Before the "dripping in jewels" era |
As a perk of my indentured servitude employer , I’ll be going to see a few private screenings of
the Sundance & Tribeca films for $Free.99, this year. Among them
is a film called Drunktown’s Finest.
When I read the bio for this film I immediately went to the trailer so that I could gawk at the actors. I wanted to know if these were the faces of real Native Americans Indians.
When I read the bio for this film I immediately went to the trailer so that I could gawk at the actors. I wanted to know if these were the faces of real Native Americans Indians.
Let me preface my next, and possibly
biased comment by saying, I’m pretty good with matching faces to certain
countries. For example, countries in East Africa; I can tell Somalis,
Ethiopians & a Kenyans when I see them.) I can
basically identify Ecuadorians from Salvadorians &
Mexicans from Colombians (because they've flooded the neighboring town -
and thank God because it’s the only reason I can get decent produce
indigenous to the Caribbean)
However, I honestly couldn’t spot a Native
American if I was standing on the reservation and my life depended on it. For
a long time, I thought Lou Diamond Philips was the only Native American actor who made it out of the reservation
hood and into stardom. And as far as I know, all the Quileutes in
the Twilight
series were pretty convincing.
Aside from existing images of traditional & noteworthy Native Americans, I often think of modern day Native American features as a hybrid between Filipino and Ecuadorians. Or like the tribal people deep in Brazil. Or Samoans? How many of you really even know what a Modern day Native American looks like?
Not every actor, but several of the wolf pack actors are in fact Native American. |
So because you cannot be worldly without knowing a little about the people
who originally inhabited the continent that they were slayed on, before the next wave enslaved people were brought in to develop it, I did my homework (read: Googled).
and here’s what I found.
P.S. There are 36 speaking roles in Drunktown's Finest and of those roles, 32 are Native American Indians.
·
The reason that so many Black Americans claim
Native American Heritage, is because it’s true.
Although not everybody actually is “a quarter Indian” there was a point in
American history (slavery) where the ethnicities joined forces.
·
Lou
Diamond Philips is not Native American
·
Julia Jones and Alex Meraz from the “wolf pack”
in Twilight are Native American (and sexy as hell)
·
Sacajawea is the Native American face that you
see on the U.S dollar coin
·
Actor Will Rogers was born to a well respected
Native American Territory family in Oklahoma
P.S. This is still a
travel blog. …I think