Panning out (and not)
Mood:
don't ask
Topic: Entertainment
Christopher Bowman was an American figure skater. He was a two-time U.S. national champion and two-time World medalist.
(March 30, 1967 – January 10, 2008)
Christopher Bowman had been in a downward spiral since his days as a champion on ice.
A former child actor and featured skater who earned good money on the Ice Capades tour, Bowman was destitute, having gone through his bank accounts, his friends and a marriage that produced a daughter.
Bowman, 40, had been found dead in a room at a Budget Inn on a busy, nondescript block of Sepulveda Boulevard in North Hills.
"He was a national champion and world medalist and he should have been an Olympic champion, and he dies by himself in a budget hotel room. " - Quote from Aimee Kravette, former skater, former coach Panorama City who had known Bowman since he was a child.
Skater lived, and died, on the edge
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Good luck Darrell Dennis.
This is the whole entire trouble with the so-called native indigenous film industry. They don't have any real gripping modern day stories to tell. Other than ones of woe.
There is so far no real accurate reflection of our attitudes, values, ideals, anything you want to call a cultural barometer that truly measures from top to bottom the whole range of space that make up for the scary terrifying middle ground.
They have concocted an industry and made themselves rich (so to speak) off of the suffering of the lesser off and well tread upon.
I have seen it before. From Canada Council grant sucking
Richard Van Camp
to shows like 'Moccasin Flats' which may show intent to attract attention to depraved conditions and loose lifestyles, instead seemingly mock native poverty (it costs money to make shows) and cast natives themselves in ill light. As if they were spending some money in order to make a low budget drama video to send to the U.N.
I have nothing against talent. Richard is a wonderful person, a terrific storyteller and has a well honed well developed sense of craftmanship as a writer. But it is my belief that there comes to be a certain point where bouts of self deprecating humour quickly lose color when compared to the stark reality of black and white headlines such as these:
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which make the end products of years of mistreatment no laughing matter.
When does mockingly laughing at one self for all the trouble native people have gone through and suffered become nothing but a joke that the 'white man' can easily share upon while letting pointed jabs of attempts at humour bounce off his well thickened skin?
"failed ...another HUMAN BEING" are the words used in the inquiry that held the most dramatic effect which Hollywood and so-called independent film could only, try as they might: MUTE.
There comes to be a point where we have to realize that as we are living out the negative causal side collorary effects of colonialism, it helps to have a sense of humour for sure, and a little laughter makes for good medicine thats true, but I see it too often as an acquired trait for pure popularity gain.
I have seen writers like Van Camp perched on a podium make truly light of such dead serious issues like AIDS and its forays into native populations. I have seen natives humour themselves peppered with references that are stand-alone direct and indirect by products of poor treatment at the hands of others. Others who should know better but don't DO any better.
See also: Indian Museum Director Spent Lavishly On Travel
My fear is that todays modern day native writers will get left behind by todays headlines, trapped in some inversed malapropism and viewing the 'past' through a broken kaliedoscope of asserting and reclaiming native dignity so long as you play the white mans game. Can we not say fairly assert its our turf and their technology?
Spurned on by some fame seeking mechanism so far from the ancient day heroics of what may be left to be sifted through what we can honestly reclaim from the past.
In short, I do not think low self esteem, esp low self esteem as a by product of others mistreatment is a laughing matter and thats my opinion. To push it further, all I need are a few well informed evolutionary psychologists to agree with me to send that point home.
'Another human being'. Succinct, short on drama, and very well said. Powerful.
We fail ourselves and societys true leftovers (I didn't treat him like that society did) by mockingly make a joke of what we ourselves have submitted or allowed ourselves to be treated as: leftovers, sidekicks, Tonto's, butts at the pointed ends of our own jokes, as less than humans.
The native indian homogenous film industry may as well sign themselves over to a syndicate, in fact they probably already have become exactly that.
There has to be something done in the here and now. A better offering -right now- to show theres a better "something to do" than a life lived on the streets. Or that the only way out of poverty is to join a gang.
These are the unfunny issues and the native indian indigenous film industry fails to tackle or address them seriously. They are making good money off of this stereotyping and its hurting and not helping. There should be signs on the horizon that soon it should be soon called 'old hat'. But none yet.
I remember getting ticked off at one of the producers for CTV's 'First Story' , making a huge plight of the fact that native people were homeless in droves and droves. Fine, do that thinking and caring with the top down on your convertible chewing gum while on the cell phone is how I perceived it. I mean I have been without a home, slept on a sidewalk, inhabited the Downtown eastside for a time, I have walked for a time with a parade of people a small as ten through junk infested areas to atttract attention to Fetal Alcohol Spectral Disorder.
What peeved me in a way was that I thought to myself, you know what, I d seen a lot, and I mean A LOT of down and out people sleeping on sidewalks who were non-indigenous and by classification: WHITE. And what else? I just didn't see too many natives in that way. And what ? Non-native white down and outers don't count? I was against making an industry out of others suffering.
I guess you could whittle it down to a real larger than real life argument that once upon a time transpired between a former tobacco executive released from payroll but still bound by his confidentiality agreement and a producer from 60 Minutes. Its dramatized in a film called 'The Insider' ( 3 years of a mans life crashing in under 2 hours ...whew!)
It all took place in a sushi restaurant. A clash of equally sharpened egos if you will. The one thing that stands out the most in my selective memory is this : Wiggands heated assertion to Bergman that 'what you think because something gets shown, because its on tv, something happens, something changes?'
And I guess thats the way it is with blogs and blogging too isn't it?
Inquiries will be held, movies will be shot, film industry people will be shot and film festival creators will pass along.
Spectators us all. Except if we remember people like Paul Boyd, Frank Paul and Christopher Bowman. And oh but of course Paul Gross's dearly departed dad. (Who could ever forget the shining bend over backwards polite Mountie he played in 'Due South'?)
But we are so in need of less stories like these:
Gang turf fight led to fatal shooting, trial told
Winnipeg Sun, Canada - 7 Jan 2008
By DEAN PRITCHARD, SUN MEDIA A dispute over gang "turf" ended with 19-year-old Sterling Moar suffering a fatal shotgun blast to the stomach, ...
and more like these:
Navajo sportswear company will support Native athletes
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The secret to being sexy in the snow? Mukluks
http://www.authenticcanadianmukluks.com
Posted by mach1231
at 10:23 AM PST
Updated: Saturday, January 12, 2008 5:21 PM PST
a-ok
bright
lazy
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rushed
on fire
suave
WHat a 
