This article was originally published as part of Xenite.Org’s Mizuo Peck feature section. Under our new site design it is being offered as a separate feature article. We also have a brief Sacagawea article.
Tara Beagan presents a Native American Perspective
Tara Beagan is a Canadian playwrite and actress of mixed Native American (Thompson River Salish) and Irish descent. She found our Mizuo Peck Web site and wrote to share her concerns with us about a comment comparing the casting of British Actor Steve Coogan in the role of Octavius with the casting of Mizuo Peck in the role of Sacagawea. With Tara’s permission, we reprint her message here.
Regarding Mizuo Peck in Night at the Museum:
Whomever it was that listed the comment comparing the casting of Steve Coogan in the role of Octavius Caesar to the casting of Mizuo Peck as Sacajawea clearly has little understanding of the complex nature of First Nations relations and politics in North America.
Firstly, North America was originally inhabited by the people Sacajawea shared blood with. This same land has since been commandeered by European conquistadors, genocidal “pioneers” and generally racially intolerant tyrannical dictators who go forth in their conquest under the name of… you choose. Capitalism? Religious conversion– the spread of Christianity? Social PROGRESS? Whatever it was, it is a part of our shared past, just as films are a part of our shared present.
We are responsible for our storytelling, whatever form it takes. Film is a powerful medium. The disappointment in the Native American community is an honest reaction to the ongoing pattern of dismissal of our people by the dominant culture. Mizuo Peck is a stunning woman who gave a fine performance. By casting her, the masters of Hollywood continue to perpetuate the stereotypical Indian Princess.
This would have been an unacceptable stereotype in any of the other existing cultures represented in the film. Suppose Ben Stiller had embodied the stereotypes that so many lazy, uninformed people assign to Jews? I will allow you to imagine how that might have gone down, and how ugly and inappropriate that would clearly be. Suppose the film had adhered to REAL history and shown Columbus declaring that Sacajawea was “human in form only”– as he opined in his writings with regularity. Suppose he had broken into the Mayan exhibit and plundered their riches? THAT is true history.
Hollywood is Hollywood. We all know it is glossed and shined and white-washed (pun intended). What we have the capability of doing today is to cast actors representative of character. A First Nations actor by the name of Tamara Podemski won the Sundance Jury prize for acting this year– I sincerely doubt she was seen for the role.
I ask you to reword your remark comparing the casting of a Native American role to the casting of an Italian role. We are on soil that was unlawfully taken from Native Americans by Italians AND British, so really the casting of the talented Steve Coogan is not out of line. His ancestors, like the line of the Caesars, are conquerors of a less warring people.
Look to the film: the role played by Carla Gugino. She revered and respected Sacajawea but could not fully complete her dissertation because the history of North America’s first people was largely eradicated before it was shared and preserved. We work, to this day, to remedy that very effect of colonization. Please extend the First Nations people of North America the courtesy of acknowledging this struggle by eliminating your site of the thoughtless comment about casting.
Out of respect for your nation, for the memory of Sacajewea and for the neutrality that ought to be accorded Ms. Peck, consider my plea. This is no slight against Ms. Peck- she is an emerging actor and likely did not feel compelled to make the political stand of refusing the role. Perhaps her priorities lie elsewhere- she may feel differently now.
You are a source of information. Hold yourself accountable as others are.
Many Thanks for your time.
Yours in fierce hope,
Tara Beagan
Michael’s reply to Tara
At Tara’s suggestion, we reprint Michael’s reply here. Two points (not previously shown to Tara) are appended at the end to clarify Michael’s historical references.
There are many points of view and I respect yours. I assure you a great deal of thought went into my comparison, and it reflects my own mixed ethnic heritage. My ancestors on both sides of my family (Spanish and Dutch-Irish) were themselves subject to invasion, conquest, and dispossession. Today I live in a country where millions of people casually speak of putting 12 million Hispanics on trains and shipping them back across the border.
But your passionate expression has not fallen on deaf ears. Though I will not edit my comment, I’ll be glad to repost your remarks — or any formal statement you care to make in their place — on the site in a clearly visible way, so that people have an opportunity to read your concerns.
I’ve done as much before, when Charles Edward Pogue complained about my review of a movie for which he had written the original screenplay.
Is this you? Tara’s biography on the Unspun Theatre Web site.
I’ll be glad to provide a link to that site or any site you wish, along with your comments.
In mentioning the Spanish and Dutch-Irish, Michael was thinking of how those peoples were originally displaced from their own lands in Europe. Of course, here in the Americas the Irish were subjected to much persecution and prejudice, as are Hispanic people of Latin American descent today. But the Spanish did colonize the Americas as invaders and conquerors.