How 'bout we all pan NBC's PETER PAN and Warner Bros PAN, too.

Over the weekend, Heather (a reader of AICL) wrote to ask if I'd seen a Salon article about changes made to music and lyrics in the version of Peter Pan that NBC is going to air in December. Though I knew about the production, I didn't know about these changes. Thanks, Heather, for letting me know.

In a nutshell, NBC hired Jerod Tate, artistic director of the Chickasaw Chamber Music Festival. He's Chickasaw but I don't know anything else about him other than what his bio (linked with his name) says.

With his assistance, the song "Ugg-a-Wugg" was changed.

Ugg-a-Wugg is a duet sung by Peter Pan and Tiger Lily. If either one is in trouble, they'll call on the other for help. The code word they'll use as a signal is ugg-a-wugg. If Tiger Lily needs help, she'll use that code word and Peter will come to save "the brave noble redskin." And if Peter Pan needs help, Tiger Lily will help him. They will be "blood brothers to the end." I think it was/is ludicrous but people love it. Do you remember it? Here. Take a look:
 (Update, Dec 6, 2014: The video was taken down. You may find other videos of the song online, but my guess is that they'll be taken down, too. Perhaps your library has a video you can borrow if you want to see how that song was performed.)

Enter Jerod Tate. Here's what he said, in the Salon article, about that song: 

And then the really big thing that we worked on was the replacement of [the lyrics] “ugg-a-wugg.” Just a little background: In general, what we all know is that the Indian tribe that’s represented in Peter Pan was influenced by knowledge of Northeast Indians of the United States. So we’re talking Iroquois, Huron, Wyandotte, Algonquin, these kinds of cultural regions. So what I did was I set out to find a replacement word for “ugg-a-wugg” that was literally a Wyandotte word.

Tate won't say what the word is, but he does say it means "come here." The interviewer asked him if he also worked on the costumes, but he said he only worked on the music and lyrics for the songs. He thinks the change is great, because the phrase is accurate. I disagree. The show and story will always be one in which the point of view is of Indians as exotic and detribalized. In chapter ten of Barrie's book, the Indians prostrate themselves in front of Peter Pan, calling him "the Great White Father." That point of view is the foundation for Barrie's story.

Now let's look at the new film from Warner Brothers.

The trailer for the new movie due out next year has a scene where Pan is on the floor, spears aimed at him. It looks like he's about to be killed, but an older man (which I imagine the script says is an elder or maybe Tiger Lily's dad) stops them. In his hand is a necklace of some sort that Peter was wearing. The man says:

"The little one. He wears the pan."

Here's a screen capture of that scene in the trailer:

The trailer cuts to Tiger Lily, played by Rooney Mara, who says:

"The Pan is our tribe's bravest warrior." 

Here she is in that moment: 

Her line (Pan is our tribe's greatest warrior) points right at the foundation for Barrie's film. Indians who worship whites. That's not ok. It was't ok then, and it isn't ok to give that racist garbage to kids today. Right?

Some of you know that there was a lot of discussion when Rooney was selected as the actress for the part. Many people said that a Native actress ought to be cast instead of Rooney. I disagree with that idea, too. 

Fixing the words in the song, and/or casting a Native person in that role does not change the point of view(s) on which the story rests. These are, through and through, "the white man's Indian." There is no fixing this story or any production of it so that the Native content is authentic. 

Attempts to do so remind me of the many schools that sought/seek to make their Indian mascots more "authentic" so that they could keep objectifying Native people, using their ideas of who Native people are for their own purposes. 

Can we just let that stuff go? 

Wouldn't we all be better off with a major studio production of a story written by a Native person? One that shows us as-we-are (or were if it is in the past), as human beings who do not say things about how we worship a "great white father" or a white guy who is our "greatest warrior"?  

By remaking this story, and/or by staging it in schools and theaters, we're just recycling problematic, stereotypic, racist images. Why do it?! 

Here's an irony. NBC released a promo featuring Allison Williams talking about the production. There's a part near the end where Williams is singing "it never never ends" as Tiger Lily drops to the stage:  

I want it to end. Don't you?

Inspired by Students at University of Redlands and Sherman Indian School

On Wednesday, March 6th, I spoke at Cal State Polytechnic University in Pomona. The next day (March 7th, 2013), I spent the day at Redlands University and Sherman Indian School. My hosts at Redlands were Heather Torres and Nora Pulskamp of the Native American Student Programs office. Here we are at the end of the day:

In the morning, I gave a guest lecture to a class on Native Women taught at Redlands University by Dr. Larry Gross. I talked about depictions of Native women in the media and children's books. The students were engaged and engaging. I showed them "What Makes the Red Man Red" from Disney's Peter Pan. Their response was similar to the ones I get when I ask teachers and librarians to read aloud from selected passages of Little House on the Prairie. Surprise, that is, at how racist the depictions are, and that they do not remember those depictions from when they viewed/read these two items as children. We focused on the sexualization of Tiger Lily, and talked about the Violence Against Women Act.

From there, Heather and Nora drove us out to Sherman Indian School. It is one of the boarding schools originally designed (by the federal government) to 'kill the Indian and save the man.' Like Santa Fe Indian School, it is now a different place. Native history and culture is affirmed, for example, by the murals in the hallways:

Murals at Sherman Indian School affirm Native identity

I spent an hour with Native students. I talked with them about mascots, showing them photos of "Chief Illiniwek" (the former mascot at the University of Illinois) and stereotypes in children's literature. They were very attentive. When I showed them the photo of "Chief Illiniwek" doing the splits in mid-air, they exclaimed aloud at how ridiculous it is.

I also talked about the need to have books about American Indians, written by Native authors. My favorite example is Cynthia Leitich Smith's Jingle Dancer. I love showing that book to Native students, no matter how young or old they are. I was delighted that it slowly made its way through the group of 30 or so students, as they pored over the pages. Clearly, Cynthia's book touched them in a good way. After class was over, one young woman approached me to say she wants to be a writer. Her English teacher was also there and praised her work.

I was inspired by the students on both campuses. From them, I gained a strong sense of optimism and hope for the future.

The public lecture on campus last night reminded me that certain segments of society will not welcome them or the work they wish to do. That lecture drew Native people who live in the Redlands area, and Redlands students who tutor Native youth. All took note of the woman who entered the lecture hall wearing a "Chief Illiniwek" jacket. When she took her jacket off, I noticed she had one of the newer shirts fans of "Chief Illiniwek" wear. When the mascot was retired at Illinois, private vendors designed and sold several different kinds of shirts, including the one she wore. It has the word CHIEF in large bold letters across the front of the shirt. The woman sat alone and quiet throughout the lecture, but at the end, told us she is a Fulbright scholar who studies cultural genocide, and that "Chief Illiniwek" is not a violent mascot like the one at Florida State. She was belligerent and loud and said in her 30 years of being at Illinois, she never saw anything violent about it.

Her decision to be there, to dress as she did, to proclaim her credentials, and argue as she did, was puzzling to me. What motivated her to do that? Hate? Privilege? Both?!

Though I'm certain there are administrators at the University of Illinois who wish the mascot was still there, I think they would have been embarrassed at the behavior of this woman. She is, whether she realizes it or not, the embodiment of racism.

The students at Redlands and Sherman Indian School will encounter people like her. Change--for the better--will happen. It is never easy work, but change does happen. "Chief Illiniwek" no longer dances at Illinois because Native people and our allies fought to get rid of it. I leave California with the faces of the students in my head, inspired by each one of them.

---------------------------------
Update at 9:45 AM, 2013
Added photo of mural from Sherman Indian School and cover of Jingle Dancer. 

PETER PAN in China

Troubling info...

"[B]rowsing at Chinese bookstores reveals that the children's book sections mostly contains books translated from the Western popular folk tales, such as Little Red Riding Hood, Peter Pan, and Snow White."

That's from "The Cultural Significance of Reading Instruction in China." Written by Yang Hu, the article is in The Reading Teacher, Volume 57, No. 7 (April 2004). I found it as I started looking for information about the Chinese National Curriculum.

I was looking for info on the Chinese National Curriculum because a former student was home in China this summer and brought me a copy of Little House on the Prairie. I'll scan the cover and some pages from the book later today. Printed across the top front of the cover is a note that says the book is part of the Chinese National Curriculum. I'd like to know more about that curriculum, and how Little House on the Prairie ended up on it. 

PETER PAN in Canada: Two steps forward, and then two steps back again

Friday, April 23rd, The Globe and Mail published an article in the Arts section. Written by J. Kelly Nestruck, the article is titled "Sensitivity Training in Neverland." 

It opens with Nestruck posing this question: "Are the Neverland Indians of Peter Pan going the way of the Beothuk in Canada?"

Given that the article is about getting rid of stereotypical images of Indians in Peter Pan, I imagine that Nestruck thought he was being clever by comparing the fictional Indians in Peter Pan with the Beothuk. The Beothuk, according to a quick look-see of research, are a tribe that no longer exists. However! I'm not inclined to believe that they vanished. I've heard that "vanished" story before. I'll check into it, by talking to First Nations people. (If you're First Nations and have info that can help me with this research, let me know.)  Some may think Nestruck's playful opening is clever. I don't think it is clever at all. Regular readers of American Indians in Children's Literature know that I think it is important to examine where people situate American Indians. We're often in the same sentence as wild animals, and in the case of "Sensitivity Training in Neverland" fictional stereotypical Indians.

The first full paragraph says that the Peter Pan that will be on stage next week in Halifax and Stratford, will not have any references to "Indians" or "redskins" in the script. Next, Nestruck tells us, that Tiger Lily's tribe is in both productions, but, that "its members no longer bear any resemblance to North America's aboriginal peoples."

Obviously, someone (Nestruck? Producers? Playwrights?) think the Indians in J. M. Barrie's play did, in fact, bear resemblance to North America's aboriginal peoples. Which ones?! We do not (and did not) all look alike....

Fourth paragraph, Nestruck says the "beloved" story has been "causing controversy of late." Of late? Maybe it is news to Nestruck that we (indigenous people) don't like the way we've been portrayed for a long time. Take, as one example, what William Apes, a Pequot man, said in 1829 in A Son of the Forest:

[T]he great fear I entertained of my brethren was occasioned by the many stories I had heard of their cruelty toward the whites—how they were in the habit of killing and scalping men, women, and children. But the whites did not tell me that they were in a great majority of instances the aggressors—that they had imbrued their hands in the lifeblood of my brethren, driven them from their once peaceful and happy homes—that they introduced among them the fatal and exterminating diseases of civilized life. 

Fifth paragraph, Nestruck reports that George Pothitos and the theatre in Halifax "found itself in hot water" when it sent out a casting call for "Pirates/Indians." The artistic director was contacted by "angry artists" and apologized for the oversight, "not realizing how offensive that might be to some first-nations people."  So then Nestruck goes into the Land of Offense. (My term, not his.)


He says that "if" Indian is now considered derogatory "in some circles" now, the word "piccaninnies" is "much more problematic." Here's paragraph eight:

In Peter and Wendy, Barrie's 1911 novelization of his earlier play, the Scottish author describes these “redskins” on the warpath with their tomahawks not as an imaginary people, but as just another group of North American Indians. “Strung around them are scalps, of boys as well as of pirates, for these are the Piccaninny tribe, and not to be confused with the softer-hearted Delawares or the Hurons,” he wrote.

There's a lot wrong---and confusing---in that paragraph. Where is my copy of Peter and Wendy...


Moving on to the tenth and eleventh paragraphs, wherein Tim Carroll, the British director for the production being staged in Stratford, says:

“Coming here, it was obvious to me that we had to be more sensitive to the feelings of people who would be watching a debased version of their forefathers put onstage,” he says.

So, I guess, it is ok to be racist if there's nobody looking? Carroll decided to recast Tiger Lily's tribe as Amazons, thereby paying off thematically because now, he is "adding a mysterious female hinterland to the very male world of Neverland's Lost Boys and pirates." He doesn't mean the indigenous peoples of the Amazon. He means "the women warriors of Greek mythology."

Meanwhile, back in Halifax, Pothitos said "I decided we'd produce our own Neverland, with a tribe not based on any one ethnicity." In his production, Tiger Lily's tribe is inspired by "primitivist Henri Rousseau as well as bits and pieces of Mayan, Egyptian, and East Indian culture." Rather than just mess with North American Indian stereotypical imagery, they've decided to add in a few other cultures...  That's no better than the mish-mash we already have to deal with....   Indians in headdresses, standing beside totem poles outside tipis...

Finally, in the last four paragraphs, Nestruck turns to the words of Tara Beagan, a playwright who is Ntlakapamux and Irish-Canadian. She is among those "angry artists" who contacted the Neptune about the casting notice. Nestruck wrote:

To Beagan, Peter Pan's casual equation of “Indians” with imaginary Neverland creatures such as mermaids was part of a larger racist British mindset that didn't see native North Americans as a real people who existed in the present.

I'm not sure where he got "racist British mindset" from. She didn't say that. He followed that with a quote from Beagan:

“The early 20th-century English theatre-going public literally thought of native North Americans as a vanishing race: This is what their rulers intended,” she writes. “England has made several very creative attempts at eradicating Canada’s first peoples – the mythologization of first-nations peoples was a false ‘swan song’ type of trend that has, sadly, lasted until 2010.”

And he ends the article with this paragraph:

In a recent article she penned for the Praxis Theatre blog, Beagan imagined her mother on a field trip from the Kamloops Indian Residential School in 1953 watching Disney's cartoon version of Peter Pan with its stereotypical Indians saying “Ugh” at a local theatre that only allowed native people to sit in the balcony. (Beagan's mother doesn't remember the specific films she saw on these trips, but the timing fits.) “My mom’s grandchildren – my niece and nephew – sit in any section they want, in any theatre they want,” Beagan wrote. “If things continue to look up the way they have been, they won’t ever sit through a production of something that will teach them that their people say 'ugh.’” In productions of Peter Pan at Stratford and Neptune, at least, that will be the case.

I searched the Praxis Theatre pages and found the blog post Nestruck quoted from. He left out her final sentence, which is:

Hell, it might be to watch something that one of them has written.

The article itself and the casting, revisions, and Barrie's story itself are all worth studying. I'm glad the article is available. It tells us there's some awareness (two steps forward), but, not understanding, or if there IS understanding, an inability to apply that understanding (two steps backward).

I think the theater people are trying, but, they're not slowing down enough to really think this stuff through. From Nova Scotia news is a favorable review that includes this:

Choreographer Jim White, who cooks up a lot of variety, has created an Indonesian-style dance for Tiger Lily and the tribesmen, in their grass skirts and bright blue and orange head dresses. Heidi Ford is a wonderfully lithe and expressive Tiger Lily.

There's a promo for the Neptune Theatre presentation at youtube. Tiger Lilly and her tribemen come onstage at 0:44 for a few seconds.  I'm not sure this is an improvement over the sequel to Peter Pan, titled Peter Pan in Scarlet... 

"How!" is not the way American Indians say 'hello'

In old westerns, Indians are shown saying 'hello' to white people by saying "how" and raising the right hand (as if to take an oath). While most kids don't watch those old westerns, they do watch cartoons that represent this. It can be seen in an episode of the Muppet Babies, the Transcontinental Whoo-Whoo.

And, it is also seen in Disney's Peter Pan.

Teachers, parents, librarians, big brothers and sisters... If you buy Peter Pan and watch it with a child, please point out the stereotypes of American Indians shown throughout the film. Better yet, don't buy it.

Note: In an arrangement with a teacher, children wrote to me, posing questions about American Indians. I misunderstood a question that was asked by several kids. They asked what 'ho' means. I thought they were misspelling "how" but I was wrong. The students were, indeed, asking what "ho" means. Apparently, Joseph Bruchac uses that utterance to get student's attention when he does school visits. I don't think there is any Native significance to his utterance. It's just something he does, much like teachers who turn lights on and off to refocus a classroom of children. I asked librarians if they knew of books with "how" in them as a Native word for hello, and heard back from many who said they do not have books like this, but several see kids using the word on the playground. One woman told me she saw a teacher teach this word to children in her class.