Another reason making the Northern Water Tribe misogynistic was an interesting choice to say the very least is like,
Okay so neither men or women are considered inherently superior or inferior in Inupiaq culture but if either of them is gonna be considered to be a bit on the dumb or wimpy side, it’s probably gonna be the men. Especially the younger ones.
Like if you had to give up a kid for adoption, you were gonna want to give up a girl. Because boys were more likely to do something that could get themselves killed, even when told not to. So you were gonna want some back up sons. And boys always complained about being hungry more, when girls could supposedly handle just smelling food and be strong enough to wait. And of course, a man who had reached marrying age had to be judged fit to be a husband, but a woman who knew all her domestic skills could just up and leave for the next village to find a suitable husband (or five) and no one would stop her. The ideal wife was not someone who always agreed that her husband knew best, but someone he could look at and be filled with pride that a woman so clever and capable chose to live with him.
Women would sit through their arms being tattooed, knuckle to shoulder, without modern technology, ignoring the pain because the lines on their bodies were pretty to them. That was considered feminine.
So again, kinda weird how such a culture irl can inspire people to write a fantasy one that treats women and women’s work so dismissively.
2. Things Are Looking Native, Native’s Looking Whiter
3. Inert
4-6. Imaginary Indian
7. White Carver
8. Video stills from ’Beat Nation’
9-10. I think it goes like this?
Artist Statement:
I work with concepts; the medium follows. In the business of this “Indian Art World,” I have become impatient with the institutional prescription and its monolithic attempt to define culture as it unfolds. Native American Art cannot be commonly defined as our work moves freely through time. The viewer, collector, or curators’ definition will often convey more about themselves than that of the “Native Artist.” In the past I have struggled with this title, though I now embrace my position as a contemporary indigenous artist with belief that some forms of resistance often carry equal amounts of persistence. My current collection of work presents visual experiences in hope of inspiring creative dialogue with the viewer. I often work with an intention to contribute towards contemporary cultural development. Through education and creative risk-taking, I hope to progress cultural awareness both in and out of this Indigenous world. Let us leave fucked up stereotypes. While moving forward, we liberate the Indian artist.
Since the 1800s in Canada, the churches tricked indigenous peoples following their cultural and spiritual traditions, shamed them and punished them for their cultural and spiritual traditions, almost wiped out almost their entire language and culture, sexually and verbally and emotionally abused Indigenous children in residential schools, and all the Anglican Church of Canada can do is say “sorry”.
Like it says in the article, the damage has been done. In my culture, we don’t even know much about our spirituality. All shamans were called “witches”, our fucking totem poles were burned or taken away from our land because the church thought they were idols and indigenous peoples should follow and respect the rules of god.
Do y’all have any idea how smart Indigenous peoples were before contact?
All indigenous groups had their own languages, doctors, hierarchy, art work, music, architecture, medicine, teachers, and more. Indigenous groups weren’t dumb at all when colonizers came, they had their own societies before contact. Then adapting their societies to fit a colonizer’s world, and now trying to revive their cultures and languages in today’s society, if Indigenous groups aren’t smart then I don’t know who is.
It’s time the TAZ fandom talked about Kardala fanart
In light of Sarah Z’s new McElroy video, I’d really like to highlight a certain section regarding Kardala that I believe could be expanded on. Due to her focus on McElroys in the video and Justin’s racism regarding Kardala, I think it’s very important to mention that it was not just him who contributed to her stereotyping. Fans had also played a significant role in spreading Justin’s racist stereotypes.
I’m specifically talking about traditional Inuit tattoos drawn by artists who are not Inuit, and how I ask these artists to stay away from giving Kardala/Irene and other Inuit characters these tattoos in the future. I speak as an Inuk who lived in Nunavut and around my culture for a good portion of my earlier life, but I am also just one person. Other Inuit, Yup’ik and Aleut fans may hold different opinions, so please respect that.
I highly recommend that you watch Sarah Z’s new video first. If not the whole video, then at least the section 1:21:16 – 1:22:45 for an explanation on how racist Kardala was in canon. She spoke on it pretty well and I’m glad she decided to include it. I will add the link to the video in a reblog.
Quick disclaimer: please do not seek out any artists who may have made art depicting Kardala in an unfavourable way. I will be using art shown in Sarah Z’s video to illustrate my point, but I do not condone any harassment. The artist has since learned and I appreciate him taking the time to edit his original post, and I extend this to any artist who may have drawn in ignorance in the past. I hold no ill will to these artists, and I hope no one else does either.
TL;DR: Drawing traditional tattoos on Kardala when you’re not a part of the culture is racist and holds an immense amount of baggage to it. Ignorant art, even when old, can still have an impact on the present and can bring issues if not addressed.
For a little bit of background: traditional Inuit tattoos, referred to as tunniit for the rest of this post, are a cultural practice in many Inuit cultures that had almost been wiped out by Christian missionaries. They are an immensely personal form of documentation of one’s life, heritage and/or achievements, with meanings varying from region to region, family to family, person to person
The current revival of tunniit is still incredibly new. It is a reclamation of a practice that Inuit can never truly get back, for so many designs and meanings have been purposely wiped out, that not even many Inuit can get due to stigma in Christianity and the workforce. It’s because of this that the specific practice of tunniit is closed to outsiders of the cultures.
When artists who aren’t Inuit would put tunniit on Kardala, they did not comprehend what those lines mean. They simply can’t. They’d google these tattoos and copy them off of whatever black-and-white image of real Inuk women they saw, oblivious to the incredibly personal meanings they have meant to each individual, and slapped them onto a meat-crazed eskimo caricature. Or, and I can’t tell if this is worse, they make up their own fun designs, lines and squiggles that are their own caricature, a mockery of a practice we can’t properly reclaim, devoid of any meaning beyond faux “accuracy” or “aesthetic.” It is a terrible move to put such a sacred, newly-revived practice onto a character who was made with such awful stereotypes planted into her from the start.
[ID: A digital drawing of Irene and Kardala from TAZ: Commitment. Irene is a chubby Inuk woman with light brown skin and shoulder length, dark brown hair, and wears a grey blazer and a pencil skirt. She stands idly and glances to the side with a neutral expression. Kardala is a taller, muscular Inuk woman with light brown skin and shoulder length white hair that flows around her. She’s wearing a sleeveless black shirt and has her back facing the viewer with her head turned to the right. Her eyes glow white and her is mouth opened in an enraged expression. White lightning comes out of Kardala’s outstretched arms. Both women have triangular tattoos on their foreheads, cheeks, and chins, along with tattooed lines on their fingers. Kardala’s tattoos glow a bright white. End ID.] credit to a now informed artist, @galway-bae (note: the issues i will bring up in the next paragraph dont all apply to the art above, but are close enough i grouped them together.)
There was also a problem of using the tunniit as a sign of otherworldly power or the feeling of ancientness. Artists would place these tattoos on Kardala, along with putting her in our traditional parkas and regalia, while usually giving Irene “modern” clothing and completely disregarding putting tunniit on her unless it connected to her powers/Kardala. This action mystifies our culture and sets them as “magical” and “primitive” compared to the “normal” and “civilized” European culture. It also disconnects Irene from her own practices and culture, while simultaneously allowing people to access our most personal practice. This mirrors exactly what Justin did when canonically disconnecting Irene from her culture while also using a real life deity as inspiration for Kardala.
I know it feels strange to be mentioning all of this nearly four years after the fact. It was four years of “no bummers,” four years of holding in a grudge that I felt I could never bring up due to how long it has been since Commitment aired. But even when Sarah Z discussed Justin’s racism in her video, she placed the above art without criticism or any mention of tunniit, and I had to be reminded that people did not know that the fandom also heavily contributed to this racist caricature. That it wasn’t just Justin McElroy who made the Commitment era one of the worst times to be an Inuk TAZ fan. Old art can still be brought up in the present, and can still hurt, and that’s why I wanted to address it now. Better late than never.
Small detail I couldn’t fit elsewhere: there is an exception to those who aren’t Inuit drawing tunniit. If you are drawing Inuit with tunniit in real life or are drawing Inuit characters who canonically have tunniit, please do not remove them. They are a vital part of our identity, and if an Inuk made that character have tunniit, those meanings probably hold significance to both the character and the creator. Removing them takes away all of that.
I don’t expect artists to go back and delete any artwork depicting Kardala with tunniit. Nor do I expect artists to stop drawing her with tunniit, since I haven’t seen many artists drawing her this year to begin with lol. But I sincerely hope this post allows people to think about their decisions in drawing Inuit characters in the future, and to remember that the racism in TAZ wasn’t just spread by the McElroys alone.
Thank you for reading, and please take this as a teaching moment to bring with you in the future.
its not a “native version of nonbinary” or a “native version of bigender”
thats not what it means, that’s not what it’s ever meant
two spirit is an pan-tribal term coined by indigenous people in 1990, for indigenous people, to replace the term berdache, an offensive term that white settlers applied to indigenous people that fell outside of the western lens of gender and sexuality
two spirit isnt a “native version of nonbinary” because two spirit doesnt inherently mean someone is nonbinary. some of us are, but so many two spirited people arent. many people in our community also choose specifically not to label themselves with terms like nonbinary, gay, bisexual, etc, and solely use two spirit or another term from their tribe or language
we can be anythingandeverythingandnothingyou’ve ever imagined
to say its a “native version of nonbinary” is not just inaccurate, it’s a complete erasure of a massive part of our community
