Reality of writer's life far from glamourous

Page 7

I don't know if any of you have heard, but it's not easy being a Native writer in this country. Oh, I know the images that are going through your head. You're thinking of all the rumors you've heard. The stories of the limousines, the scantily clad girls and guys, the all-night drumming parties, a buckskin suit for every day of the week, the fabulous homes with indoor lacrosse facilities. But I'm sorry, you can only have your nails buffed so many times before you get bored.

Just last week I was up at Tomson Highway's palatial estates on the shores of the tropical Lake Scugog. We were wondering aloud just what the poor Indians were doing this time of year. Oh, yes, and the spirits of Grey Owl, still trying to be Indian, and Pauline Johnson were floating about the hot tub, wishing they had a slice of the lucrative theatre and publishing industry we all enjoy today. Lee Maracle and Thomas King joined us a little later, roaring in on their vintage 1949 Indian Scout motorcycles. We spent the afternoon comparing our stock portfolios. Soup stock, that is.

That is an illusion. The reality is, if it weren't for Kraft Dinner, I wouldn't weigh anything at all. Most of us Aboriginal writers, like the majority of all writers in Canada, get by on what little money we can muster from our writings. Granted, I do occasionally work in one of the more lucrative fields of writing, screenplayers for television and film. But as the saying goes, it's a great job if you can get it.

My work there is far and in between, mostly by choice. In fact, I got out of the business for four years and starved as a playwright because of the perceptions and attitudes major film companies had toward Native people. That is why I have 47 different recipes for Kraft Dinner. My favor is Kraft Kabob.

My disenchantment with TV writing first started when I worked on the Street Legal series way back in the late 1980s. I had written a script for them that they were about to shoot. But first they had to send it off to one of their staff writers to add and shape the continuing story line about two of the lawyers having an affair. Fine and dandy with me. I understand the need to add continuity to a series like that. But I "accidentally" saw the memo the producer was sending with my script to the white writer.

He asked the writer to make my central character, an old man, "more Indian," whatever that meant to them. I was enraged, I was angry, I stole his stapler. Not really, but I wanted to do something. But the writer in TV has very little authority. We're sort of like the Parliamentary backbenchers of the industry.

Yes, this from a company that's created an empire from talking mice, ducks and dogs. Now, this type of mentality interests me. Of course this was all before the Great God Costner delivered his Movie on the Mount, Dances With Wolves. Now, as you know, we're in style, hip, vogue, whatever. Everybody and their grandmother wants to do something Indian, or even better have miraculously found the odd drop or two of Indian blood in them.

A couple of years ago, I was approached by the company of a famous Hollywood director who lives in Toronto. They were interested in adapting a short story about Indians into a feature film and they wanted to talk to me about it. We chatted, shmoozed, all the proper things to do, then as a favor, I wrote out sample scenes for them to look over. It was passed around the office and this one obviously successful and educated woman who hadn't met me commented that the scenes were fine but the characters didn't seem to talk or sound very "Indian." When she was told I was Native, she looked perplexed.

I began to wonder about this as I sat on the bus, on my way home to visit my family on the reserve I had grown up on for most of my life. I thought about the approximately 50 reserves across Canada and the States I have been lucky enough to visit. And on that bus, I had a major revelation.

Maybe I don't know how Indians talk. Mybe I'm too close to the subject matter. Maybe because white people look at us with this anthropological curiosity, they are better equipped to say what is Native and what isn't.

And if you believe that, I have some swamp land in the Muskokas.