Glen Gould in Cashing In

Glen Gould cashing in on opportunity with TV series

By Laura Jean GrantSeason two of Cashing In stars returning cast members like Gould, who plays John Eagle, as well as Eric Schweig as Mathew Tommy, Wesley French as Justin Tommy, Karen Holness as Liz McKendra, Sarah Podemski as Cheyenne Blueweed, and new additions to the cast like Tina Keeper as Aura Sphere, and Jennifer Baxter as Rebecca Craig. Blues musician Derek Miller and comedian Don Burnstick appear this season as themselves, following the success of Chantal Kreviazuk appearing in the first season.

“(Cashing In) revolves around a native-owned casino and the owner of the casino enterprise company and my character have a bit of history that goes 20 years before and involves a woman being stolen by one guy,” said Gould. “There’s a bunch of different storylines that follow different characters but the main part of the story is the guy that owns the casino ... he wants to expand the casino on to a wetland and my character deals in real estate so in order to get back at him he buys up the wetlands and he holds the lease for the land.”

The second season of the series was shot during the fall of 2009 in Winnipeg and rural Manitoba locations, and overall the experience has been phenomenal, according to Gould, who says the show boasts a terrific cast, producer and director.

The series has also allowed Gould the chance to hone more than his acting skills.

“I got to learn how to ride horses really good. I play a rancher so when I went out there the first time I really didn’t know how to ride that well but I had to become good enough so that I look like I spend all my time on horses,” he said.

Gould, who teaches in Eskasoni in addition to his acting career, has a couple of films lined up for the fall, and just completed a pilot for APTN called Escape Hatch shot in Montreal, and a short film, Filed Under Miscellaneous, by Mi’kmaq filmmaker Jeff Barnaby.Comment:  For more on the subject, see TV Shows Featuring Indians.

Below:  "Glen Gould plays wealthy rancher John Eagle in the television series Cashing In." (Submitted by RoseAnna Schick)

Stars join Cashing In

'Cashing In' welcomes four new stars

Tina Keeper, musician Derek Miller among season 2 additions

By Etan VlessingTina Keeper ("North of 60"), Don Burnstick, Jennifer Baxter and Blues musician Derek Miller have joined the second season cast of the Canadian TV soap "Cashing In" from Animiki See Digital Productions and Buffalo Gal Pictures.

They join a returning cast for the APTN half-hour dramedy about a fictional First Nations-run gambling palace in Manitoba that includes Eric Schweig, Wesley French, Karen Holness, Glen Gould and Sarah Podemski.Comment:  For more on the subject, see 2nd Season for Cashing In and Cashing In Reflects Native Humor.

2nd season for Cashing In

Cashing In Season Two Extras Casting CallThe APTN series Cashing In has started production of its 2nd season here in Winnipeg, and is having an open casting call for Aboriginal extras.

This half-hour dramatic comedy series is set in a fictional reservation, “Stonewalker” First Nation nestled comfortably beside an affluent beach community in Southern Manitoba, with a diverse cast of shark executives, smooth dealers, scheming slicksters and likable community members. Cashing In is filled with a star studded cast including Eric Schweig, Glen Gould, Sarah Podemski, and many more. This season will also include guest appearances by some of Canada’s most treasured Aboriginal artists including musician Derek Miller and Native comedian Don Burnstick.

This is a great opportunity to be a part of a true Canadian TV production!
Comment:  For more on the subject, see:

Cashing In reflects Native humor
Cashing In = Cosby Show?
No payoff in Cashing In
Cashing In on Canadian TV

Cashing In reflects Native humor

Cashing In

With a new series on Showcase, Aboriginal humour is going mainstreamMost of the mainstream TV dramas about native people are thoughtful but frequently bleak looks at a culture struggling with the after-effects of white colonization, like Moccasin Flats. But by far the most well known is North of 60 (1992–97), which starred Tina Keeper and Tom Jackson. First broadcast on and cbc and then syndicated around the world, it was lauded for exposing the reality of life in an isolated, winter-bound native community in the Northwest Territories. It left a lasting impression and influenced a generation of white and Aboriginal TV writers. But not everyone was a fan. After writing one episode, Ojibwa playwright and humorist Drew Hayden Taylor criticized the series in an article entitled “North of 60, South of Accurate.” “The consensus among most Native people was that Lynx River was the most depressing community in Canada,” says the forty-six-year-old Hayden Taylor, who lives on the Curve Lake reserve, northeast of Toronto. “Nobody ever laughed. It was like ‘What are they going to do to Tina Keeper this week?’ That show was very important, but what it lacked was the humour we have been using for years to survive the dark aspects of colonization.”

While there are lots of jokes about bingo, life on the reserve is largely ignored by the five novice native writers who wrote Cashing In as part of a joint training program between the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network and the National Screen Institute. The centre of the action is the opulently kitsch North Beach Casino, with its fake palm trees, blackjack tables, and beautiful people. There is some social commentary about compulsive gambling and the disparities between rich and poor natives, but overall the storylines are light and the tone goofy. “We’re playing with the assumptions people have about Aboriginal culture,” says Trevor Cameron, a Metis stand-up comic who started writing the comic animated children’s series Wapos Bay before working on Cashing In. “We don’t all use bedsheets for draperies. We have our own upper class.”More thoughts on Native humor:While writing about tony elites might be a stretch for Aboriginal storytellers, making people laugh isn’t. In fact, being funny has been an integral part of Aboriginal culture for centuries, although until recently this was lost on most white observers. Canadian satirist Stephen Leacock once described the native as “probably the least humorous character recorded in history . . . To crack his enemies’ skull with a hatchet was about the limit of the sense of fun of a Seneca or a Pottawottomie.”

Cashing In writer Mike Gosselin, a Metis from Saskatoon, believes humour is naturally present in cultures with strong oral traditions. Spinning a tall tale or telling a good joke is what native people do when they get together, he says: “It’s in the Aboriginal nature to make fun of each other and to tease and laugh heartily. There is nothing like going to visit people on the rez or sitting around with a mix of Metis, Aboriginal, even Inuit people. It’s incredible how many jokes there are.”

[Thomas King] once told a Globe and Mail reporter that natives are funny because they need the laughs. “I think it’s a survival strategy,” he said. “If life is so bad, you either kill yourself or you laugh. Colonized people can see humour as a strength, as a medicine.” Hayden Taylor, who edited Me Funny and directed Redskins, Tricksters and Puppy Stew, a documentary about the healing power of Aboriginal humour, agrees. Aboriginal people have used humour in the same way as Jews used vaudeville and black Americans stand-up, he says: “Humour kept us sane. It gave us power. It gave us privacy.”Comment:  Sherman Alexie made a similar point in a recent posting.

It's interesting how some people who tell Native stories get this and some don't. And it isn't limited to the obvious "Natives get it and non-Natives don't" breakdown. True, Native writers such as Alexie, King, and Taylor base much of their work on the Native sense of humor. But the non-Native writers of movies such as Little Big Man, Buffalo Bill and the Indians, and Thunderheart also show some of the eccentricity and humor in Native cultures.

For more on Cashing In, see Cashing In = Cosby Show? and No Payoff in Cashing In. For more on Native humor, see Event to Showcase Native Humor, All About Indian Humor, and Native vs. Non-Native Humor.

Cashing In = Cosby Show?

The big score

Cashing In offers a sexy slice of First Nations lifeAn unabashedly sexy soap, Cashing In ups the ante in First Nations programming with lots of glitz, glamour and greed. Don’t expect the gritty urban feel of Moccasin Flats or the earnest, plaid-shirted tone of North of 60. Set at a gaming palace on Stonewalker First Nation, a fictional southern Manitoba reserve, Cashing In is about good-looking people behaving badly.

The North Beach Casino is packed with high rollers, fast dealers, corporate sharks, bored wives, discontented daddy’s girls and local kids on the make. According to scriptwriter Elizabeth Denny, a Métis based in Winnipeg, the casino setting leads naturally to the audience-pleasing themes of “power, money and sex.” The series’ Manitoba-based producers, Animiki See Digital Productions and Buffalo Gal Pictures, are betting that Cashing In has crossover potential. The six-part series airs Tuesday nights on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network and on Wednesdays on Showcase.And:The show itself is a bit of a gamble. It needs to deliver prime-time glamour on a bargain budget. And, like a lot of First Nations entertainment heading toward the big time, it’s tackling the tough issue of how to cash in without selling out.

“We’re usually looking at the downside” of aboriginal life, Denny acknowledges, speaking of the show’s staff of six aboriginal writers. “And we kind of started off in that direction, because our tendency is to want to educate the world about First Nations struggles.”

APTN, which launched in 1992 as the world’s first aboriginal network, deemed the writing team’s first scenario too dark and realistic. The next draft was outsized and over-the-top, though glints of comedy keep cutting through the soap-opera conventions.

Cashing In covers big ideas like land and money, community and identity. For instance, tycoon Matthew Tommy (Eric Schweig of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee) looks for success with his global casino corporation, Thundercloud International. Meanwhile, Johnny Eagle (Elijah’s Glen Gould), a laconic straight shooter who refers to the casino as “that bordello,” believes success means sticking to your rez roots.

Denny explains: “The issues are still there, but they’re dealt with in a different way—much more upbeat and sexy.”And:“A huge part of the aboriginal population is under 30 years old,” Strutt points out. “They want to see themselves on TV.”

Strutt also believes audiences will respond to the show’s representation of aboriginal characters who are affluent and powerful. “I definitely think this show is depicting a side of our reality—that there are successful aboriginal people owning vineyards and banks and casinos,” Strutt says. “Not a lot of content has been produced on that.”

The Jamaican-born, Toronto-raised Holness, who has previously appeared on Smallville and jPod, sees parallels with The Cosby Show, one of the first prime-time sitcoms to depict upper-middle-class African-American professionals. Holness watched the show growing up in the 1980s and still remembers its impact: “Finally, there was visual confirmation of the fact that we could succeed, we were succeeding.”Comment:  The approach of not dwelling on the pain and suffering in Indian country is a valid one. Most people don't want to visit this kind of world too often.

I did something similar in my PEACE PARTY comics. There were references to Indian culture and history, to the pain and suffering Indians have experienced. But the actual story was about two well-adjusted young Indians in an action/adventure thrill ride.

I don't know for sure, but showing successful Aboriginal people a la The Cosby Show may be the way to go. Bring the viewers in first with characters they can identify with. Once they're committed, then you can show them some of the darker side.

Nothing original about casinos

Of course, casinos and their corrupting influence is the newest Native stereotype. If a Native movie or TV show isn't about some historic event or supernatural horror, it's usually about a casino. Cashing In gets no points for showing Indians in a casino setting again.

Cashing In makes a movie such as Christmas in the Clouds look even more original. In Christmas, the well-adjusted, middle-class Indians of a Western tribe run a ski lodge. Other than a brief look at the tribe's downscale bingo hall, there's no mention of gaming.

A truly innovative approach would be to do a TV series based on Christmas. Or on another Native-run enterprise that doesn't revolve around gaming. For instance, a Native law office...a bank...or a basketball team.

"Sexy" time on TV

All this discussion presupposes that Cashing In is worth watching. The "sexy soap" label isn't exactly inspiring. There are huge differences between, say, Rich Man, Poor Man, Dynasty, Melrose Place, As the World Turns, and All My Children. These shows range from art to artsy trash to just plain trash.

On prime-time TV today, you have well-done soap operas such as Ugly Betty and Gossip Girl and others that aren't worth watching. Let's hope Cashing In is more like the best of these shows and not like the worst.

For an actual review of the series, see No Payoff in Cashing In. For more on the subject, see TV Shows Featuring Indians.

Below:  "Sarah Podemski, left, and Kyle Nobess in a scene from Cashing In, the sexy new casino drama on the Aboriginal People's Television Network." (APTN)

Cashing In on Canadian TV

Network begins production of original seriesCanwest, in partnership with Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN), has begun production in Winnipeg, Manitoba on the new Original series ‘Cashing In,’ starring Eric Schweig (The Last of the Mohicans, Tom and Huck, The Missing) among several other Canadian talent and directed by Norma Bailey.

Scheduled to debut on APTN and Showcase in Spring 2009, ‘Cashing In’ is a 6 x 30 minute dramatic comedy about casino life on a fictional Aboriginal reserve in southern Manitoba. Card sharks, fast dealers, high rollers and an eclectic crew of local characters make up the scene at North Beach Casino, a successful gaming palace recently purchased by Matthew Tommy. Embarking on his mission to make it North America’s no. 1 First Nation Casino, Matthew quickly finds out some members of the community have other ideas.Comment:  I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, a TV show starring Indians is always a good idea. I doubt we'll ever reach the point where we have too many of them.

On the other hand, it seems as though half the TV shows (and movies, and books, and comic books, etc.) about modern-day Indians revolve around casinos. If there can't be too many Indian stories, there can be too many casino stories. If we haven't reached that point yet, we're getting close.

Moreover, the hints in this notice aren't promising. For one thing, individual Indians can't buy Indian casinos. Casinos are owned by tribes and run as government enterprises (like state lotteries). For another, the first three groups of people mentioned--"card sharks, fast dealers, high rollers"--sound like negative stereotypes. You can bet that crime and corruption will play a prominent role in this series.