Indigenous Marvel actor stars in hockey movie shot in Edmonton
Actor Cody Lightning has been in Edmonton filming for the new Indigenous hockey movie "Smudge the Blades," which also features Ed Helms and Paulina Alexis.
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Global News
14 hours ago
- Global News
Fans criticize Beyoncé for shirt calling Native Americans ‘the enemies of peace'
A T-shirt worn by Beyoncé during a Juneteenth performance on her 'Cowboy Carter' tour has sparked a discussion over how Americans frame their history and caused a wave of criticism for the Houston-born superstar. The T-shirt worn during a concert in Paris featured images of the Buffalo Soldiers, who belonged to Black U.S. Army units active during the late 1800s and early 1900s. On the back was a lengthy description of the soldiers that included 'their antagonists were the enemies of peace, order and settlement: warring Indians, bandits, cattle thieves, murderous gunmen, bootleggers, trespassers, and Mexican revolutionaries.' Images of the shirt and videos of the performance are also featured on Beyoncé's website. As she prepares to return to the U.S. for performances in her hometown this weekend, fans and Indigenous influencers took to social media to criticize Beyoncé for wearing a shirt that frames Native Americans and Mexican revolutionaries as anything but the victims of American imperialism and for promoting anti-Indigenous language. Story continues below advertisement A spokesperson for Beyoncé did not respond to a request for comment. 2:03 Beyonce's 'Cowboy Carter' spurs fashion inclusivity at Calgary Stampede Who were the Buffalo Soldiers? The Buffalo Soldiers served in six military units created after the Civil War in 1866. They were comprised of formerly enslaved men, freemen, and Black Civil War soldiers and fought in hundreds of conflicts — including in the Spanish-American War, World War I, and World War II — until they were disbanded in 1951. As the quote on Beyoncé's shirt notes, they also fought numerous battles against Indigenous peoples as part of the U.S. Army's campaign of violence and land theft during the country's westward expansion. Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy Some historians say the moniker 'Buffalo Soldiers' was bestowed by the tribes who admired the bravery and tenacity of the fighters, but that might be more legend than fact. 'At the end of the day, we really don't have that kind of information,' said Cale Carter, director of exhibitions at the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum in Houston. Story continues below advertisement Carter and other museum staff said that, only in the past few years, the museum made broader efforts to include more of the complexities of the battles the Buffalo Soldiers fought against Native Americans and Mexican revolutionaries and the role they played in the subjugation of Indigenous peoples. They, much like many other museums across the country, are hoping to add more nuance to the framing of American history and be more respectful of the ways they have caused harm to Indigenous communities. 'We romanticize the Western frontier,' he said. 'The early stories that talked about the Buffalo Soldiers were impacted by a lot of those factors. So you really didn't see a changing in that narrative until recently.' There has often been a lack of diverse voices discussing how the history of the Buffalo Soldiers is framed, said Michelle Tovar, the museum's director of education. The current political climate has put enormous pressure on schools, including those in Texas, to avoid honest discussions about American history, she said. 'Right now, in this area, we are getting pushback from a lot of school districts in which we can't go and teach this history,' Tovar said. 'We are a museum where we can at least be a hub, where we can invite the community regardless of what districts say, invite them to learn it and do what we can do the outreach to continue to teach honest history.' Historians scrutinize reclamation motive Beyoncé's recent album 'Act II: Cowboy Carter' has played on a kind of American iconography, which many see as her way of subverting the country music genre's adjacency to whiteness and reclaiming the cowboy aesthetic for Black Americans. Last year, she became the first Black woman ever to top Billboard's country music chart, and 'Cowboy Carter' won her the top prize at the 2025 Grammy Awards, album of the year. Story continues below advertisement 'The Buffalo Soldiers play this major role in the Black ownership of the American West,' said Tad Stoermer, a historian and professor at Johns Hopkins University. 'In my view, (Beyoncé is) well aware of the role that these images play. This is the 'Cowboy Carter' tour for crying out loud. The entire tour, the entire album, the entire piece is situated in this layered narrative.' But Stoermer also points out that the Buffalo Soldiers have been framed in the American story in a way that also plays into the myths of American nationalism. As Beyoncé's use of Buffalo Soldiers imagery implies, Black Americans also use their story to claim agency over their role in the creation of the country, said Alaina E. Roberts, a historian, author and professor at the University of Pittsburgh who studies the intersection of Black and Native American life from the Civil War to present day. 'That's the category in which she thought maybe she was coming into this conversation, but the Buffalo Soldiers are even a step above that because they were literally involved in not just the settlement of the West but of genocide in a sense,' she said. Online backlash builds ahead of Houston shows Several Native influencers, performers, and academics took to social media this week to criticize Beyoncé or decry the shirt's language as anti-Indigenous. 'Do you think Beyoncé will apologize (or acknowledge) the shirt?' an Indigenous news and culture Instagram account with more than 130,000 followers, asked in a post Thursday. Story continues below advertisement Many of her critics, as well as fans, agree. A flood of social media posts called out the pop star for the historic framing on the shirt. 'The Buffalo Soldiers are an interesting historical moment to look at. But we have to be honest about what they did, especially in their operations against Indigenous Americans and Mexicans,' said Chisom Okorafor, who posts on TikTok under the handle @confirmedsomaya. Okorafor said there is no 'progressive' way to reclaim America's history of empire building in the West, and that Beyoncé's use of Western symbolism sends a problematic message: 'That Black people, too, can engage in American nationalism.' 'Black people, too, can profit from the atrocities of (the) American empire,' she said. 'It is a message that tells you to abandon immigrants, Indigenous people, and people who live outside of the United States. It is a message that tells you not only is it a virtue to have been born in this country, but the longer your line extends in this country, the more virtuous you are.'
CBC
2 days ago
- CBC
Indigenous-led projects are landing hits and winning awards. How are they making inroads?
Cody Lightning is far from alone. First of all, the Edmonton-based creator is surrounded by fellow community members on the set of Smudge the Blades, his upcoming film about hockey, growing up and Indigenous identity. But he's also part of a wave of new Indigenous talent — a raft of creators crafting a host of projects that, Lightning said, is unlike anything he's seen in his 30 years in the industry. "Throughout my adolescent years and teenage years, it was roles that I auditioned for, that were presented to me. And I adapted to that — to someone else's story," he said. "There was, like, one project per year that everyone knew about — everyone was trying to be on those projects. And now we're making our own." Alongside his upcoming film, there are projects running the gamut — from Reservation Dogs, the series about four Indigenous teenagers in Oklahoma that aired for three seasons on FX, to Rutherford Falls, the Michael Greyeyes-starring comedy written by Indigenous comedian Jana Schmieding. And then there are this year's Canadian Screen Awards-nominated titles North of North, Don't Even and Bones of Crows. Those projects are paired with Indigenous talent stepping in front of the camera, from Season 4 of True Detective, to Indigenous stars in series Dark Winds, American Primeval and Alaska Daily. Perhaps most notable is Lily Gladstone, who became the first Indigenous woman to be nominated for a best actress Academy Award — and the first to win a Golden Globe — for her turn in Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon. As to why we're seeing the swell now, Indigenous filmmaker and actor Jennifer Podemski said there are multiple reasons. The first could be historically laid groundwork. As Podemski has spoken about in the past, Indigenous-led productions often included mentorship programs, designed to train up-and-coming Indigenous creators to be ready to launch their own careers. That, she said, has paired with a shifted lens from decision-makers. Specifically, after the 2020 murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, studios changed how they looked for talent. WATCH | Filmmaker and actor Jennifer Podemski on Indigenous resilience: Filmmaker/Actor Jennifer Podemski on Indigenous resilience 7 months ago Duration 1:46 Filmmaker and veteran actor Jennifer Podemski sat down with Tom Power to discuss her new series, Little Bird, how the story resonates with her own family history and making a production company that tells Indigenous stories with authenticity. "When people are casting for movies, they're more inclined to question ... 'Am I on the right side of history here, or am I perpetuating harmful narratives?'" Podemski said of the shift following Floyd's murder. "People became a little bit more aware of the steps that they were taking, and that's why we were seeing more Indigenous people on screen, maybe, where we wouldn't otherwise have seen them." Centralized source of funding As for the shift behind the camera and north of the border, Podemski credits that more to executive changes — specifically to the Indigenous Screen Office (ISO), which was created in 2017-18. While it began as an advocacy group, in 2021, the ISO began receiving federal funding earmarked for distribution to any Indigenous-led production headed to the screen. Kristy Assu, its director of funding programs, said that outreach has been furthered now that the ISO receives permanent government funding — including about $65 million to be distributed over the next five years. And starting this year, the ISO will administer the Canadian Media Fund's Indigenous Program, which allocates roughly $10 million annually to Indigenous-led productions. That sets up the ISO as a centralized source of funding for Indigenous creators in Canada, which has never happened before, Assu said. As a filmmaker herself, she said the change helps to break down systemic obstacles in the industry: While the Canadian Media Fund's Indigenous Program existed previously, there was "very little to access" — even more so for emerging, unestablished filmmakers, she said. "I think that's why we're seeing this huge surge in [Indigenous] filmmakers," Assu said. "Because there's access to funding now, there's support. People can make a living on being a creative in this industry." As well, with Indigenous people allocating the funding themselves, rather than through an intermediary organization, a more central issue emerges: narrative sovereignty. The term refers to a group able to choose how it's represented — and in a larger sense determine how it's perceived by society at large. That has been an especially entrenched issue in this country; the very concept and word "documentary" was first coined by National Film Board of Canada founder John Grierson in his review of American filmmaker Robert Flaherty's 1926 movie Moana. Both that film and his earlier Inuit-focused Nanook of the North — widely considered to be the first commercially successful documentary — used Indigenous people as their subjects. Particularly in Nanook, Flaherty's work has come under increasing scrutiny for staged scenes and general inaccuracies, with its widespread success continuing to reinforce romanticized and stereotypical aspects of a people who were unable to establish their own identity through film. 'Cost of carelessness' "Because of filmmakers like Flaherty, we've seen the damage wrought by policies built on visual misrepresentation, salvage ethnography, and the lines of ownership that become purposefully blurred by others extracting our own images," Indigenous filmmaker Adam Piron wrote for the International Documentary Association about Nanook. "For Indigenous artists, there's an added weight to engaging with the moving image because we know the cost of carelessness." An entrenched and inaccurate depiction of Indigenous people and their stories, Lightning said, led to decades of period pieces he described as "leathers and feathers" — productions that utilized pop culture ideas of various Indigenous groups, while barring those people from input into how their stories should actually be told. At the same time, there has been consistent pushback, such as Toronto-born Indigenous actor D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, who starred in Reservation Dogs, attending the 2024 Emmy Awards with a red handprint on his face. The makeup was intended to bring attention to missing and murdered Indigenous women, and, according to the organization Native Hope, "the silence of the media and law enforcement in the midst of this crisis." Lightning said that rebellious streak has only increased in recent years. "I want our younger generations in this industry to push boundaries, make people feel a little uncomfortable at times," he said. "That's good. I'm looking forward to that. Those are the filmmakers I wanna see." And while territorial sovereignty — the ability to decide on laws within proscribed borders — is a topic often touched on for Indigenous people in Canada, Podemski said the right and ability to control how, and which, stories are told about them is also of huge importance. As an example, she told the story of how just the day before, a passport agent made an offhand complaint about her getting "stuff for free" after seeing her Indigenous status card — a discriminatory response that a 2022 study by the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs found 99 per cent of Indigenous respondents had experienced. The team behind North of North on making TV magic in the Canadian Arctic 5 months ago Duration 2:49 Actor Anna Lambe and the co-creators of the new CBC co-production North of North talk to the CBC's Eli Glasner about how the Iqaluit community came together to bring the heartwarming comedy to life. Podemski said she spent the next 20 minutes speaking about that stereotype to the agent, who said apologetically that she simply hadn't heard the historical context before. "Afterwards I thought, 'You know what? This is why I do what I do,'" Podemski said. "Because if we take up space on the screen, and if we help people to understand a little bit more about who we are in our own communities and in our own experiences, then maybe they won't write us off as easily as they do."
Winnipeg Free Press
2 days ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Fans criticize Beyoncé for shirt calling Native Americans ‘the enemies of peace'
A T-shirt worn by Beyoncé during a Juneteenth performance on her 'Cowboy Carter' tour has sparked a discussion over how Americans frame their history and caused a wave of criticism for the Houston-born superstar. The T-shirt worn during a concert in Paris featured images of the Buffalo Soldiers, who belonged to Black U.S. Army units active during the late 1800s and early 1900s. On the back was a lengthy description of the soldiers that included 'Their antagonists were the enemies of peace, order and settlement: warring Indians, bandits, cattle thieves, murderous gunmen, bootleggers, trespassers, and Mexican revolutionaries.' Images of the shirt and videos of the performance are also featured on Beyoncé's website. As she prepares to return to the U.S. for performances in her hometown this weekend, fans and Indigenous influencers took to social media to criticize Beyoncé for framing Native Americans and Mexican revolutionaries as anything but the victims of American imperialism and promoting anti-Indigenous language. A publicist for Beyoncé did not respond to requests for comment. Who were the Buffalo Soldiers? The Buffalo Soldiers served in six military units created after the Civil War in 1866. They were comprised formerly enslaved men, freemen, and Black Civil War soldiers and fought in hundreds of conflicts — including in the Spanish-American War, World War I, and World War II — until they were disbanded in 1951. As the quote on Beyoncé's shirt notes, they also fought numerous battles against Indigenous peoples as part of the U.S. Army's campaign of violence and land theft during the country's westward expansion. Some historians say the moniker 'Buffalo Soldiers' was bestowed by the tribes who admired the bravery and tenacity of the fighters, but that might be more legend than fact. 'At the end of the day, we really don't have that kind of information,' said Cale Carter, director of exhibitions at the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum in Houston. Carter and other museum staff said that, only in the past few years, the museum made broader efforts to include more of the complexities of the battles the Buffalo Soldiers fought against Native Americans and Mexican revolutionaries and the role they played in the subjugation of Indigenous peoples. They, much like many other museums across the country, are hoping to add more nuance to the framing of American history and be more respectful of the ways they have caused harm to Indigenous communities. 'We romanticize the Western frontier,' he said. 'The early stories that talked about the Buffalo Soldiers were impacted by a lot of those factors. So you really didn't see a changing in that narrative until recently.' There has often been a lack of diverse voices discussing the way Buffalo Soldiers history is framed, said Michelle Tovar, the museum's director of education. The current political climate has put enormous pressure on schools, including those in Texas, to avoid honest discussions about American history, she said. 'Right now, in this area, we are getting push back from a lot of school districts in which we can't go and teach this history,' Tovar said. 'We are a museum where we can at least be a hub, where we can invite the community regardless of what districts say, invite them to learn it and do what we can do the outreach to continue to teach honest history.' Historians scrutinize reclamation motive Beyoncé's recent album 'Act II: Cowboy Carter' has played on a kind of American iconography, which many see as her way of subverting the country music genre's adjacency to whiteness and reclaiming the cowboy aesthetic for Black Americans. Last year, she became the first Black woman ever to top Billboard's country music chart, and 'Cowboy Carter' won her the top prize at the 2025 Grammy Awards, album of the year. 'The Buffalo Soldiers play this major role in the Black ownership of the American West,' said Tad Stoermer, a historian and professor at Johns Hopkins University. 'In my view, (Beyoncé is) well aware of the role that these images play. This is the 'Cowboy Carter' tour for crying out loud. The entire tour, the entire album, the entire piece is situated in this layered narrative.' But Stoermer also points out that the Buffalo Soldier have been framed in the American story in a way that also plays into the myths of American nationalism. As Beyoncé's use of Buffalo Soldiers imagery implies, Black Americans also use their story to claim agency over their role in the creation of the country, said Alaina E. Roberts, a historian, author and professor at Pittsburgh University who studies the intersection of Black and Native American life from the Civil War to present day. 'That's the category in which she thought maybe she was coming into this conversation, but the Buffalo Soldiers are even a step above that because they were literally involved in not just the settlement of the West but of genocide in a sense,' she said. Online backlash builds ahead of Houston shows Several Native influencers, performers, and academics took to social media this week to criticize Beyoncé or call the language on her shirt anti-Indigenous. 'Do you think Beyoncé will apologize (or acknowledge) the shirt,' an Indigenous news and culture Instagram account with more than 130,000, asked in a post Thursday. Many of her critics, as well as fans, agree. A flood of social media posts called out the pop star for the historic framing on the shirt. 'The Buffalo Soldiers are an interesting historical moment to look at. But we have to be honest about what they did, especially in their operations against Indigenous Americans and Mexicans,' said Chisom Okorafor, who posts on TikTok under the handle @confirmedsomaya. Okorafor said there is no 'progressive' way to reclaim America's history of empire building in the West, and that Beyoncé's use of Western symbolism sends a problematic message. 'Which is that Black people too can engage in American nationalism,' she said. 'Black people too can profit from the atrocities of American empire. It is a message that tells you to abandon immigrants, Indigenous people, and people who live outside of the United States. It is a message that tells you not only is it a virtue to have been born in this country but the longer your line extends in this country the more virtuous you are.'
