Skin Movies

3.0: Skin night at the movies
By Gyasi Ross

Story Created: Jun 22, 2009

I come from a corny Skin family – we unapologetically love what we love. It can be anything; if we dig it, we are hopelessly uncool and shameless in our affection for it.

For example, we were big into “Hungry Hungry Hippos.” We had Hungry Hippo night on the weekends when we didn’t rent a video disc machine and some classic movies. Another example: My wonderful and stylish sisters loved to wear their blazer sleeves pushed up like Molly Ringwald in “Pretty in Pink.” Tacky. Terrible. True. Like I said, we love what we love.

Another thing that my family absolutely loves – unabashedly – is seeing other Skins on television or in the movies. The Skin actor/actress doesn’t even have to be a big part – bit roles are just as much sources of pride. Oh yeah, and cartoons work too! We were ecstatic to see the small, yet inspiring role of the Alaska Native lady with the really, really, really big breasts in “The Simpsons” movie. John Redcorn from King of the Hill and Apache Chief from the Superfriends? My heroes. My non-athletic mother, to this day, does three back flips whenever she sees Chief Bromden in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

Big role or large role, either way, my mom excitedly points them out and asks – “You know that he’s Indian, right?”
Of course, mom; we used to have the video disc.

My friends are slightly different than me and my family. It seems like many of them love to dissect and analyze every single Skin role – on television or in movie – for accuracy and stereotypes. Not that seeking accuracy is bad in any way – it’s just that for me, movies are movies, not documentaries.

For example, once upon a broke Friday night, one of my closest friends from Acoma Pueblo and I got into a heated debate about the Disney movie, “Pocahontas.” I didn’t realize the hornet’s nest that I got myself into – I spoke glowingly of the movie. I told her how much my nieces LOVED the movie and that I frankly thought that, for a cartoon character, Pocahontas was extremely hot. Almost Jessica Rabbit hot. [And let’s keep it real – Jessica’s body was absolutely out of this world. And Jessica’s lips? Wow. Jessica Rabbit’s lips are the definition of pouty – they just did not make any sense. But I digress.]

But my friend didn’t agree. In fact, I’m sure she used a few curse words when she told me how disgraceful and bad the depiction of Pocahontas really was. My dear friend talked about how Pocahontas didn’t really marry John Smith but that Pocahontas had been captured. And while captured, Pocahontas met John Rolfe – her future hubby. The truth was very different than the Disney cartoon’s depiction of how she met her husband. Yes.

Also, slightly different from the way that I meet women; kinda.

Anyway, my wonderful and brilliant friend from Acoma was incredibly upset about the artistic license that was taken in the movie. And I tend to like all Disney cartoons (“Lion King”? “Mulan”?) – but I liked this one ever more because 1.) Pocahontas was hot; and because 2.) There was an image of a Skin on the big screen. Sure she was animated – but she was undoubtedly a Skin. When it came down to it, my Acoma friend and I simply had two very different takes on the movie. And my argument, “It’s a cartoon. … I doubt the tree really spoke to her and the raccoon seems slightly unrealistic as well,” was not gaining any momentum. Mind you, my main point was simply that my nieces and little sisters and lots and lots of other little Skin girls finally got to see a Skin woman on television.

And I was happy for that. But maybe I shouldn’t have been. Maybe I should be offended when a portrayal of our people comes on television or at the movie theater that isn’t 100 percent correct. Maybe the hundreds and hundreds of Pueblo and Navajo girls who congregated at the Gallup movie theater when “Pocahontas” came out were wrong to enjoy the movie. Maybe they should’ve been more politically savvy and protested the movie. Maybe my family, and people like us, are too simplistic and just don’t know any better to be offended.

I remember being at the National Museum of the American Indian in NYC for a film festival. In a question and answer session, some of the Skin directors and producers wouldn’t even refer to “Dances With Wolves” by its proper name. They just called it “That movie” or “DWW.”

My mom and my sisters and aunties think that “Dances with Wolves” is a great movie. They love seeing all the handsome Skin men on horses. I think they even liked the plot. Are they just too non-political to realize that they should be offended by it? Should we dissect every movie and demand that every movie with Skins in it be 100 percent historically accurate? I’m pretty darn sure that not every Chinese man knows kung-fu or runs on top of trees like in “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” I’m almost positive that not every black man dresses in drag and speaks in a high-pitched voice like in the Madea movies. Still, there doesn’t seem to be the same outcry. Are movies about Skins somehow different from other movies? Do they require more historical accuracy and sensitivity than Chinese movies or black movies? Are we that fragile?

What do you Skins think?