I've reported before on the effort to make a movie about the
Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians. Here's a note showing how difficult it is to make a Native-themed movie:
Hiawatha DiaryAs many of our support system already know, funding for Hiawatha Diary has proven to be a challenge--basically due to unrealistic demands by investors. One investor asked that we "trade out Indians for black people to make the movie more marketable." Another demanded palm trees around the asylum. Yet another requested that the producers "introduce him to a nice Indian woman he could marry" in exchange for the exact amount of funding.
Needless to say, money has been handed back more than once. While this has thrown us off schedule, it has not dampened our resolve.Comment: Yeah, because movies with a large cast of insane black people have a great track record. Especially if the lunatics frolic in tropical locales with palm trees.
These investors don't sound too bright.
Let's look at a recent example of replacing Indians with blacks.
Robinson Crusoe the book: three centuries of publishing success with Friday the Indian.
Crusoe the NBC series: canceled after 13 episodes with Friday the black man. Oops!
For more on the subject, see
Update on Hiawatha Diary and
The Best Indian Movies.
P.S. Thanks to correspondent DMarks for bringing this page to my attention.
4 comments:
More marketable? To who? Fascinating, given how many movies about Black people dont get anywhere because there aren't enough whites. Like when Danny Glover had to hit up Hugo Chavez for cash for his movie about Toussaint L'Ouverture and the Haitian Revolution. Hollywood suits kept saying that movie didn't have enough sympathetic white characters. In a movie about a slave revolt, go figure...
This film is having the same funding issues most Native-Themed films have. Once again: If the tribes don't get involved in partnering in films the story stays the same.
If you can only make your movie if you get funding from an antisemitic fascist dictator, maybe the movie is not worth making.
You can see a clip of Toussaint's last moments in prison from the new short film "The Last Days of Toussaint L'Ouverture" at http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2468184/ This short film is the basis for a new feature (not with Danny Glover) that is in development.
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