Robert Flaherty’s “Nanook of the North”

While reading these different authors and approaches to documentary filmmaking I found it very interesting how they discussed filmmakers’ and anthropologists’ work in contrasting ways. The discussion of Robert Flaherty’s work and in particular his film Nanook of the North was conflicting because his work was described as problematic by Broderick Fox and seemingly praised by Emilie De Brigard, Ilisa Barbash, and Lucien Taylor.

Even though the film was very much staged with Nanook (not his actual name) having a “family” created for the camera and engaging in practices that they no longer participated in (hunting without a gun) that may have caused physical harm, De Brigard admires his work as an artist while acknowledging there is some controversy. De Brigard writes, “Iris Barry’s attack on the authenticity of Nanook can never be well answered, since Flaherty, always the raconteur, did not leave a systematic record of its making…Flaherty’s gift was not that of a reporter or recorder, but rather that of a revealer” (22-23). De Brigard notes the fabricated aspect of the film, but praises Flaherty’s artistic style as a filmmaker.

One of the most problematic aspects of the film was Flaherty’s desire to have Nanook and others hunt in traditional ways despite the fact they no longer engaged in these practices. Broderick Fox notes, “Barnouw recounts a passage from Flaherty’s diary in which the filmmaker describes wanting to film a walrus hunt as it was done before contact with explorers introduced firearms. Nanook and his fellows agreed to hunt with harpoons for the sake of the camera and were dragged and thrown about by a harpooned walrus” (22). This act of hunting was only performed by the camera and staged by the filmmaker putting them in harm’s way. This entry from his diary is telling, “Flaherty wrote, ‘I filmed and filmed and filmed-The men-calling me to end the struggle by rifle-so fearful were they about being pulled into the sea.’ Flaherty admitted to have kept on filming, pretending he had not understood their pleas” (22). While Fox highlights this diary entry to shed light on Flaherty’s to cast doubt on approach in an ethical standpoint, Barbash and Taylor praise his methods of keeping the camera rolling as a crucial aspect of his style and discuss these scenes in a very contrasting way. “There is, for instance, a long and hilarious sequence of a seal hunt. Whereas other filmmakers might have cut between short close-up shots of various details of the hunt, Flaherty keeps the camera rolling and shows us Nanook, the ice hole, and eventually the seal, all in the same frame” (23). Flaherty’s choice to not intervene is simultaneously seen as indicative of an artistic style, but problematizes the relationship between filmmaker and subjects of the film when there is a great deal of risk.

Broderick Fox may have been the most critical of Flaherty’s practices while filming Nanook of the North, but still noted the influence it had in the world of film. Fox also critiqued the Flaherty’s creation of unequal power distribution and the positive reception of the film being at fault for the perpetuation of these disproportionate levels of power between the filmmakers and subjects. “The success of Nanook catalyzed a character-based, narrative approach to reality, but it also spawned a genre of films about native cultures and their ways that evolved into a problematic tradition of ethnographic film with distorted power dynamics between investigators and their subjects” (22). Barbash and Taylor disagree with this notion of disparity in control or influence of the film between Flaherty and Nanook even noting, “perhaps Nanook should have shared credit as filmmaker” (26). Fox’s framing of the power dynamic is challenged by Barbash and Taylor who note the influence Nanook had on the filmmaking process.“Nanook is still considered a seminal film in both ethnographic and documentary film traditions. In part this is because Flaherty showed more interest in the lives of indigenous people than any Western documentary filmmaker before him, and he collaborated with them to a degree that would still do many filmmakers credit today” (26). These takes on the relationship between Nanook and Flaherty and irreconcilable as Fox sees inequality while Barbash and Fox are commending the level of agency Nanook has, but both would agree this relationship as well as the film itself has effects on the filmmaking process today.

These readings were at times antithetical leading me to question how such opposing views can be formed. Although many of these arguments cannot be approached by viewing the film because they are about the filmmaking process and are not shown, I looked at some of these highly discussed scenes in order to better frame my opinion. Watching the struggle that ensues in the walrus hunt is difficult knowing the fear these men had. It is a struggle to view this as a documentary or visual anthropology piece knowing that this is not Nanook’s family, Nanook is also in many ways a fictional character, and the actions being performed are, just that, a performance. It is disturbing that Barbash and Taylor noted that even today filmmakers give credit to the methods used by Flaherty even in light of the ethical concerns they raise. I do not believe it is possible to separate the problematic methodology utilized in making the film in order to commend the work without regard to the consequences in the lives of the subjects of the film.

Shaming Young Motherhood and Sexuality

The video highlights the ways in which public service announcements aimed at reducing the rate of teenage pregnancy are merely an extension of abstinence only models that often resort to shaming young women and mothers rather than being informative. They overlook the lack of resources, problems in sex education, and the role of poverty by placing blame on almost exclusively teenage girls and young women for the problems young parents face in society.

I presented several examples to represent each of the four major categories these PSAs often fall into. The categories are:
I. Reliance on abstinence only model
II. Shaming Pregnant Girls and Young Women
III. Blaming Single Mothers
IV. Devaluing Parenthood

In Haraway’s “Persistence of Vision” she argues against the empirical or objective ways of understanding knowledge and calls for situated knowledge. She writes,“I am arguing for politics and epistemologies of location, positioning, and situating, where partiality and not universality is the condition of being heard to make rational knowledge claims” (361). In this vein the PSAs that are being created by teenage parents like those shown at the end of the video are an expression of situated knowledge.

The reliance on methods of shaming as a means of overlooking larger societal issues and oppression as seen by the rhetoric in these ads used to blame young women and girls was also seen in Nicholas Mirzoeff’s “The Sea and the Land: Biopower and Visuality From Slavery to Katrina”. He discusses the aftermath of hurricane Katrina and the blame placed on African Americans for their perilous conditions because they were unable to vacate their homes before the storm hit. Even though the “toxic” conditions were in part caused by the actions or inactions of oil companies, they were not shamed in the coverage of the aftermath. “The spills (oil spills polluting the water when Katrina hit) resulted from the failure of the oil companies to withdraw their tankers efficiently despite the long-range forecasting of the storm. Nonetheless, it was the impoverished mostly African American urban population who were castigated for failing to evacuate, not the all but invisible refining companies” (145). Residents of poverty stricken communities were shamed by the media rather than the companies that worsened their circumstances in a very similar way to teen parents being shamed for failing to continue their education, get married, and establish financial stability before having children despite the barriers to accessibility for these ideals.

Cultural Symbols Derived from the Oppressor

 

The picture above is the book cover of a children’s book discussing Harriet Tubman’s journey in a religious narrative that equates her to Moses with God guiding her and speaking to her to free her people. Creating Harriet Tubman as a Christian symbol is not limited to contemporary views; Tubman was described as Moses by William Lloyd Garrison and other abolitionists of the time.

Christianity was the religion of slave masters often used as a means to justify the system of slavery as God’s will for slaves to obey their masters. Slaves and abolitionists often used symbols derived from Christianity to challenge the justifications for slavery. Through the identification of Harriet Tubman with Moses a new symbol for empowerment was created. Adopting aspects of the master’s beliefs into their own culture as slaves is similar to the way in which Africans took attributes and images from the colonizers in creating images of Mami Wata.

In Henry John Drewal’s “Forever Modern: Mami Wata Visual Culture and History in Africa”, he is able to describe how the deity Mami Wata came to be depicted in a manner that is a translation of European images. The images of the European mermaid were transformed into depictions of water spirits. Although the image was derived from the colonizer, it was reinterpreted to depict a powerful symbol for Africans. “As their familiarity with European mermaid lore increased, Africans interpreted, adapted, and transformed the image of a European mermaid into a representation of an African deity-Mami Wata- evolving elaborate systems of belief and sacred visual and performance arts in the process” (Drewal 387). The adoption and transformation of cultural symbols from the oppressor by the oppressed has been seen in many forms through Mami Wata in African culture and the rendering of Harriet Tubman as Moses within the diaspora.

Digital Humanities as an Empowering Space

The digital humanities seeks to dismantle the “ivory tower” view of academia by disseminating knowledge through an open collaborative space that challenges the concept of authorship prevalent in scholarship.

 

Through this method the field of digital humanities seeks to challenge the way in which theory and practice are often viewed as separate entities by understanding how they must work together. Builders and Interpreters both seek to change the way in which we view the world.

Debates in the Digital Humanities (Ramsey and Rockwell:Things are Theories)

            In “Developing Things: Notes toward an Epistemology of Building in the Digital Humanities”, Stephen Ramsey and Geoffrey Rockwell argue that “digital artifacts”, meaning the digital tools created, can stand alone as theories and be respected as scholarship.  Throughout the readings there is often a theme of the concept of building as opposed to theorizing with many arguing that both of these vital components are necessary within academia. Ramsey and Rockwell are arguing that the tools used or built should not be looked at as innately separate from theory because they themselves are theories which provide us with a, “deeper understanding of something already given” (77).

Ramsey and Rockwell frame their argument by producing evidence on how “things” can be understood as theory by drawing on an instrumental view supported by John Dewey. They go on to state the common understandings of what scholarship is must be challenged because it is often narrowly defined leading some forms of knowledge to be privileged over others. It is the job of scholars to question the privilege given to the discursive to understand the scholarship that can be and is communicated through these “artifacts”.

This essay is expanding on the debate within the digital humanities by not stating that creation is the most vital component of being a digital humanities scholar, but taking part in the making process is as scholarly as analyzing the effects of these tools. The role of theory is to give an explanation under this rubric digital tools are theories because of their ability to “show us the world differently” (79).Digital humanities are able to challenge preconceived notions of what ultimately constitutes scholarship and as Ramsey and Rockwell argue that should be the role they take on.