PREDATOR VS PREY GIFTED LESSON MANUAL
PREDATOR VS PREY GIFTED LESSON FULL
PREDATOR VS PREY GIFTED LESSON SERIES

She points to teen comedy Reservation Dogs – co-created by Seminole film-maker Sterlin Harjo with Taika Waititi – and her own role in X-Men spin-off Legion, where her mutant character’s Native heritage is mentioned but not defining.

(Billy, the laconic point man in the original Predator played by the part-Cherokee actor Sonny Landham, was in that vein.) “Only recently are we getting projects that have Native characters afforded things like personalities and relationships, and be seen in urban societies,” says Midthunder.

PREDATOR VS PREY GIFTED LESSON SERIES

She compares the situation to that of her actor father, David Midthunder, who was offered only a series of what she calls “feathers and leathers” roles: trackers, hunters and scouts. Midthunder believes that Native American opportunities on screen are slowly expanding. Oh, it would be too hard.’ So I want to shift that paradigm.” “A lot of times when you try to add Native content or correct things in a script, you come up against: ‘Oh, we don’t have the budget for that. She still sees the same kind of corner-cutting. She concedes that film was respectfully done, but points out that the subtitled Lakota was often completely mistranslated. A friend of hers says that Hollywood discovers Native Americans every 20 years two rounds back saw perhaps the most prominent example, Kevin Costner’s Dances With Wolves. When Indigenous people look for films in which they feel well-represented, there are only “bits and pieces” in the canon that do the job. From the earliest westerns, Native Americans have been, in her eyes, “romanticised by people that really didn’t know our culture”. Myers says she moved into producing in order to change “everything” about the way Hollywood depicted her people. But if my name is Naru, and I have fight and I have that kind of spirit, I know what that’s like, right?” If I’m Native Woman No 1, I don’t know what that feels like. “It gave the actors more spirit to get into their character. She also objected to the practice of giving Indigenous characters generic names, such as Comanche No 1 even the most disposable of French trappers got to enjoy being called the likes of Rambert in the three seconds before they were eviscerated by the Predator. But Myers felt she should be named for what she did in this case, “fight”. Naru was originally named Kee, which means “no” in the tribe’s language. Working alongside Juanita Pahdopony, another Comanche educator, Myers’ influence helped reshape the script from the inside out.

Jhane Myers, who helped reshape the script from the inside out. To match up to these illustrious predecessors, Midthunder, along with the rest of the cast, attended the Native American version of the now-traditional Hollywood bootcamp, learning archery, tomahawk and spear-fighting. But in fact, Myers points out, there are many precedents in Native American history, including Buffalo Calf Road Woman, who killed General Custer, according to some sources, and the Apache warrior Lozen. The plot device of a young woman who wants to break custom and become a warrior sounds like a modern concoction.

PREDATOR VS PREY GIFTED LESSON MANUAL

Myers compiled a hefty manual of Comanche customs that Prey’s various production departments could make reference to: everything from the earth pigments used to make the tribe’s signature black, red and white colours, to how they cured meat. But when you’re there in person and hands-on, it makes a big difference.” “If somebody’s a consultant, they’re not on there full-time – maybe they’re on the phone or whatever.

PREDATOR VS PREY GIFTED LESSON FULL

You can voice that, but doesn’t always mean that’s going to happen.” Having full producer status on Prey was a major step up, she says. “A director may have something written, and that’s just the way it’s going to be whether it’s true or not. The kind of cultural consultancy work she had done before on the likes of The Lone Ranger and Wind River can be limited in scope, she says. “He said talking to me was like talking to the grownup Naru,” says Myers. With her CV – Comanche and Blackfoot advocate, traditional artist and craftsperson, and world-champion buckskin dancer – she reminded him of the film’s resourceful protagonist.

She was hired by the director, Dan Trachtenberg, to ensure this frontier sci-fi remained grounded in Native American reality. That this Hollywood-produced film doesn’t step into any cultural mantraps is down to its Comanche producer, Jhane Myers.

Predator vs prey gifted lesson