#dont worry about liking or giffing the movie fr - its sooo good especially to see native actors & actresses get recognition and love

[shadeslayer]

I’m sorry, how is Killers Of The Flower Moon racist? I saw your tags on a gifset of Lily Gladstone as Mollie and was confused.

youre totally fine, dw! first disclaimer is ive not seen it, but also i dont plan to. i cant vouch for how racist the actual narrative within the movie, for me its more that its situated in a media landscape of films where i saw it advertised and i said to myself "oh i know exactly what that is :/ i thought we were done with this but i guess not"

theres a lot of stuff that i can ramble abt bc its very interesting and theres a million different ways this all plays out even if it all comes from the same source of anti-native thinking. but in particular w this movie its that i know it was gonna be trauma porn possibly mixed with imperialist nostalgia (aka mourning the loss of us/our culture even while actively killing and oppressing us)

there was a really good article i saw a while ago and shared some of the quotes from that talks about this movie specifically! i wont just repost the quotes i pulled before, but in particular for thinking of this movie and not movies in general:

I am not from the Osage community. The response from the tribe about the film, which looks at the events surrounding the deaths of more than 60 Osage people in Oklahoma in the 1960s, has been relatively favorable: many believe that this is a story that should be told, that it will raise awareness and do some good. I hope they are right. I hope something good comes out of this film. I hope the Natives who worked on it continue to have thriving careers and have the opportunity to make better stories for future generations. That doesn't change the fact that I walked into the cinema knowing that I was about to view several rich white men's interpretations of a violent chapter in Native history.

"Killers of the Flower Moon" opens up with a preface by Scorsese, who talks about how he's been wanting to make this film for a long time. He calls the project "proper and authentic." I am reminded of "The Revenant" and how it was praised for its authenticity and "respect." Authenticity is a euphemism non-Native filmmakers use for what Natives call "trauma porn." They think showing the absolute worst of what happened to us in grisly detail is somehow respecting us. The Osage in this film are described by Robert De Niro's character as "sickly people" whose time will run out. And sure enough, the first 30 minutes of film is a collage of dead Natives. As the film continues, hour after hour after hour, more Native men and women are killed off. [descriptions of various grisly deaths depicted in the movie.] Other than [one character being seen serenely walking into the afterlife], there is no moment of healing and catharsis for the Natives in the audience. Our wounds are reopened and left festering for the entertainment and "education" of non-Native viewers.

the full article is really good and i recommend it esp since its a relatively short read, and it really sums up how i felt seeing this movie being advertised and how im sure a lot of native people felt about it U_U

tldr generally is i cant say if the movie itself is like, terribly racist, but at the least it exists in a landscape where non-native media makers continue to find excuses to show native people being brutalized over and over again all while getting to say its because they "care so much" (if they cared theyd support n uplift native voices telling these stories) & native people are all aware of it and pretty much tired of it. so even the ones that may be doing good are, for many people (like my cynical ass lol), beyond the benefit of the doubt and at best are racist out of ignorance of the legacy theyre contributing to

#dont worry about liking or giffing the movie fr - its sooo good especially to see native actors & actresses get recognition and love #im just grumpy about The State Of Hollywood. and at least this movie is giving information abt a real life thing #and not trying to be 'progressive' with some made up colonial bullshit like last of the mohicans #anompolili #i hope this helps!! and fr dont like. take my grumpiness personally i just like to complain abt ntv stuff all the time on my tumblr xD