Canadian film Assignment 2

From the period of the mid 19th Century Aboriginals and Natives in America have faced widespread stereotypes and omissions as well as outright being the ones suppressed in society by the Western white colonizers, what can be seen here is a trend on how the public has been fed with films that display and antagonizes the First Nations people. However as society changed and became tolerant there has been a new surge of cinema that has commissioned itself to resolve the issue of misrepresentations and stereotypes of the aboriginals.1 The question we ask ourselves is, is this process really working and if not do they produce even more problems? An example of this problem we are presented with is the 1991 film Clearcut which is about a lawyer who loses an appeal against the clear-cutting of native land which in turn angers the native community. Arthur one of the more extremist natives decides to kidnap the logging mill manager and later on kidnaps the lawyer as a means of punishment and torture.2 The film itself portrays the punishment and torture of the captives as a series of trials for them to understand nature and to inflict the same pain that they did to them. This film brings into question on the many problems this type of cinema represents in the aboriginal community. It presents to use the exploitation of native lands, the general stereotyping of natives in cinema, and the eventual way to solve the problem representation.3
The Europeans came to America to seek a passageway to Asia, but in turn they found America and so forth set into motion a resource consumption that has well continued hundreds of years later. Natural resources are one of the key topics that films regarding First Nations people bring into question.4 From Clearcut we see the white western men trying to takeover the land as a means to further their capitalist logging business. It is obvious to see that this type of storyline and topic is no stranger when it comes to Natives and