of roles. It’s unfortunate that it’s a problem that has dogged the film industry for 100 years, when it’s a problem that’s so easy to fix.
