I wonder how we would talk about cultural appropriation if we came from a non English-speaking culture that was maybe more used to being “appropriated” than appropriating, you know? Like I think there’s a confidence that comes with not worrying about being on either side of that equation.
I should note that I haven’t seen Predator since early childhood, and have never seen Prey, and that when I think of the whole appropriation issue, I think of people getting up in arms about non-Japanese people wearing kimono. Which is kind of its own topic, given Japan’s place in the dominant culture milieu.
I think you bring up an important and mostly ignored point. The entire concept of cultural appropriation is a very American way to view and classify culture. And the insistence that this is how we frame culture is often, to me, very colonial.
The Japanese kimono discourse is an interesting one, in part because westerners essentially try to speak for and police how Japanese people feel about this.
On the casting front--it seems also somewhat relevant that, of cast members I can find information on, none of them are Comanche (which, relatedly, makes the Comanche dub a bit odd--why would you have a dub featuring a bunch of non-native speakers?). Native American identities have been flattened to "Native American" (or even just "brown"), even though casting Amber Midthunder (a Lakota) as a Comanche would be like casting a Swede as Julius Caesar (something Americans probably wouldn't bat an eye at, as European ethnicities are similarly flattened to just "white").
Believe it or not, Midthunder might have been drilled in action, and she's just that bad at it. I was introduced to her in the FX show "Legion", where her action scenes are laughably bad (ex https://youtu.be/Lf4S9lQvIcM?t=84). She's much improved in Prey.
Ha! I sometimes feel mean for being so critical of American action choreography, since they simply don't do the amount of training needed for proper stunt fighting. The timelines are too tight and star power is so removed from physical ability.
Every Frame a Painting's video essay on Jackie Chan is very good at explaining the differences: https://youtu.be/Z1PCtIaM_GQ
Jun 20, 2023·edited Jun 20, 2023Liked by radicaledward
I recently heard a very liberal white person unfavorably comparing the Frozen music to the Moana music and it's pretty clear it was based on the color of the musical cast involved. Which obvi it's fine to prefer one soundtrack to the other...but they're both Disney movies. Moana didn't do anything groundbreaking because it's ostensibly Pacific rather than Nordic. IMO the far more innovative cultural product is Princess and the Frog. But it is still a product.
I have no disagreement with your conclusion at all, but I do want to say that I really enjoyed Prey. It wasn't the original -- Peak Arnlold! -- but it was really fun.
Oh yeah, I love Prey. I think Prey is probably a better movie than Predator and definitely more confidant in its execution, since it's not relying on star power even a little bit.
I'd personally consider the original better, but I also understand the context in which it was made. I was 12 or 13 when OG Predator came out, and it was incredibly innovative for a scifi film. Like, it invented whole new methods of making scary movies, and it was amazing.... but I'm also a product of that time, and I see it clearly through that lens.
One interesting thing to me about watching SF from the 80s and 90s as an adult is how much more they trusted their audiences and how lean the movies were. Not an ounce of bloat anywhere in Predator.
I think this is why Prey feels innovative to people even though it's a mirror of Predator. We're so accustomed to sloppy, overlong movies full of quippy dialogue, that seeing a movie just confidently be itself feels revolutionary.
Jun 20, 2023·edited Jun 20, 2023Liked by radicaledward
The men I knew in the Program were throw aways after it was uncovered. When Predator came out in 87 the actual scope of the Program was starting to be understood.
Of course, in 89 US launched "Just cause" in Panama--so the timing of Predator could have mixed the back stories of several "interventions."
I haven't seen Prey yet, but I appreciate this thoughtful essay. Hollywood does like to make things for "palatable" for their audience, which I would say is whitewashed. Why I have since decided to watch movies outside of US, where people are focused more on storytelling and their motifs, not caring about how the US market may perceive it. Also I love the Predator movies, what a stupid, silly good time.
Jun 21, 2023·edited Jun 21, 2023Liked by radicaledward
Love 'Prey.' Lots of thoughts on the movie and what it's doing. Will have to post multiple comments.
For now, I want to respond to this: "Other than that and what was, to me, a confusing way that she finally beat the predator—am I just too dumb to understand what happened? (I’m not complaining, just…what happened?)—the movie is great."
I think I know what you're talking about. (Feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken.) So, there is a plot point that's easy to miss towards the end there. And that's the effect of the orange flower medicine Naru makes. It's demonstrated with Raphael Adolini that the medicine actually lowers his body temperature to the point where the Predator can't actually see his heat signature.
Naru takes note that the Predator didn't see him until he stepped on him and caused the possum-playing Raphael to recoil in pain. So, she takes the medicine herself right before the final duel starts, which makes it hard for the Predator to see her and allows her to fight him more effectively.
In addition, she steals his targeting mask and tricks him into shooting her with the homing bolts without his 3-dot reticule. By pointing the reticule at him, she redirects his bolts into his head.
Welcome! Yeah, I needed a second viewing to connect some dots and actually notice Naru eating the flower mixture. Tbh, I actually like how the movie doesn't spell things out. But the details are all in there.
I don't actually know if you CAN make a Comanche film that's not through the prism of Hollywood? Just because, like, I think the medium itself forces you into a certain visual language that was mostly incubated in the US. OK, maybe you dig other film traditions and use Godard or whomever as your lodestar. But - and I'm not an expert here admittedly - I don't think there's an "authentically Comanche" cinematic tradition to draw from, is what I'm saying - it kind of has to take its formal cues from elsewhere.
WARNING!!!! HUGE GENERALIZATION INCOMING ABOUT A GAZILLION ETHNIC GROUPS I AM NOT A PART OF: This is not a bad thing per se! It sure seems to me that the more politically pointed a work of contemporary Native art, the more overt and almost playful it is in its syncretism. The late Jim Denomie comes to mind as someone whose work is so powerful in part because of the ways it draws from US pop culture and the broader Western fine art tradition. Or, IDK, everything about Reservation Dogs, down to its title. If you're looking to challenge the worldview wherein "the Indian" is a vanquished symbol of America's mythical past, rather than a player in our impoverished present - well, just making kachina dolls ain't gonna cut it.
Your comment perfectly illustrates the flaw in cultural appropriation as an idea, I think. And that's what I tried to lay out here too.
But first: while Native people may not have an authentic (another fraught idea) or homegrown cinematic language, they do have their own storytelling tradition. I think you could dive back into this to tell something new. Even a predator story.
But cultural appropriation: who does Predator belong to? Native Americans grew up with Predator just as much as I did. One of my good friends is Lakota, for example, and we loved and shared all the same art, and continue to. Predator and X-Files is as much his as it is mine because culture is like air - it belongs to no one, to everyone. We can try to draw lines around it and contain it, but it's gonna spill out and all over.
Part of the difficulty of declaring something "authentic" has to do with this porous nature. Like, Tex Mex is authentic to people. Tikka Masala is a British dish rather than an Indian one. Kurosawa's samurai came out of Ford's cowboys and became Leone's cowboys, which in turn influenced westerns and cyberpunk and SF and so on. One of the best ever westerns was made in Korea with another real good one made in Australia.
So is the western still American? Is it Japanese? Is it Italian? Is it none? All?
I'm a sucker for fluffy, mindless movies when the world - or at least the US - is on fire (ok, granted it's been pretty much on fire since the Orange Turd arrived on the scene) and I need a distraction. This is a round a bout way of saying I'm currently binge watching the Twilight movies on Hulu. It's been years since I've seen Predator, I'll have to give it a re watch soon.
I wonder how we would talk about cultural appropriation if we came from a non English-speaking culture that was maybe more used to being “appropriated” than appropriating, you know? Like I think there’s a confidence that comes with not worrying about being on either side of that equation.
I should note that I haven’t seen Predator since early childhood, and have never seen Prey, and that when I think of the whole appropriation issue, I think of people getting up in arms about non-Japanese people wearing kimono. Which is kind of its own topic, given Japan’s place in the dominant culture milieu.
A+ use of “badbutt”. Game recognize game.
ha!
I think you bring up an important and mostly ignored point. The entire concept of cultural appropriation is a very American way to view and classify culture. And the insistence that this is how we frame culture is often, to me, very colonial.
The Japanese kimono discourse is an interesting one, in part because westerners essentially try to speak for and police how Japanese people feel about this.
"The entire concept of cultural appropriation is a very American way to view and classify culture."
Point on.
Let's not get started about what the Japanese think about it as you and I know they probably don't. At all. LOL.
On the casting front--it seems also somewhat relevant that, of cast members I can find information on, none of them are Comanche (which, relatedly, makes the Comanche dub a bit odd--why would you have a dub featuring a bunch of non-native speakers?). Native American identities have been flattened to "Native American" (or even just "brown"), even though casting Amber Midthunder (a Lakota) as a Comanche would be like casting a Swede as Julius Caesar (something Americans probably wouldn't bat an eye at, as European ethnicities are similarly flattened to just "white").
Believe it or not, Midthunder might have been drilled in action, and she's just that bad at it. I was introduced to her in the FX show "Legion", where her action scenes are laughably bad (ex https://youtu.be/Lf4S9lQvIcM?t=84). She's much improved in Prey.
Ha! I sometimes feel mean for being so critical of American action choreography, since they simply don't do the amount of training needed for proper stunt fighting. The timelines are too tight and star power is so removed from physical ability.
Every Frame a Painting's video essay on Jackie Chan is very good at explaining the differences: https://youtu.be/Z1PCtIaM_GQ
I recently heard a very liberal white person unfavorably comparing the Frozen music to the Moana music and it's pretty clear it was based on the color of the musical cast involved. Which obvi it's fine to prefer one soundtrack to the other...but they're both Disney movies. Moana didn't do anything groundbreaking because it's ostensibly Pacific rather than Nordic. IMO the far more innovative cultural product is Princess and the Frog. But it is still a product.
Firm agree on Princess and the Frog.
Don't encourage her!
I have no disagreement with your conclusion at all, but I do want to say that I really enjoyed Prey. It wasn't the original -- Peak Arnlold! -- but it was really fun.
Oh yeah, I love Prey. I think Prey is probably a better movie than Predator and definitely more confidant in its execution, since it's not relying on star power even a little bit.
I'd personally consider the original better, but I also understand the context in which it was made. I was 12 or 13 when OG Predator came out, and it was incredibly innovative for a scifi film. Like, it invented whole new methods of making scary movies, and it was amazing.... but I'm also a product of that time, and I see it clearly through that lens.
One interesting thing to me about watching SF from the 80s and 90s as an adult is how much more they trusted their audiences and how lean the movies were. Not an ounce of bloat anywhere in Predator.
I think this is why Prey feels innovative to people even though it's a mirror of Predator. We're so accustomed to sloppy, overlong movies full of quippy dialogue, that seeing a movie just confidently be itself feels revolutionary.
I loved the very limited dialogue in Prey. I think they went like 30 minutes with zero words. Beautiful!
Definitely. That's part of what I mean by its confidence. Just boldly telling its story the way it wants.
If you write more about 80s movies and how they are compared to today, I will be in!
The Phoenix Program, not known by today's readers much--may illuminate some things.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Program
I imagine the movie took a lot of inspiration from the Phoenix Program, though it takes place in an unnamed South American country.
The men I knew in the Program were throw aways after it was uncovered. When Predator came out in 87 the actual scope of the Program was starting to be understood.
Of course, in 89 US launched "Just cause" in Panama--so the timing of Predator could have mixed the back stories of several "interventions."
Yeah, which does make it interestingly bold and transgressive.
I haven't seen Prey yet, but I appreciate this thoughtful essay. Hollywood does like to make things for "palatable" for their audience, which I would say is whitewashed. Why I have since decided to watch movies outside of US, where people are focused more on storytelling and their motifs, not caring about how the US market may perceive it. Also I love the Predator movies, what a stupid, silly good time.
Yeah, despite the US market being so dominant and important for financial success, it's very provincial
The audacity of them thinking they're the shizzles. lol
Love 'Prey.' Lots of thoughts on the movie and what it's doing. Will have to post multiple comments.
For now, I want to respond to this: "Other than that and what was, to me, a confusing way that she finally beat the predator—am I just too dumb to understand what happened? (I’m not complaining, just…what happened?)—the movie is great."
I think I know what you're talking about. (Feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken.) So, there is a plot point that's easy to miss towards the end there. And that's the effect of the orange flower medicine Naru makes. It's demonstrated with Raphael Adolini that the medicine actually lowers his body temperature to the point where the Predator can't actually see his heat signature.
Naru takes note that the Predator didn't see him until he stepped on him and caused the possum-playing Raphael to recoil in pain. So, she takes the medicine herself right before the final duel starts, which makes it hard for the Predator to see her and allows her to fight him more effectively.
In addition, she steals his targeting mask and tricks him into shooting her with the homing bolts without his 3-dot reticule. By pointing the reticule at him, she redirects his bolts into his head.
Ah, perfect! That clears things up substantially
Welcome! Yeah, I needed a second viewing to connect some dots and actually notice Naru eating the flower mixture. Tbh, I actually like how the movie doesn't spell things out. But the details are all in there.
Agreed. There's a real confidence to the filmmaking that I appreciated.
I don't actually know if you CAN make a Comanche film that's not through the prism of Hollywood? Just because, like, I think the medium itself forces you into a certain visual language that was mostly incubated in the US. OK, maybe you dig other film traditions and use Godard or whomever as your lodestar. But - and I'm not an expert here admittedly - I don't think there's an "authentically Comanche" cinematic tradition to draw from, is what I'm saying - it kind of has to take its formal cues from elsewhere.
WARNING!!!! HUGE GENERALIZATION INCOMING ABOUT A GAZILLION ETHNIC GROUPS I AM NOT A PART OF: This is not a bad thing per se! It sure seems to me that the more politically pointed a work of contemporary Native art, the more overt and almost playful it is in its syncretism. The late Jim Denomie comes to mind as someone whose work is so powerful in part because of the ways it draws from US pop culture and the broader Western fine art tradition. Or, IDK, everything about Reservation Dogs, down to its title. If you're looking to challenge the worldview wherein "the Indian" is a vanquished symbol of America's mythical past, rather than a player in our impoverished present - well, just making kachina dolls ain't gonna cut it.
Your comment perfectly illustrates the flaw in cultural appropriation as an idea, I think. And that's what I tried to lay out here too.
But first: while Native people may not have an authentic (another fraught idea) or homegrown cinematic language, they do have their own storytelling tradition. I think you could dive back into this to tell something new. Even a predator story.
But cultural appropriation: who does Predator belong to? Native Americans grew up with Predator just as much as I did. One of my good friends is Lakota, for example, and we loved and shared all the same art, and continue to. Predator and X-Files is as much his as it is mine because culture is like air - it belongs to no one, to everyone. We can try to draw lines around it and contain it, but it's gonna spill out and all over.
Part of the difficulty of declaring something "authentic" has to do with this porous nature. Like, Tex Mex is authentic to people. Tikka Masala is a British dish rather than an Indian one. Kurosawa's samurai came out of Ford's cowboys and became Leone's cowboys, which in turn influenced westerns and cyberpunk and SF and so on. One of the best ever westerns was made in Korea with another real good one made in Australia.
So is the western still American? Is it Japanese? Is it Italian? Is it none? All?
Or is this the wrong question?
I liked reading your cultural appropriation article very much! Thank you!
I'm a sucker for fluffy, mindless movies when the world - or at least the US - is on fire (ok, granted it's been pretty much on fire since the Orange Turd arrived on the scene) and I need a distraction. This is a round a bout way of saying I'm currently binge watching the Twilight movies on Hulu. It's been years since I've seen Predator, I'll have to give it a re watch soon.
Ha, yeah, there's a real comfort to returning to familiar worlds!
I wrote about that before:
https://radicaledward.substack.com/p/the-classics-are-an-escape?utm_campaign=post_embed