Kassam, Karim-Aly S.

English

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REVIEWS • 77identity, assisted by Sir Walter Scott. From this ersatz identitydescended the pipe bands and Highland dances now favoredby the Scottish tourist industry.In America, Blacks weren’t schooled in Western music orasked to perform their own music for Whites. That role wasrestricted to Whites in burnt-cork. Black music developed onits own and gave the world Spirituals, Blues, Rag, Jazz, Rock,Roll, Rap, and related spin-offs in language and dance.One can only wonder: how would Yup’ik art have devel-oped if left alone from the beginning? And where will it gofrom here? A century of ridicule, followed by souvenirexploitation and misguided scholarship, left a shambles ofthis extraordinary art. Fienup-Riordan helps put it back onits feet.REFERENCESSONNE, B. 1988. Agayut: Eskimo masks from the Fifth ThuleExpedition (Knud Rasmussens Samlinger fra Nunivak, Alaska.)Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition 10(4). Copenhagen:Gyldendal.LÉVI-STRAUSS, C. 1943. The art of the Northwest Coast at theAmerican Museum of Natural History. Gazette des Beaux-Arts24:175–182.———. 1985. The view from afar. New York: Basic Books.Edmund Carpenter222 Central Park SouthNew York, New York, U.S.A.10019FREEZE FRAME: ALASKA ESKIMOS IN THE MOVIES.By ANN FIENUP-RIORDAN. Seattle: University ofWashington Press, 1995. 234 p., colour and b&w illus.,filmography, bib., index. Hardbound. US$29.95.Freeze Frame studies the role of culture in establishing,maintaining, and perpetuating stereotypes about the “other.”While Fienup-Riordan concentrates on film representationsof Alaska Natives from the early 1900s to the 1990s, this worklends itself to a wider analysis of the role of culture and itsrelationship to imperialism. Around the world, outsiders—using film, painting, novels and other forms of artistic expres-sion—have made representations of indigenous people. Inthis sense, Freeze Frame has scholarly application for com-parison to other parts of the world. Despite the significantdiversity within their culture, film images of Alaska Nativeshave been monolithic and exotic. Fienup-Riordan exploresthe fundamental themes emerging from these images andexamines the motivations of those constructing them. Whydo producers visit their fantasies of the “Eskimo” on theAlaskan landscape? Often a landscape had to be artificiallyfabricated in Alaska to suit the “authentic” image producersdesired: for instance, the igloo is alien to many aboriginalcommunities of Alaska. What is the meaning of this searchfor the authentic “Eskimo,” purified of any European impact?Both the early ethnographic films and the populist films formovie theatres maintain a rather evangelical devotion to the“pure Eskimo.” Hollywood production companies went togreat lengths and cost to manufacture this construct.This preoccupation tells us more about the Americanpsyche than about the Alaska Natives, who are presented asprimitive on the one hand and noble on the other. Thisrepresentation achieved a dual purpose. First, the Americanindustrial culture saw itself as the pinnacle of civilization,having emerged from primitive roots through the EuropeanEnlightenment to find its “manifest destiny” on the NorthAmerican continent. Self-affirming and self-congratulatory,this view was not sufficient for the American self-image:American culture also had its corrupting influences, and thesewarts on the self-portrait also had to be acknowledged. Likethe modern-day fundamentalists who want to return to somemythical past, the filmmakers did this by going back to a timewhen society had not yet felt the impact of civilization.Showing life drained of its modern complexity, the filmswould instruct viewers in the noble qualities of a primitivesociety. Thus, the second and equally important function ofthe image of the “Eskimo” was self-criticism of Americansociety. Fienup-Riordan effectively uses frozen frames fromfilms to drive home her written observations. The pictures area visual testimony to her analysis. One not only reads aboutthe image of the “Eskimo” but sees it.The intellectual roots of the notion of the “noble primitive”are found in Ancient Greece. More recently, the idea foundrenewed currency among the thinkers of the French Enlight-enment such as Rousseau. In the twentieth century it hasgained a strong foothold in North America.While this fetish with the primitive and noble is relevant toAmerican society, it was pure fantasy with regard to thereality of Alaska Natives. The primitive image is essentiallyracist, and the noble image is romantic. Indeed, the tragicirony does not go unnoticed by Fienup-Riordan. From the1920s on, as filmmakers were busily preparing a so-called“authentic” representation of the Eskimo in the “harsh Arc-tic,” significant changes were occurring in the material cul-ture of the Alaska Natives. For instance, equipment used forhunting changed, reindeer herding was introduced, and com-munities were being devastated by an epidemic of tuberculo-sis. None of these events received the attention or considerationof the filmmakers. Should the films have reflected the realcondition of Alaska Natives? If we use the criterion of themarket, namely, what sells at the box office, the answer is No!It is not the responsibility of the filmmakers to represent the“reality” of Alaska Native life. But if we step away from thecriteria of the market system and look at these films from aliberal democratic perspective, we see fundamental chal-lenges to liberal ideals in America. Arguably the 1920s to the1940s were characterized by separation of races and fascistobsessions with some mythical purity of races. These ideaswere ripe not only in Germany, but also in Italy and later inSouth Africa. They were also alive and well in the UnitedStates and the European colonies.78 •  REVIEWSEdward Said, in his discourse on culture and imperialism(1993), asked how otherwise decent people could acceptcolonization of the masses in other regions of the world.Culture, he maintains, is a key vehicle to make occupation ofothers’ lands acceptable. Drawing upon the relationshipbetween culture and empire, Said would label the nobleprimitive construct of the Alaska Natives as the “anti-impe-rialist irony.” The “anti-imperialist irony,” in this case, is toargue that the significance of the superiority of Americansociety arises when it is contrasted to the life of the “primi-tive” Eskimo and at the same time maintain that there is“nobility” in this primitive condition worthy of emulation.Both constructs, the “primitive” and the “noble,” are productsof filmmakers who are at liberty to visit their fantasies uponAlaska’s Natives. From such a viewpoint, aboriginal peoplehave no life, history, or culture of their own worth represent-ing without American industrial civilization. It is noteworthythat some of the filmmakers arrived in Alaska after havingcompleted productions of Tarzan and other films aboutsafaris in Africa. Like the European Tarzan in Africa, oftenthe leading actors in the films were not Alaska Natives (RayMala being a notable exception). The aboriginal peopleconstituted the extras on the set; they had little impact uponthe story, but were there to lend artificial authenticity for thebenefit of southern audiences.Freeze Frame is not only a narrative of film constructs ofthe “Eskimo,” but also a response by Alaskans to images thatare banal at best, and racist at their worst. An emancipation ofsorts has emerged through the very medium that began theconstructs. It is through film that the heterogeneity andcomplexity of the lives of Alaska Natives can be seen. Sincethe 1970s, coinciding with the oil boom, documentaries,ethnographies, and television programming have increas-ingly put the power of the media into the hands of Alaska’svarious communities. Experiments in participatory produc-tion of films have had varied success. Fienup-Riordan pointsout how film has been used by communities to draw attentionto social issues. Nonetheless, the development of locallybased filmmaking is juxtaposed with the continuing mono-lithic construct driven by Hollywood and market concerns.The irony is not lost on Fienup-Riordan, who points out thatthe search for “authenticity” helps more and more AlaskaNatives get parts in films today. While the “Eskimo” imageof Alaska Natives is not significantly transformed in thesefilms, the participation of Alaskans has increased. A filmaimed at mass entertainment has a larger audience appealthan a documentary made by Alaskans. This brings to lightyet another irony: in today’s marketplace, the “Eskimo” is notjust a product of Hollywood, but a consumer of Hollywoodproducts.Freeze Frame also provokes many engaging questionsthat are worthy of further research and analysis. How doesprivate-sector funding tied essentially to nonrenewableresource use enable filmmaking by Alaskans for Alaskans?Keeping in mind the boom-and-bust cycles of resource indus-tries, is this funding source sustainable? Who controls thefilm media, and what are the political implications of thiscontrol among Alaskans? To what degree are the early filmconstructs of “Eskimo” identity influencing Alaska Nativestoday? Are young people perceiving these images as the waylife used to be? What are the implications for new construc-tions of identity using film? Now that Alaskans are docu-menting their traditional knowledge through film, who hascopyright over that knowledge? To what degree is commu-nity participation in filmmaking a genuine objective ratherthan a means of getting things done in an increasingly (thoughsuperficially) politically correct climate for Native and non-Native relations?Would I recommend this work to others? I would particu-larly recommend this book to the readers of this eminentjournal. Whether we are social or natural scientists, workingin a northern context or seeking to do so, this work teases outthe hidden stereotypes about northern societies and the ro-mantic urges for the exotic which we may hold subcon-sciously as a result of a long and steady diet of manufacturedimages. It may help us see in ourselves some of the self-indulgent tendencies of the Hollywood filmmakers. What tous may be a frontier, to be conquered through study, is in facta homeland to diverse cultures. This realization can only leadto more meaningful and collaborative work in the North.REFERENCESAID, E. 1993. Culture and imperialism. New York: Knopf.Karim-Aly S. KassamThe Arctic Institute of North AmericaThe University of Calgary2500 University Drive N.W.Calgary, Alberta, CanadaT2N 1N4BARE POLES: BUILDING DESIGNS FOR HIGH LATI-TUDES. By HAROLD STRUB. Ottawa: Carleton Univer-sity Press, 1996. 194 p., maps, b&w illus., glossary, bib.,appendices, index. Softbound. Cdn$34.95.In the 1950s, the Canadian government began attempts toassimilate Inuit families into a broader Canadian economicand social reality. Inuit families gradually abandoned theirtraditional hunting camps as the government concentratedthem into nearby settlements or sent them off to colonize“artificial communities” created in the Canadian High Arctic.However, another type of resettlement that occurred duringthis same time period has, until recently, been largely over-looked. Almost overnight, Inuit families were moved fromtraditional dwellings to government-subsidized prefabricatedhouses. These new houses were designed and built largely bypeople the Inuit had never met, using materials that they hadnever seen. Furthermore, the interior placement of walls androoms circulated and segregated family members in new andunaccustomed ways. The Euro-Canadian house was but oneof several new building types introduced to the Inuit through

Freeze Frame: Alaska Eskimos in the Movies by, Ann Fienup-Riordan

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Freeze Frame: Alaska Eskimos in the Movies by, Ann Fienup-Riordan

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